David Freddoso rests his case

The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate, by David Freddoso

David Freddoso, a reporter for National Review Online, has done an excellent job destroying the myth that B. Hussein Obama is a post-partisan, centrist reformer who, if elected, will usher in a new era of politics.

Freddoso - who, incidentally, supported Ron Paul in the Republican primaries - describes in detail how Obama, during his youth and during his days as a "community organizer, rubbed elbows with left-wing radicals (chapter 7); how Obama did the bidding of, and refused entreaties to help reform, the corrupt Cook County political machine (chapter 1); how Obama sought and received the endorsement of the neo-Marxist New Party during his 1996 bid for Illinois State Senate (chapter 7); how Obama's rise in the state senate was abetted by a senate Speaker who often "gave" Obama bills right before passage so he could claim credit (chapter 2); and how Obama, with a straight face, continues to support ethanol subsidies and continues to insist that Chicago's public schools are underfunded (chapter 5). Incidentally, Chicago spends $10,550 per student -- 20 percent above the national average.

Of particular interest to conservatives will be Freddoso's documenting that Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in history. While serving in the Illinois State Senate, he worked to block a bill that would have made it illegal to deny medical care to children born alive after a failed abortion procedure. In addition, Obama supports taxpayer funding of abortion and the Freedom of Choice Act, of which he is a co-sponsor in the U.S. Senate. The Freedom of Choice Act, which Obama says will codify Roe v. Wade, would ban each and every restriction on abortion, even those which majorities of Americans support (like parental notification laws and bans on partial-birth procedures). No wonder Obama bested Hillary Clinton for the National Abortion Rights Action League's endorsement.

Also of interest to conservatives is the fact that Obama's economic policies reveal him to be the most statist presidential nominee since George McGovern. Obama promises to increase tax rates and regulation to levels not seen since the 1970s. The National Taxpayers Union released a study showing that Obama's proposed spending increases - $300 billion a year at last count - cannot be paid for by letting George W. Bush's tax cuts expire and withdrawing from Iraq. So it ain't just "the rich" who will need to hang on to their wallets should Obama get himself elected.

Freddoso has been assaulted by B. Hussein's sycophants during several radio interviews. Reading from a script provided by the Obama campaign, Freddoso has been called a McCain hack whose book is nothing but a hatchet job. As I've already pointed out, Freddoso is no pro-McCain stooge, and he provides 30 pages of notes to buttress his claims. Furthermore, Freddoso takes to task those conservatives who've claimed that Obama refuses to salute the flag or was sworn in on the Koran ("intellectually lazy," he calls them). What Obama's supporters don't want discussed is their candidate's shady past and his even shadier plans for the future. Unfortunately for them, Freddosso has done a masterful job presenting a case against a President B. Hussein Obama.

A sordid, twisted tale

An Unfinished Canvas: A True Story of Love, Family, and Murder in Nashville, by Michael Glasgow and Phyliss Gobbell

Nashville lawyer Michael Glasgow and true crime author Phyliss Gobbell do an admirable job recounting the events surrounding the 1996 disappearance of Nashville artist Janet March and the nearly ten-year chain of events which culminated in the 2005 conviction of her husband, Perry, for her murder. A sordid, twisted tale indeed.

Three things I didn't like about An Unfinished Canvas:

First, how many times must a reader be told that Lake Chapala - where Perry March fled with his children not long after being named the primary suspect in his wife's disappearance - is "Mexico's largest natural lake" before it finally sets in. A half-dozen, according to the authors.

Nashville's Gerst Haus German restaurant supposedly has "food [that] is expensive for something less than fine German fare." Since when are $8-13 entrees "expensive?" I've eaten at the Gerst Haus dozens and dozens of times, with dozens and dozens of friends and colleagues, and I've never heard anyone say "Gerst Haus" and "expensive" in the same breath.

Finally, the authors claim that the L'affaire Perry March is "the most celebrated case in Nashville history." Not true. In 1908, Nashville Tennessean editor Edward Carmack, who was also a former U.S. Senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was gunned down on a Nashville street by a political opponent, Robin Cooper. The "Carmack-Cooper" saga gripped the city for weeks; and after a well-publicized trial, Robin Cooper was acquitted, after which Carmack's supporters in the state legislature voted to erect a statue honoring him on the capitol grounds (which you can still see on the south side of the capitol to this day).