Customer Reviews:
 Simply a must read! November 5, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you want to understand and know more about the vision and hopes of your President, this book will not only give you the insight, but will inspire you as well. Excellent book!
 obama, an anti-american November 5, 2008
6 out of 103 found this review helpful
This book is a travesty! Anyone who actually wants to buy and read about the terrorist obama is an anti-anmerican! Since half the country is stupid and gullable and voted for obama, my entire family is moving to Canada. Goodbye and see you in 4 years, morons.
Absurd at best. November 5, 2008
8 out of 128 found this review helpful
Shouldn't someone actually DO SOMETHING before they write a memoir? Oh, I forgot. He went to Occidental College (Affirmative Action), then Harvard (Affirmative Action) and then ran for President (Affirmative Action). He is the poster child for bigots everywhere who hate white America, no matter what the country gives them. Think how angry he would be if he had actually had to EARN his way to the top, like the rest of us. We have already read the campaign posters. Hopefully, his next book will have something worth reading. Like maybe the truth. Communist. Racist. Completely worthless. And so his book.
 Turns out Obama isn't radical... at all November 4, 2008
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
After reading Dreams from my Father, which I consider one of the finest political autobiographies ever put to paper, I understandably had some pretty high hopes for this one. Alas, it was not to be. Obviously it's a different kind of book, but somehow I wasn't prepared for the extent of the boilerplate on offer. Take the basic issue positions of any center-left Democrat in the country, write them down in a row, and here's what you'll get. Obama has precisely nothing new or interesting to say here: abortion is bad but making it illegal is worse, religion is a great thing for many people but let's not get crazy with it, we've made a lot of progress on race but not enough, our politics suffer from too much acrimony, and so on. It doesn't matter that it's basically all true; it's just that so many people have already said it that I see no reason why Obama feels the need to say it again.
Interestingly, I think the greatest weakness of the book is what has proven to be Obama's greatest electoral strength: his personal story is interesting but his political story really just isn't. He's a standard Democrat who happens to be a little smarter than usual and a little calmer than usual. There's absolutely nothing scary or radical about this guy.
I would be remiss if I didn't say a few nice things, though. Obama is an extremely talented writer. His gift for words and his emotional honesty, so effective in Dreams from my Father, are on display here as well, even if they are used in the service of not-that-interesting ends. And the fact that he turns out to be just a regular guy means that it's extremely easy to identify with him. When he describes his family or his love for Michelle, Malia, and Sasha, it's instantly believable. His politics aren't exactly electrifying, but he does come across as a genuinely good man. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing.
Let Us Speak of Audacity. . . November 4, 2008
6 out of 30 found this review helpful
. . .for it is neatly defined for all to see in Barack Obama's instant classic, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE. Verily, we see audacity, and we have hope, because we have heard Obama speak; and because he speaks we have change; and because we have change we have the audacity to hope--of hope. Indeed, let us examine the very perimeters of audacity:
*The audacity of a relatively young man, only in his forties, having already penned two memoirs. . .about himself;
*The audacity, pre-Democratic Convention, to design his own Presidential seal;
*The audacity to rub elbows with the likes of Tony Rezko, William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Father Pfleger, and Louis Farrakhan, and assure the American people "it's no big deal";
*The audacity to shamelessly and willingly plan a multi-million dollar self-coronation on Election Night, where 70,000 of Obama's closest friends will revel in rhetorical semantics that will have them shivering and trembling from multiple obamasms.
The "winds of righteousness" are at our backs indeed; let us summon forth the ghosts of Constantinople and proclaim the Annointed One most sacred and on high! Let us insert THE AUDACITY OF HOPE into the pages of the New Testament, tucking it neatly in between Matthew and Mark; let us be fundamentally audacious, because now the lion will lie down with the lamb, the fish and the loaves will be fruitful and multiply, and peace and goodwill will reigneth forever from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Amen.
--D. Mikels, Esq.
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