Two Books About Obama

As the campaign season continues, the books keep coming. There are two books out on Barack Obama that are making headlines. One for its controversial author and one for how well it was done.

The latest buzz is over the new #1 best selling book, "The Obama Nation", by Jerome Corsi. The bulk of the criticism from the left, in particular, is about the author and not the actual writings. I'm no defender of Corsi, let me be clear. He seems to me to be one fork short of a place setting but nonetheless, the book is out and flying off the shelves.

Corsi is not the standard party partisan. He's called for the impeachment of President Bush and he's a 9/11 truther. The left goes nuts, though, because he was co-author of the SwiftBoat book about John Kerry's service in the Vietnam War. The book was widely accepted by Vietnam veterans as accurate and the main author, John O'Neill, has debated Kerry about the war and his actions since both returned for Vietnam and appeared on the Dick Cavett Show for the first debate. The facts have not changed and the American voters didn't appreciate Kerry's tales. Kerry lost the election in 2004 as he ran against President Bush for President, so now the term 'swiftboating' is a clever verb for defeatists on the left.

So, now the Obama campaign is determined to not let Barry be 'swiftboated' as he runs on a paper thin record and no history of accomplishment in politics. Journalist Jake Tapper, writing on the ABC News blog , makes the case that the Obama campaign has gone overboard in refuting the Corsi book. There is a 40 page refutation of the book. 40 pages. Wow. The first mistake made by the campaign was labeling, with a stamp, "Brought to you by Bush/Cheney Attack Machine", according to Tapper. As noted above, Corsi is no fan of Bush and the publisher of his book, Mary Matalin working for the Simon and Schuster imprint, was a former aide to Cheney in the White House.

But, that's the mantra of the campaign. It's all Bush's fault. When the campaign finds itself with no honorable debate, as it frequently does, it goes to the nonsensical.

Other false claims by the campaign, in order to refute the Corsi book, include the Deval Patrick speeches plagiarized by Obama without acknowledgement to him as the source. That did happen, until he was caught and said Patrick is his friend and didn't mind.

Tapper ends with this: "Again, I'm not defending Corsi. Much of what he writes is troubling and fictional. But that doesn't mean that the Obama campaign shouldn't hew closer to the truth. And yes, I do have higher expectations of them."

The better alternative to an account of Obama and his history is by David Freddoso, a writer for The National Review. The book is "The Case Against Barack Obama". According to Politico, it is a "fact based critique".

Freddoso writes, "I don't think you beat Obama by saying that he's Paris Hilton. The more important thing is really to look at is he who he says he is? A reformer?"

"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."

Exactly. Recent events have shown Obama in a more true light. Without a teleprompter, without a cleverly written speech with catch phrases from others who went before him, he stumbles and stammers. He flat out failed a very real 3:00 in the morning phone call last week. Fortunately for the American voter, all of the events of the day are happening before the election, allowing scrutiny of performance in real time so that a better decision can be made.

That's the hope and change I'm looking for this time around.