The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate, by author David Freddoso, is an American non-fiction book published in late 2008, providing a critical examination of the life and opinions of the then United States presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama.
Freddoso said in an August 2008 interview that the book is an attempt to address what he sees as two wrong ways of considering Obama as a presidential candidate. The author wanted to counter those, including those in the news media, who look on Obama uncritically, and to do so in a way different from those who "are smearing him on the Internet for supposedly being a secret Muslim or supposedly not saluting the flag".[1] The book harshly criticizes Obama over policy matters, according to Ben Smith, a writer at The Politico. For the most part, the book is drawn from published sources, although Freddoso does some original reporting.[2]
The first press run of the book was nearly 300,000 copies,[3] and it appeared on the August 24, 2008 New York Times Bestseller List for hardcover nonfiction at No. 5.[4] Publicity for the book is handled by the conservative public relations firm Creative Response Concepts.[5]
The book was released within weeks of two other books critical of Obama written by conservative writers: Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, and Dick Morris’ Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It.
Content
Obama's political positions are reviewed in the book. "If you’re a liberal, reading the following might make you support Obama even more," Freddoso states at one point in the book. "But if you’re honest, I think you’ll agree he’s no centrist."[2]
Part of the book focuses on Obama's having made accommodations with the Cook County Democratic Party, despite Obama's start in politics as a candidate appealing to reform-minded voters in the Hyde Park neighborhood of the city.[2]
The book dwells at length on Obama's opposition to an Illinois bill that sought to protect infants “born alive,” but whose critics said it could have fundamentally undermined the right to abortion. A similar bill passed the United States Congress only after an explicit commitment to Roe v. Wade was added, which Freddoso dismisses as trivial, but which abortion rights advocates saw as crucial.[2]
Response
Barack Obama presidential campaign
A spokesman for Barack Obama's presidential campaign said the book, along with Jerome Corsi's biography, distorts the story of the candidate's life and his record. "These books are cut from the same cloth, made up of the same old debunked smears that have been floating around the Internet for months," said spokesman Tommy Vietor.[6]
On September 15, 2008, the Obama campaign mobilized its “Obama Action Wire” sending an email out to Obama supporters urging them to complain to WGN Radio in Chicago after host Milt Rosenberg invited Freddoso on his show to discuss his book.[7]
Reviews
Ben Smith, a writer at The Politico, called the book the "first serious negative biography of Senator Barack Obama". The book's official release date was August 4, 2008. According to Smith, the book "occupies a small island in the often-shrill sea of criticism of Obama [...] Freddoso opts largely for a fact-based critique, and writes that the viral and overt smears have allowed Obama to evade substantive criticism." Smith wrote that the book "rehashes familiar complaints, though in more detail — and often with more nuance, if not much sympathy — than you’re likely to see in the conservative media."[2]
Jim Geraghty, a writer for National Review and National Review Online, wrote in his review of the book that "Freddoso hones in on one aspect of the Obama message, the idea that Obama is a reformer, and obliterates it in the manner of a professional demolitions crew." Geraghty also compared the book to Jerome Corsi's The Obama Nation. "If Obama falls short of his presidential aspiration, his supporters will be quick to attribute it to 'false smears' in Corsi’s book," Geraghty predicted. "But any Obama defeat is more likely to be a result of the hard truths in Freddoso’s." Geraghty notes that David Freddoso thanks him in the book's acknowledgments section.[8]
Alleged inaccuracies
According to an Associated Press report, Freddoso's book "sometimes includes inaccurate or incomplete information" to back the argument that Obama's record should be opposed by conservatives and moderates.[9] The report states that "Freddoso accuses Obama of voting to raise taxes on anyone with taxable income of more than $32,500."[9] The nonpartisan watchdog group Factcheck.org (itself funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation),[10] notes that provision was part of a nonbinding budget resolution that had no actual impact on tax levels, and that Obama's tax proposals do not include any such increase."[6] According to Factcheck.org: "...Obama's March 2008 vote for a non-binding budget resolution that would have set general revenue and spending targets for congressional tax-writing and appropriations committees. The resolution does not contain a specific provision to raise tax rates, but rather assumes that most of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2011. It also bears no relation to Obama's proposed economic plan" and also "In particular, the (budget) resolution would allow the 25 percent tax bracket to return to its pre-2001 level of 28 percent. That bracket kicks in at $32,550 for an individual or $65,100 for a married couple."[11]
Writing, publishing and publicizing the book
Freddoso took a leave from his job with National Review Online to write the book. The author had been a writer for Human Events and a political reporter for Robert Novak's Evans-Novak Political Report.[5]
Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry is a 2004 book about then U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi published by Regnery Publishing. The book was released at the time that ads by Swift Vets and POWs for Truth were being aired on U.S. television.
FactCheck.org is a nonprofit website that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics by providing original research on misinformation and hoaxes. It is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and is funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation.
The term swiftboating is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), the organization responsible for a widely publicized—and later discredited—political smear campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry. Since the 2004 election, the term has been commonly applied to a political attack that is dishonest, personal, and unfair.
The Truth (With Jokes) is an American book of political satire and humor by Al Franken, released in October 2005. The book's main focus is on the 2004 presidential election and Franken's research into the Republicans' strategy in their victory—as well as examples of subsequent political overreach which he predicts will be their downfall. Finally, he makes some predictions.
Aaron Klein is an American-Israeli conservative political commentator, journalist, strategist, bestselling author, and senior advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as campaign manager for several of Netanyahu's election campaigns and chief strategist for Netanyahu's 2020 election campaign that resulted in a rotating unity government with Netanyahu at the helm and his 2022 campaign in which Netanyahu won a full-term. Klein was Netanyahu's full-time strategic advisor in government from 2020 to 2021, during the period Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel's 36th government and he serves as a strategic advisor to Netanyahu during Israel's 37th government.
Floyd Gregory Brown is an American author, speaker, and media commentator. He is formerly the CEO of USA Radio Network. Brown founded the conservative website Western Journalism in 2008. Brown in his early career worked as a political consultant and conducted opposition research for political campaigns. Brown is noteworthy for founding Citizens United in 1988 and for his introduction of the "Willie Horton" television ad during the 1988 presidential election campaign.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, controversy broke out regarding Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former leader of the Weather Underground, a radical left organization in the 1970s. Investigations by CNN, The New York Times and other news organizations concluded that Obama did not have a close relationship with Ayers.
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality is a book by Jerome Corsi opposing Barack Obama's candidacy for President of the United States. The book alleges Obama's "extreme leftism", "extensive connections with Islam and radical politics", "naïve... foreign policy", past drug use and connections to corrupt backers, among other things. The book has been criticized for containing factual errors, for being racist, and for being a political "attack book" containing smears, falsehoods, and innuendo.
During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citizenship – efforts eventually known as the "birther movement", or birtherism, names by which it is widely referred to across media. The movement falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the Constitution. Studies have found these birther conspiracy theories to be most firmly held by Republicans strong in both political knowledge and racial resentment.
This bibliography of Barack Obama is a list of written and published works, both books and films, about Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.
Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation is a book written by Jason Mattera. Published in 2010 by Simon & Schuster, the book purports to reveal methods that Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign used to organize or mislead young voters.
Jerome Robert Corsi is an American author. His two New York Times best-selling books, Unfit for Command (2004) and The Obama Nation (2008), attacked Democratic presidential candidates and have been criticized by opposition.
David Freddoso is an American political conservative commentator, journalist, and author, best known for writing three books critical of the Barack Obama administration as well as for his columns for the National Review Online and the Washington Examiner. The first book, The Case Against Barack Obama, reached the New York Times bestseller list as well as the Amazon.com official Top 20 list. Having worked in politics since 2002, his latest book is Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Re-elect Barack Obama, which he published January 28, 2013. His writings have involved criticism of what he sees as left-liberal media bias in the American journalistic mainstream.
Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President is a book by Jerome Corsi which promotes the false claim that then U.S. president Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the United States and was thus constitutionally unqualified to hold the office. The book was released on May 17, 2011, and reached No. 6 on the New York Times list of best-selling hardcover non-fiction books. It has been publicized in politically conservative venues.
Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again is a non-fiction book by businessman Donald Trump, first published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster in 2015. A revised edition was subsequently republished eight months later in trade paperback format under the title Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America. Like his previous work Time to Get Tough (2011) did for the U.S. presidential election in 2012, Crippled America outlined Trump's political agenda as he ran in the 2016 election on a conservative platform.
Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama is a 2017 biography of former President of the United States Barack Obama by American author and academic David Garrow. It is Garrow's fifth book.
Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again is a non-fiction book by Donald Trump. It was published in hardcover format by Regnery Publishing in 2011, and reissued under the title Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again! in 2015 to match Trump's 2016 election campaign slogan. Trump had previously published The America We Deserve (2000) as preparation for his attempt to run in the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign with a populist platform. Time to Get Tough in contrast served as his prelude to the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, with a conservative platform.
What Happened is a 2017 memoir by Hillary Clinton about her experiences as the Democratic Party's nominee and general election candidate for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Published on September 12, 2017, it is her seventh book with her publisher, Simon & Schuster.
Lis Smith is an American political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. She is most well known for being the senior advisor for Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign, deputy manager of Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential campaign and the director of rapid response for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign. She has also directed communications and strategy for a number of other gubernatorial, mayoral and congressional campaigns.
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