THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA

Reviewed 11/03/2008

The Case Against Barack Obama, by David Freddoso

Access to this book courtesy of the

THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate David Freddoso Washington, DC: Regnery, 2008				Rating: 3.5 Fair
ISBN-13 978-1-59698-56-7
ISBN-10 1-59698-56-6	290pp.	HC	$27.95

I was suspicious of this book going in, because a) it's from conservative publisher Regnery and b) its author is a political reporter for the on-line edition of the conservative journal National Review (and a veteran of other right-wing outlets like Human Events.)

However, David Freddoso has done his research carefully: He's read both of Barack Obama's books, examined his voting record in both the Illinois Senate and the U.S. Senate, studied many of his speeches, and scrutinized his associates. He presents that research honestly, for the most part. I judge his motive for writing the book to be honorable. He expresses that motive as follows:

Too many of those criticizing Obama have been content merely to slander him—to claim falsely that he refuses to salute the U.S. flag or was sworn into office on a Koran, or that he was really born in a foreign country. Such spurious criticisms have given rise to an intellectual laziness among the very people who should be carefully scrutinizing Obama.

That is why this book needed to be written.

– Page x

That Other Book

On recent visits a week apart to Books, Inc. in Mountain View, CA, I was unable to find a copy of this book, although the store's inventory system said they had two. I looked. The staff looked. None turned up. The clerk said that certain patrons try to hide books critical of Barack Obama. I averred that it seemed more likely books critical of McCain would suffer this treatment. But the clerk replied that, in Mountain View, it's criticism of Obama that bothers people. After reflection, I had to agree.

There is another book that denigrates Obama: Jerome Corsi's The Obama Nation. On both my visits, I saw multiple copies of Corsi's book on the stands. This suggests that while fans of Obama were concerned enough about Freddoso's book to hide it, they were not troubled by the work of Jerome Corsi. I think that's a good thing; for it is widely recognized that Corsi's latest — like his previous book about John Kerry — is smear instead of scholarship.

In other words, Freddoso's intent is not to tear down Obama's reputation, but rather to puncture the illusions held by many people that the Democratic candidate is some kind of millennial figure, even a political savior. I also conclude that he largely succeeds in this effort. His book will confirm the suspicions that Obama has gone along with Chicago Machine politics, has voted in ways that belie his campaign promises, and has had some troubling associates. And yet, Freddoso is not entirely convincing, because of what he leaves out. I discuss this more fully in the page linked below, but here are a few examples.

In Chapter 1, Freddoso describes how Ronald Davis and his team, acting on behalf of Obama, disqualify enough signatures on incumbent state Senator Alice Palmer's petition to keep her off the ballot. But he glosses over the question of whether these signatures were invalid.1
Freddoso in Chapter 5 makes a good case that, while in Chicago, Obama was more talk than action on education. But when he criticizes Obama for saying that funding shortages caused short school days, he neglects the fact (which he later discloses) that the Chicago Teachers' Union forced the short days into their contract.
On page 119, Freddoso writes of Obama that "As a liberal, he supports higher taxes, not lower ones. He voted to preserve Illinois' death tax." It's a distortion to say that Obama always chooses to raise taxes. As for the inheritance tax, it is far less of a burden that Republicans claim, and the fact that Freddoso refers to it using their loaded term "death tax" shows that he buys into the right-wing cant.

Most of Freddoso's facts are solid, many of his points are valid; but he sometimes dismisses the complexities of the issues. His book is well-researched, thoroughly end-noted, competently indexed, and it provides a useful timeline of Obama's career. In short, this is a book worth reading (even after the election), but it is far from the whole story on Obama. I'll give it a "fair" rating of 3.5 because, while Freddoso repeats a number of right-wing slurs against Obama, and gets some facts wrong, he's generally accurate and honest, and that puts his work far above that other book.

1 On page 129, Freddoso reports that Alice Palmer later took Obama to Bill Ayers's fund-raiser. She would hardly do that if she felt Obama had cheated her of a chance to run for office.

Details of Freddoso's case

Errata for The Case Against Barack Obama