Books

I have been working my way through a heavy box of books and such that I bought in an end of year sale on WND.com. Coming up on the half-year mark, I thought it about time to report on some of the contents. On everyone’s perennial subject of greatest interest, we have the current occupant of the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the city of my birth. While one of his two pseudo-autobiographical books has languished since I picked up a slightly used copy at last year’s Hamburg Library book sale, I have been working my way through some other books about him. The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communist, Socialist and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein with Brenda J. Elliott (2010) is a good source for information on the man’s connections to such important allies in his rise to power as ACORN, Alinskyites, Nation of Islam and so forth. I’ve recently finished The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama’s War on American Values by Brad O’Leary (2008). Although the book’s chapters are mostly organized around policy themes of the campaign, how Obama’s positions have changed, and the likely direction he would take in office, there is some detail on his questionable associates in Chicago. Unfortunately, O’Leary gives rather too much credence to the official biography in some areas of Obama’s life. Just last week, I finished reading another book by O’Leary – Shut Up, America!: The End of Free Speech (2009) – which looks at Democrat attitudes toward reviving the mis-named Fairness Doctrine, net neutrality, and other proposals to impose restrictions on free expression via the Federal Communications Commission. Negrophilia: From slave block to pedestal – America’s racial obsession by Eric Rush (2010) is a very good examination of the role of race relations, principally black v. white, in such areas of government policy as diplomacy, education and economics. Rush also offers some useful insights on the role of race in insulating Barack Obama from the sort of scrutiny that would have attended a white candidate. Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out, edited by Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson (2008) presents more than twenty first-hand testimonies to the reality of Muslim experience. This is not the touchy-feely “religion of peace” line fed to us by governments and the established Islamic lobbyists. Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton by Kathleen Willey (2007) was a sort of stroll down memory lane for me. Not only was it a chance to revisit those wonderful years of the Clinton administration which played out like a series of episodes of the Jerry Springer show, but it also references a number of persons and events with which I had some personal connection. In particular, I had the privilege of being the campaign manager for her father-in-law State Senator Edward Willey, Sr. in the 1975 Democrat primary election. Sen. Willey was second only to the governor in political power at that time. He was President pro tempore of the Senate, chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, etc. I only met Kathleen and her husband on a couple of occasions and cannot claim to have known them at all well, but I had substantial contact with the senator and respected him greatly. The book is a good read for an insider’s perspective on Bill Clinton’s serial abuse of women. The Return of the Great Depression by Vox Day (2009) is a good read, both for its debunking of the myths surrounding FDR’s handling of the Depression of the 1930s and for its insights into the repetition of some of those mistakes by the current administration,. As I write this, the “recovery” continues to limp along with the latest unemployment figures showing a tenth of a percent monthly increase after falling slowly for several months (assuming one can believe the government’s figures).