Blogging “The Case Against Barack Obama” – Chapter 2

While Chapter One of David Freddoso's "The Case Against Barack Obama" shows us that Barack was not, in fact, a reformer (though he regularly plays one) and was instead part of the infamous Chicago political machine, Chapter Two focuses on Obama's rise to senator through the state senate in Springfield, Illinois. On the first page of this chapter, Freddoso introduces us to Illinois State senate president Emil Jones, who is described by the Associated Press as Obama's "political godfather." Freddoso describes Jones's political connections and Machine activities, including such beauties as landing his son an unadvertised high-paying job with the state for which he may not have been qualified, and fighting hard to keep the state utility company from having to lower its rates, apparently in return for giving his stepson's company a large consulting contract. The best example, though, was getting his friend, the Democrat governor of Illinois, to remove the common-sense requirement that the Director of Mental Health for the state be an actual doctor. This opened the door for Jones's own wife (someone has no shame) to take the job, for which she received $186,000 per year, a 75% pay increase.

Obama had told Jones he wanted to run for the federal Senate seat, and Jones set about helping him in any way he could. Mostly this meant creating a resume for Obama as quickly as possible. He put Obama in charge of committees and, thus, legislation that was not controversial and that would put him in a position of being owed political dividends by powerful state unions. To me the most egregious favors involved taking high-profile legislation away from other state senators – sometimes right before it was to be passed by the legislators – and giving it to Obama to pass, a nasty little process called "bill-jacking". Freddoso quotes a state legislator who in 2002 almost went to blows with Obama outside the senate chamber over another matter (this is also detailed in the book), about this practice:

"No one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the 1 yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and stats in the record book." Years later, in the Houston Press, Spivak [a reporter] wrote that Henden [the legislator] had been the original sponsor of two bills that Obama often writes and speaks about as if they had been his own.

In this chapter, Freddoso also introduces us to Obama's famous habit of voting "present" instead of yea or nay, so that he could not later be attacked over his stand on controversial issues. While in the state senate, Obama did this approximately 130 times (Here I'm reminded of a television ad that John McCain did earlier this year, in which he points out rightly that "when you're President, it's not enough to be 'present.'"). With Emil Jones's high-powered help, Obama managed to sponsor over 800 bills in the state senate during 2003-2004, a dramatic increase for him and a truly remarkable number in its own right (depending on the actual number of days involved during that two-year period, you're talking about at least two bills per day, every weekday).

Mr. Obama Goes to Washington

Once in Washington, DC of course, Obama was in a perfect position to repay so many favors to Emil Jones. One of the beauties that Freddoso recounts at this point proves – yet again – that Obama is not the reformer he claims to be. Last year, an Illinois state senator wrote to Obama to ask for his help in getting Emil Jones to stop holding up a package of 7 reform bills she wanted to have put up for debate. She wrote to Obama both because he was connected to Jones, and because the seven reform bills under consideration were very similar to reforms that Obama had promised to pass during his run for the presidency. It seems logical to believe that, given these circumstances, Obama would be in a perfect position to help out. However, according to Freddoso, "Obama did not even respond." Obama would later add that the state senator's request was "irregular." As a result, six of the seven bills are still stuck in committee. Great job, Obama.

The end of this chapter (a short one) briefly describes the first few times that Obama was referred to by black leaders as "not authentically black." Freddoso quotes Congressman Bobby Rush, a longtime black democrat leader in Chicago, who, if I recall correctly, was part of the Black Panther movement in the 1960s and who beat Obama badly in the 2000 election. Rush is a big name in Chicago politics.

My Thoughts

Freddoso spends much more time in chapter one discussing Obama's political career in Chicago before getting to Springfield. But it seems clear, nonetheless, that Obama was able to learn how to play the political game in Chicago very quickly, and apply those lessons to the same game on a bigger scale at the state level. He obviously has not tried, or needed to try, to play these games at the Federal level, but then he was only a sitting senator for less than 140 days before he announced his bid for the presidency. So far, to me it seems that Obama's "claim to fame" is that he has been a very effective politician, but I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that he has been or could be an effective reformer at any level. Moreover, the ease with which he seems to travel in these politically-connected (and corrupt) circles really strikes me as dishonest, certainly not the image of the clean-cut Harvard-educated "community organizer" that he's selling, and that everyone seems to be buying. He'd be a senator I'd want to keep an eye on as a guy who might end up with cash in his freezer one day. The idea that he could, in less than two months, be the President of the United States is truly frightening.

And I'm only on Chapter 2.