[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

I'm referring to the call in show at wgn in chicago.

imo people should be allowed to speak, and if others have the ability to expose them as idiots they should.

the biography is weak. it has many, many inaccuracies and uses rumour as fact.

Review of Fredosi's book from Ben Smith of the Politico.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...90F74D5579425E

The first serious negative biography of Senator Barack Obama casts the Democratic nominee as a fake reformer and a real liberal.

“The Case Against Barack Obama,” by National Review’s David Freddoso, blasts Obama for failing to take on the Chicago machine, for listening to “radical advisors,” and for backing “doctrinaire liberal” causes from teachers unions to abortion rights.

It does not, however, compare him to Paris Hilton, or dwell at length on his religion or race – making the substance of “The Case Against Barack Obama” sound a bit unfamiliar amid a campaign cacophony of hyperbolic web ads, alleged race cards, and viral smears.

Freddoso says John McCain’s campaign and Republicans at large are making the wrong case against the Illinois senator.

“I don’t think you beat Obama by saying that he’s Paris Hilton,” said Freddoso, a reporter for the conservative magazine National Review, referring to McCain’s latest advertising campaign. “The more important thing is really to look at is he who he says he is? Is he really this great reformer?”

Freddoso’s book, released today by the conservative publishing house Regnery and provided exclusively to Politico by the publisher, occupies a small island in the often-shrill sea of criticism of Obama. As a range of conservatives suggest that Obama is a closet radical, and as McCain’s campaign aims to disqualify him from the White House on the grounds of his international fame, Freddoso makes a case that conservatives should look at the presumptive Democratic nominee's record.
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His thesis: “It’s not that Obama is a bad person. It’s just that he’s like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington. And just like all the other liberals too.”

Freddoso’s is one of two new books harshly attacking Obama. The other, by Jerome Corsi, reportedly covers some of the same terrotory as the viral emails that have plagued the Democratic candidate, making much of his slender connections to Islam and his teenage drug use.

Freddoso opts largely for a fact-based critique, and writes that the viral and overt smears have allowed Obama to evade substantive criticism.

“Too many of those criticizing Obama have been content merely to slander him,” he writes. False rumors about Obama's religion and ancestry have produced, Freddoso writes, “an intellectual laziness among the very people who should be carefully scrutinizing Obama.”

His book comes with Republican popularity at a historic low, amid widespread disenchantment with Republican ideals of limited government and hawkish foreign policy. Many – including, apparently, McCain’s strategists – doubt a Republican can win a policy face-off. But as the real campaign hones in on the character of the candidates, Freddoso’s book attempts to build an alternate case against Obama.
Freddoso’s argument begins in Chicago, and focuses largely on his ties to Mayor Richard M. Daley’s political organization. Though Obama’s first political steps were in Hyde Park’s reformist politics, Freddoso focuses on the smooth accommodation he made to the machine.

Freddoso recalls a Chicago Sun-Times story from 2005, after a wave of indictments of Daley aides in a patronage scandal. “Obama almost said something mildly critical of Daley,” Freddoso writes, quoting Obama as saying that the reports gave him “huge pause.”

“An hour later, he was already calling [the Sun-Times] back to ‘clarify’ his comments,” Freddoso writes, and to lavish praise on Daley’s record.

Freddoso also indicts him for standing on the sidelines of a bitter battle between reformers and the machine for the presidency of the Cook County Board. The African-American incumbent, John Stroger, faced a rare, real challenge from a united reform front, led by Forrest Claypool. Obama stayed out of the race, despite the pleas of his reformist supporters.

“Obama’s silence had probably saved Cook County’s political kingpin,” he writes, detailing the incumbent Stroger’s patronage operation.

And I guess Stanley Kurtz should also be shouted down because his "argument" is weak.

In the next few hours, we have a crucial opportunity to fight one of the most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack.

Tonight, WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears. He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.

Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse.

Call into the "Extension 720" show with Milt Rosenberg at (312) 591-XXXX. (I edited the number.)

(Show airs from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. tonight)

Then report back on your call at http://my.barackobama.com/WGNstandards

I'm starting to get it, ANY criticism of theMessiah is baseless and smear-mongering. I get it.