The Book Obama does not want you to read

Ed Morrissey writes

I discovered why the Barack Obama campaign fears this book. Last week they staged what can only be described as a mob action intended to silence Freddoso, the same as they did with Stanley Kurtz, who hadn’t even yet written about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers he fought to open. It’s not that Freddoso has written an “extremist” or “hate”-filled book, as their hyperbolic message to their mindless thugs accused. Instead, Freddoso has written a reasonable, rational look at Obama’s record and has concluded that he is the first reformer to have never actually reformed anything, or even attempted it.

Barack Obama never rocked the boat. He became Daley’s Senator at both the state and federal levels, and Obama returned the favor by endorsing Daley in 2007 — despite the years-long federal investigation into his famously-corrupt administration.

The Economist approvingly reviews Freddoso’s book and comes to the same conclusion:

If Mr Obama really were the miracle-working, aisle-jumping, consensus-seeking new breed of politician his spin-doctors make him out to be, you would expect to see the evidence in these eight years. But there isn’t very much. Instead, as Mr Freddoso rather depressingly finds, Mr Obama spent the whole period without any visible sign of rocking the Democratic boat.

He was a staunch backer of Richard Daley, who as mayor failed to stem the corruption that has made Chicago one of America’s most notorious cities. Nor did he lift a finger against John Stroger and his son Todd, who succeeded his father as president of Cook County’s Board of Commissioners shortly before Stroger senior died last January. Cook County, where Chicago is located, has been extensively criticised for corrupt practices by a federally appointed judge, Julia Nowicki.

Why the hysterical reaction to Freddoso (which failed, as an aside, because his interview with Milt Rosenberg had been pre-taped)? Why doesn’t Team Obama reserve their thuggery for Jerome Corsi instead? Precisely because Corsi’s book has little credibility — his embrace of 9/11 Trutherism undoubtedly helped ensure that. Freddoso, on the other hand, is much more dangerous, because he has written the truth, and documented it well.

Ed Morrissey’s full review on The Case Against Barack Obama