Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Case Against David Freddoso   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Via our Media Blog, I checked out the Obama campaign's alleged factsheet on Freddoso. Its accusations against him are almost all either false or trivial.

The first three accusations are all false.

Claim 1 concerns Obama's friendship with unrepentant terrorists: DF is right.

Claim 2 concerns Obama's vote for tax hikes for people making more than #32,000 in taxable income. Obama's "facts" say that factcheck.org refuted DF's claim. Actually, Factcheck bears him out. Whoever compiled the "facts" doesn't seem to understand what "taxable income" is.

Claim 3 concerns the Born-Alive Act. Another point to DF. The Obama guy doesn't understand the different between a premature and viable infant.

I don't know enough to evaluate Claim 4.

The factsheet then moves on to DF's history of "vicious partisan attacks." DF said that listening to Bill Clinton gave him "nausea," which doesn't sound all that vicious, and that Kerry, in his 1971 testimony on American war crimes, used "anti-American rhetoric," which is certainly within the bounds of fair debate. (And, in my view, correct.)

Finally, there's a section called "Freddoso Thinks He's an Expert on Everything." Here we learn, for example, that "Freddoso Accused Michael Schiavo And The ACLU Of Trying To Starve Terri Schiavo." Well, that's what they were trying to do, and what they did. You might prefer another characterization of the events, but his is accurate. If the Obama campaign wants to stay in the speech-suppression business, it ought to find some better thugs.

09/16 12:05 PMShare