“You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?”

“No, sir. This is the West, sir. When legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Dialogue from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

Imagine a man whose entire public career is predicated upon a simple yet colossal fraud.

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” may be the last great, elegiac Western directed by John Ford. Although he continued working sporadically afterwards, none of Ford’s later projects seemed to measure up to this unique minor masterpiece. Ford was a prolific American filmmaker whose career dated back to the Silent Era. Ford was, in fact, a protégé of D. W. Griffith, the father of feature length motion picture epics, and he actually worked for Griffith on “The Birth of a Nation.”

Ford, who changed his last name from Feeney, was born in Maine, where his Irish immigrant father was a saloonkeeper and a minor ward politician. While Ford is remembered today primarily for his Western films, he actually directed films in a variety of genres. One of his fondly remembered features was the screen adaptation of “The Last Hurrah.“ Frank Skeffington (played by Spencer Tracy), the protagonist in Edwin O’Connor’s roman clef novel, was a thinly disguised caricature of Boston Mayor James Michael Curley. In “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Ford worked from a script that combined elements from a frontier Western with a cynical examination of politics and the power of the press.

Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) is a successful career politician who has held a series of offices, including service as a territorial delegate, a member of Congress, an ambassador, a Vice Presidential candidate and a US Senator. In returning to his adopted hometown to attend a funeral, the elder statesman relates to a local newspaper editor how he first arrived in the West as a struggling lawyer. In a lengthy flashback, he describes how his subsequent success was predicated upon a case of mistaken identity. His fellow townspeople believed Stoddard to have been responsible for slaying a notorious criminal, Liberty Valance, played in the motion picture with sadistic malevolence by Lee Marvin. In reality, another man, a rancher played by John Wayne, shot the despicable outlaw. Forever afterwards, however, Stoddard is acclaimed throughout the rural state as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

Several months ago, I wrote an article that raised questions related to Barack Obama’s celebrated autobiography, “Dreams from My Father.” I found portions of the book to be preposterous and difficult to accept as truthful. I thought some episodes in the book were completely fabricated. Other events were conflated. To be fair, it was not a particularly original article. Many other columnists found fault with the book and serious questions were raised as to the authenticity of Obama’s literary skills.

It was suggested in many quarters that Bill Ayers was the actual author of the book rather than Obama. Jack Cashill wrote a series of online articles which compared and contrasted paragraphs in Obama’s bestseller with similar passages found in books written by Ayers. Subsequent denials by Ayers did nothing to dispel the credible rumors concerning the origins of the book. The duplicitous Ayers has steadfastly denied collaborating with Obama on the book. Obama, himself, dismissed the extent of his association with Ayres, a former domestic terrorist, who he described simply as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”

The newly published “Barack and Michelle: A Portrait of an American Marriage” by Christopher Andersen adds more fuel to the fire. After interviewing close to two hundred persons, Andersen states that Obama had lost one publishing contract for his long delayed autobiography and he struggled to meet a second publisher’s deadline when he hurriedly turned over his work materials to Ayers. Obama had already spent close to half of his initial advance and he did not have anything resembling a final manuscript. Michelle Obama reportedly recommended that Ayers be called upon to collaborate with her husband on the book. The finished text suggests that Obama did little or no actual writing. The form and content of the book is unlike any other of the writings that Obama has made public.

Although “Dreams of From My Father” sold poorly upon its initial release, royalties from the autobiography skyrocketed when it was reissued after Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The profits from the autobiography and a second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” made Obama a wealthy man. Subsequently, Obama assumed the pose of an academic and an intellectual en route to securing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

Suspiciously, Obama’s student records and scholarly writings from Occidental, Columbia and Harvard have been scrupulously guarded and withheld from researchers and the public. In light of recent revelations, one wonders if Obama was not acting out of motives related to personal modesty or privacy concerns. It seems as if his handlers were seeking to safeguard their candidate from being exposed as a phony. One wonders if Ayers and members of his radical cadre were not delighted to assist in launching a “Manchurian Candidate” upon a gullible and naïve American electorate.

It is hardly surprising that the truth has finally become public. Obama is not the first politician to profit from a successful book while relying upon the help of others to produce his manuscripts. Some politicians have had the honesty to list their co-authors or published books with the descriptive “as told to” appellation, but Obama seems to have largely faked it from start to finish.

Other politicians have employed ghostwriters, most notably John F. Kennedy. “Why England Slept,” adapted from Kennedy’s Harvard thesis, and “Profiles in Courage” come immediately to mind. Kennedy’s ambitious father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., stage managed much of his son’s career, including negotiating  with James Michael Curley to vacate a safe Democratic congressional seat, so Jack could enter the House of Representatives. JFK encountered some local opposition in the form of a primary challenge, but ultimately won the position. The quid pro quo was that Curley’s final successful mayoral campaign was financed with Kennedy dollars.

Unlike Ransom Stoddard, who was swept into political prominence partly over his own objections as the result of an almost spontaneous demonstration at a territorial convention, much to the dismay of his political opponents led by a noted orator, Major Cassius Starbuckle (John Carradine), Obama has no one to blame, but himself. Obama plotted to advance his career while Stoddard was more the beneficiary of outrageous fortune.

Obama is a calculating and scheming opportunist, as his past political history has demonstrated from the time of his first election to the Illinois State Senate. Like many of David Axelrod’s political clients, he has shown willingness to bend the truth and lie whenever it is expedient to do so. Somehow, I doubt he will be greatly embarrassed by the latest expose. He has no sense of shame. Like Kennedy, Obama can depend upon an adoring media to bury his misdeeds for as long as possible.

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Daniel J. Kelley is a regular contributor to “The Chicago Daily Chicago Observer.”