A Book We Should Read: "The Case Against Barack Obama"

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with David Freddoso, Author of 'The Case Against Barack Obama' for Human Events.
08/04/2008

Michelle Oddis: Dave, you’re a reporter, not a columnist. You’ve worked very hard to dig into the Obama story. You've said that you started reporting on Barack Obama in 2004. After all this research, what do you think is the most important thing people should know about Sen. Obama?

David Freddoso: The main lesson is that Barack Obama’s record, throughout his career, demonstrates conclusively that he has never been a reformer, that this image of “change and hope” that he projects is really a great lie. In fact there’s never been a single time in Senator Obama’s political career where he did something that was difficult and would cost him politically for the sake of needed reforms and change.

You can’t buy into this idea of politicians as heroes. What exactly has Sen. Obama done that would support this argument as an “agent of positive change?”If you actually look at Obama’s record the incongruity is actually more obvious because he doesn’t have a record of being a reformer. Reformers don’t vote for the bridge to nowhere and they don’t vote for ethanol and they don’t vote for the farm bill… they don’t consistently support corrupt systemic arrangements in every public office they’ve ever held.

As I was writing this, there were several things I came to know about Sen. Obama that I figured just about everybody else did. One of them was the fact that he first won election to the state in Illinois by getting all of his opponents, including his sitting state senator, thrown off the ballot. And I thought everyone knew this! And as I spoke to more and more very experienced Washington people I discovered practically nobody has heard this even though it’s been in many newspapers."

Another excerpt:

Michelle Oddis: Why do you think the mainstream media hasn’t reported on these stories of Obama’s career in Chicago? Your book references many stories from the Chicago Sun-Times. Why does the national media ignore it?

David Freddoso: Well, unfortunately, I think the national media -- which resides largely in New York and Washington and perhaps out West in Los Angeles -- doesn’t look at or read the Chicago papers nearly as much as they should. Part of the problem is that Chicago’s politics are so dirty that it’s almost hard to believe it’s true. Who would think that a guy who was convicted of stealing $4 million in quarters from Chicago area toll booths would then be given a city job with responsibilities where he could shake down city contractors for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and campaign contributions?

Read the entire interview at Human Events, then make time to read this book.