Talk:The Case Against Barack Obama

Explaining my neutrality tag
Well, from giving it just a once over, there were a few things I found that need to be added/rewritten: I was confusing this book with The Obama Nation (somehow, I'm not sure how), so I got my internal facts wrong. So yes, the neutrality tag does indeed not need to be there.


 * "The book harshly attacks Obama, not on grounds of scandalous rumors but on facts and policy grounds, according to Ben Smith, a writer at The Politico."
 * That should probably be written to something like "The book criticizes Obama over several policy matters, according to SOURCE1 and SOURCE 2." NuclearWarfare  contact me My work 00:51, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. I think that's an improvement. My point, not made well at all, was to mention Smith's contrasting of this book with Obama Nation. I'll check back and make sure Smith was doing that and I may move that sentence down a bit. Thanks for pointing it out. Please check back and see what you think about it. Noroton (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Overall, an even-handed, well-written, informative article about a contentious topic. I did a few tweaks and restored a bit of material that seems to have been deleted to try to take out some of the conservative political context. There are a few things here and there and maybe some room to quibble but it's quite encyclopedic. Good job, Noroton! Wikidemo (talk) 02:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Edits
Even though the Poltico article does mention this, I think it falls under well poising, especially in its current wording. 

On a related note, does anyone else see the irony in how protective and selective the pack of Obama editors have become with the BHO article, rejecting nearly every non-sanctioned addition but allowing other articles even remotely critical of BHO to turn into dumping grounds? CENSEI (talk) 02:34, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't see your comment and thought I misunderstood. I already reverted. My reason is that Freddoso is always, always, always referred to as a writer for NRO, never NR. You can (barely) see it at the bottom of the book image we've got here. I saw it in all the sources I looked at.


 * I added the information on the publicists because I just think it's an integral part of an article about the book. Believe me, I have no interest whatever in poisoning the well. I know some people think there were a lot of problems with the Swift Boat book, but from what I've read, the main parts of it held up well. Also, it's interesting that O'Neill, the co-author with Jerome Corsi of that book is helping to promote this one (in competition with the latest Corsi book). Noroton (talk) 02:41, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Use of quotation in Alleged inaccuracy subsection
User Scjessey reverted an edit that I had made to the quote in the Alleged inaccuracy subsection on the grounds that this was an "addition that made no sense". In order to avoid further confusion, and hopefully resolve this, let me explain why I made the edit in the first place.

The sentence in question read:

According to an Associated Press report, Freddoso's book "sometimes includes inaccurate or incomplete information."

If you take a look at the actual section from the referenced article, you'll see that this is not the actual quote, making it lose the specificity from the article:

"The Case Against" also points out Obama's liberal position on a long list of issues, including school choice, Social Security and gun control. Freddoso doesn't allege anything improper, rather that conservatives and even moderates will find much to oppose in Obama's record.

His book sometimes includes inaccurate or incomplete information to back that case.

The subsentence "to back that case" clearly refers to Freddoso's attempt to show "that conservatives and even moderates will find much to oppose in Obama's record".

With this understanding, the quote as previously written in this Wikipedia article is very vague and leads the reader to believe that this was very general criticism when in fact it was not. My edit to this article, as was reverted, read:

According to an Associated Press report, Freddoso's book "sometimes includes inaccurate or incomplete information to back [that conservatives and even moderates will find much to oppose in Obama's record]."

I do believe that this latter quotation is much more in line with the actual article that was referred to, pinpointing the criticism rather than spreading it around. (As a sidenote this is particularly interesting as the quote itself concerned inaccuracies and incomplete information... let's not subject this article to the same cause for criticism.)

Sarnalios (talk) 20:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Without having read your reasoning on the talk page, the edit in question is confusing and makes no sense grammatically. I think you have a valid point, but make sure someone who hasn't read this page can still understand that sentence. -- Good Damon 21:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've tried to make it more understandable:


 * According to an Associated Press report, Freddoso's book "sometimes includes inaccurate or incomplete information to back that case [that conservatives and even moderates will find much to oppose in Obama's record]."


 * Sarnalios (talk) 21:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Better, but I've gone ahead and rephrased it to get those square brackets out. Tell me what you think. -- Good Damon 22:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason why I used that particular phrasing in the square brackets is that those were the words used in the AP article (they could've been quoted), but what you've written is good enough for me. Sarnalios (talk) 22:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:01, 30 April 2016 (UTC)