This criticism of Barack Obama’s latest memoirs wins facepalm of the week

John Plunkett. Updated November 24th, 2020

The latest in an occasional series, facepalm of the week goes to rightwing political commentator Dinesh D’Souza who had this to say about Barak Obama’s new memoirs, Promised Land, about his childhood and first term in the White House.

It was shared on Reddit by TheAstrogoth whose curiosity was so piqued they did this, and it just gets better.

Dinesh is obviously ridiculous, but I thought it would be fun to compare the occurrence of first person pronouns in Obama’s new memoir with Ronald Reagan’s 1990 autobiography.

I used countwordsfree.com to get word totals.

Barack Obama, A Promised Land (2020):

Total occurrences – 8795:

“I” – 4634
“I’m” – 73
“I’d” – 565
“I’ve” – 37
“I’ll” – 21
“me” – 1143
“my” – 2322

Total words in book – 309431

Percentage – 2.84%

Ronald Reagan, An American Life (1990):

Total occurrences – 10487:

“I” – 6027
“I’m” – 140
“I’d” – 499
“I’ve” – 104
“I’ll” – 70
“me” – 1995
“my” – 1662

Total words in book – 265703

Percentage – 3.95%

It turns out conservative icon Reagan used more first-person pronouns in a shorter book. Huh.

Adding The Art of the Deal, even though it’s a different kind of book and ghostwritten.

Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (1987):

Total occurrences – 4019:

“I” – 2418
“I’m” – 143
“I’d” – 211
“I’ve” – 75
“I’ll” – 4
“me” – 407
“my” – 761

Total words in book – 96860

Percentage – 4.15%

Uh oh…

Source Reddit u/TheAstrogoth