From the Economist

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, KID

Sep 18th 2008

IF YOU find yourself believing that "we are the ones we've been waiting

for", or that "this is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to

slow" or even, TOUT COURT, that "yes we can", the chances are that you

are suffering from a severe case of Obamamania.

Tens of millions of Americans and an even larger number of Europeans

have fallen victim to the syndrome, which involves a belief that a

young black senator from Chicago can cure the world's ills, in part

because of his race, in part because of his obvious intelligence and

rhetorical skill; but in no part because of any record of achievement

in the past. Fortunately, an inexpensive remedy is at hand.

It comes in the form of a new book by David Freddoso, "The Case

Against Barack Obama". Unlike the authors of some of the cruder attacks

on Mr Obama, Mr Freddoso works for a well-respected organisation, the

online version of the NATIONAL REVIEW. Although it is a conservative

publication and the author makes no secret of where his political

sympathies lie, this is a well-researched, extensively footnoted work.

It aims not so much to attack Mr Obama as to puncture the belief that

he is in some way an extraordinary, mould-breaking politician.

The Obama that emerges from its pages is not, Mr Freddoso says, "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 the

author makes a fairly compelling case that this is so. The best part of

the book concentrates on Mr Obama's record in Chicago, his home town

and the place from which he was elected to the Illinois state Senate in

1996, before moving to the United States Senate in 2004. The book lays

out in detail how this period began in a way that should shock some of

Mr Obama's supporters: he won the Democratic nomination for his

Illinois seat by getting a team of lawyers to throw all the other

candidates off the ballot on various technicalities. One of those he

threw off was a veteran black politician, a woman who helped him get

started in politics in the first place.

If Mr Obama really were the miracle-working, aisle-jumping,

consensus-seeking new breed of politician his spin-doctors make him out

to be, you would expect to see the evidence in these eight years. But

there isn't very much. Instead, as Mr Freddoso rather depressingly

finds, Mr Obama spent the whole period without any visible sign of

rocking the Democratic boat.

He was a staunch backer of Richard Daley, who as mayor failed to stem

the corruption that has made Chicago one of America's most notorious

cities. Nor did he lift a finger against John Stroger and his son Todd,

who succeeded his father as president of Cook County's Board of

Commissioners shortly before Stroger senior died last January. Cook

County, where Chicago is located, has been extensively criticised for

corrupt practices by a federally appointed judge, Julia Nowicki.

The full extent of Mr Obama's close links with two toxic Chicago

associates, a radical black preacher, Jeremiah Wright, and a crooked

property developer, Antoin Rezko, is also laid out in detail. The

Chicago section is probably the best part of the book, though the story

continues: once he got to Washington, DC, Mr Obama's record of voting

with his party became one of the most solid in the capital. Mr Freddoso

notes that he did little or nothing to help with some of the great

bipartisan efforts of recent years, notably on immigration reform or in

a complex battle over judicial nominations.

Sometimes, however, Mr Freddoso lets his own partisan nature run away

with him. It strikes the reader as odd to make an issue out of the

Obamas' comfortable income, when everyone knows that John McCain and

Hillary Clinton both have family fortunes in excess of $100m. On the

whole, though, Mr Freddoso raises legitimate points. And he ends with a

question Obamamaniacs should ask themselves more often: "Do you hope

that Barack Obama will change politics if he becomes president? On what

grounds?"

The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda

of the Media's Favorite Candidate. By David Freddoso. Regnery; 290

pages; $27.95 and GBP16.99