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Jerome Corsi Draws Blood

By: streiff (Diary)  |  August 15th, 2008 at 10:02 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Jerome Corsi's book, The Obama Nation, has been greeted with rave reviews by the left

The New York Times bestseller The Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi is drawing blood if the caterwauling from many of the usual suspects in any clue.

The AP essentially reprints Obama’s response to the book as a news story but the lede is interesting:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hit back Thursday with a 40-page rebuttal to the best-selling book “The Obama Nation,” arguing the author is a fringe bigot peddling rehashed lies.

Jerome Corsi’s anti-Obama book, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president. The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false rumors against Obama _ that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a “black rage” hidden beneath the surface.

The Washington Post runs an editorial on how bad the book is, again relying heavily on the above mentioned 40-page rebuttal issued by Obama. And is joined on their Op-Ed page by the densest regular columnist of any major papor, Eugene Robinson

Even if everything in Corsi’s book is correct, it certainly isn’t something that a politician who sees himself as less than a deity, if not The Deity, should concern himself with. His 40-page rebuttal provides a good reminder of the immensely flawed character of Obama, himself, rather than addressing any substantive issue. That a major newspaper would take up the cudgel on Obama’s behalf, especially given its shameful cooperation with various smear books directed against President Bush, indicates that Corsi has found a chink in Obama’s carefully crafted persona and if they don’t silence Corsi, Obama is finished.

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COMMENTS

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  • streetwise

    It never fails.

    So keep whining!

  • demrebuttal

    The Obama campaign cannot be expected to sit back and ignore a No. 1 New York Times bestseller that smears him just because the author is a crazy lunatic. People are clearly buying this book and the campaign needs to respond. Simple as that. McCain would do the same thing and it wouldn’t mean the author was on to something or that if McCain didn’t silence the author, he would be finished. It’s a book full of lies that is moving a lot of copies. So it’s necessary to get out the word that it’s full of lies. That’s all this is.

  • rjd27

    I doubt McCain or his campaign would respond with a 40 page rebuke. A response is always expected, usually a short condemnation read before a general news conference. Then you move on to more important things. This is just one more example of how sensitive and thin-skinned Obama is. He can’t take the heat.

    This is one book. How many have been written about President Bush in the past eight years? Obama’s going to get carpal tunnel responding to all his detractors.

  • Swamp_Yankee

    Official Media Scorecard:

    Anti-Bush Books: 1,347
    Attempts to debunk: 0

    Anti-Obama Books: 2
    Attempts to debunk: 1

    Watch out David Fredesso

    • streiff

      look at the books that came out about Bush in 2000 and 2004 and find me a 40-page rebuttal. Oh. You can’t.

      Obama says the book is full of lies, and of course you regurgitate the same, but saying that doesn’t make it so. The fact is that even if one accepts the “factual” inaccuracies there is a lot to work with.

      From a professional point of view, do you really think this kind of response is doing anything more than raising the visibility of the book and selling more of them? If I were Corsi I would have paid you guys good money to get bat-crap crazy over my book.

  • shadowtax

    I can’t help but combine two images in my mind.

    1. Obama supporters burning stacks of Obama Nation and The Case Against Barack Obama.

    2. Barack Obama mesmerizing 200,000 Germans in Berlin.

    If only I knew how to photoshop…..

    I know – I know such thoughts are wrong. But the comparison just begs to be made at least on the aesthetic level.

    Maybe this is all an effort to bait folks like me so I can be branded a racist or some such. Other than the victim card, I can’t see how such a heavy-handed response to criticism can help Obama broaden his appeal.

  • spainishirish

    I haven’t read the book, but certainly the public knows about Ayers, Wright, and Obama’s left-wing policies already. If memory serves, it was a former Democratic senator, Bob Kerrey, who pointed out Obama attended what he called a “madrassa.”

    The fact the left-wing media has exploded, and boosted book sales in the process, tells me Corsi probably has put written much that has been spiked as was the case with the sordid and well-hidden Edwards affair.

    This will probably end up like Unfit for Command, in which the content was ninety percent accurate (vs. Edwards’ 99 percent honesty, I suppose) and the Left seized on a few minor errors to protect their previous trainwreck of a nominee.

    • Lorraine

      he would not be so upset, and neither would the MSM

      They are afraid of the truth finally coming out for all to see…and not just on conservative blogs and forums

      Poor BO…he is breaking my heart….NOT!

  • Marcus_Traianus

    but friends reading Corsi?s book said it was a must read; and it was.

    Mr. Corsi is a meticulous footnoter, his sources are solid and the information has been lawyered. It is no small point that Obama?s response is tepid political obfuscation of the facts. As a note, I see that Corsi has promised to respond point-by-point to Obama. My guess; Corsi wins that battle.

    Democrats have tried to make terms such as ?SWIFT Boat? a semantical allusion to dishonest attack. But that designation is pure fallacy. Instead, it is better to define the term as vernacular indicating severe, factual character flaws displaying dishonest nature of a person in question.

    As usual, Democrats respond with illogical fallacy spearheaded by ad hominem attacks on the author. Nothing could more readily display these facts are truthful, since the redress is not grounded in factual argumentation. Exploration and discussion of the truth, outside political forums and media beyond their control is the Democrats Achilles heel.

  • robertmolinaro

    Let me see if I get this right. A woman is pregant and the abortion that she chooses to have is botched and the baby is born alive. The baby does not get medical care and dies 45 minutes later. In the aftermath there is a hearing in the Illinois State Senate and a bill is proposed that would allow medical care for babies born alive in botched abortions. The only person to vote in opposition to this bill? Barack Obama. And he thinks this is not a radical position?

  • St_Louis_Conservative

    n/t

    • Taniwha

      Democrats have tried to make terms such as ?SWIFT Boat? a semantical allusion to dishonest attack. But that designation is pure fallacy. Instead, it is better to define the term as vernacular indicating severe, factual character flaws displaying dishonest nature of a person in question.

      Well that’s the point, now, isn’t it? ACTUAL false charges are pretty easy to refute. In Kerry’s case, all he would have had to do was release his records. He never did, and a whole mythology sprang up to explain why someone who supposedly had the truth on his side, WOULDN’T do the one thing that would actually prove it. But none of it cut any ice with anyone who could actually think, because in truth there is only one reason he would not, and it’s the same as why Barack has not released a birth certificate – the truth is not on his side.

  • Ehud

    It is interesting the see the ratings and reviews of this book at Amazon. I checked a couple days ago and the ‘helpful’ reviews were all 5 star, thoughtful reviews. Now the rating has dropped (all the ratings for this book are either 5 star or 1 star) and the most helpful reviews are all 1 star.

    It seems like the left is making a concerted effort to discredit the book and lower sales by giving it a low rating and marking all the 1 star reviews as ‘helpful’. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some thread over at DK instructing everyone to go do that.

  • NightTwister

    The more they’re worried, they more they whine.

  • Ehud

    The left says this guy has been discredited. I don’t give much weight to what they say, but Hugh Hewitt also mentioned on H&C that this guy has some credibility problems. Is that true? I know he wrote some book about John Kerry, but was that book and the whole swift boat thing actually lies? Or was it mostly true and the left has just been trying to make everyone think it was a smear attack? I wasn’t paying attention to politics back in 2004.

    If there are factual and misleading errors in this book we should point them out, and separate them from the parts that are true. We should not stoop to the level of the left and push unfair attacks for political gain.

    However, I have not seen anyone offer any rebuttals to actual facts in this book. The lefties just claim it is a pack of lies and leave it at that.

    • CV_Gas
      • simpson316

        for example:

        • He has called for an investigation into the government’s story about 9/11 (He’s apparently a Troofer)

        • He is willing to go on white supremacist and neo-Nazi programs to peddle his book

        • Vegas_Rick

          We’ll see if Obama files such a suit. I suspect not.

          • streiff

            you can run it anyway you want to.

            As a rule, we don’t do factchecking and damage control for the other side.

            More to the point, this story doesn’t take a position on the truth or lack thereof of Corsi’s book. The only political books I read are the one’s publishers send me for free. The story is about the extraordinary reaction this book is drawing from the left.

          • Ehud

            Sorry, I didn’t direct that comment at Redstate or this post in particular. I realized you weren’t endorsing the book. I was just saying that conservatives in general shouldn’t push unfair attacks. That’s all.

  • janis

    discredited due to an interview he did with Alex Jones back in January of this year where Corsi claimed that the government didn’t present a completely credible hypothesis for how the WTC buildings collapsed. So they label him a Truther.

    Which is odd, given that some of the leaders they revere the most, including John-boy Kerry, Al “The Bore” Gore, any number of Hollywood idiots, and other politicians on their side, have all claimed the same and worse. But now they wish to use that as a “he’s a LIAR’” canard in attempting to discredit Corsi.

    What they don’t seem to be able to do is discredit him on the basis of the facts he has listed in this book.

    • streiff

      as Kerry refused to knock down Troofer statements during the 2004 election (“who knows?” he replied on at least one occasion) and the president pro tem of the Senate is a former Klan recruiter.

      • simpson316

        I sure won’t.

  • uglyandproud7

    books slagging mccain, but he isnt writing 40 page rebuttals and the ap arent printing his words as article and the fact nationwide

  • ZootSuit

    Jerome Corsi does little more than take “well-documented” rumor and innuendo and present them as facts. Furthermore, I also think the book has a racists edge: for example, it just seems to stick out how he keeps noting that Obama’s mother twice married non-White men. So what?

    Bluntly, I think The Obama Nation is nothing more than muckraking, and that of the worst kind. There is no reason to falsely defame your political opponent or ideological adversary but that is what the book does. Obama is right to reply as he has. And I say this as an ideological opponent of Baracjk Obama and someone who has absolutely no plans to vote for him. Please see my other posts on RedState.

    A much better book on Barack Obama is The Case Against Barack Obama by David Freddoso. From everything I have read so far, it is far less “hysterical” and much better written. You can also purchase it at The Conservative Book Club.

    I find it interesting that the Obama campaign has not (cannot?) denounce David Freddoso’s book as it has Jerome Corsi’s.

    Note that I do not know either David Freddoso or Jerome Corsi and have no interest in the Conservative Book Club (except that I am a member). The opinions I express here are my own.

    • mikefisk

      …I couldn’t be more thin-skinned than Obama is acting right now even if I tried. He’s making Huckabee look like a paragon of fortitude in comparison.

      40 page rebuttal? That’s nothing short of bewildering. And this is just one event… not like it’s even a pattern yet in the media, or a blanket rebuttal to criticisms against him; it’s just going after this one book and its author.

      You know what that means, conservative authors? Open the floodgates… write your own reasoned, well-researched books against Obama. If Obama’s spending this much time addressing one person, fifty books would practically put his campaign out of commission…

  • SteveLA

    I picked up this book last weekend at CostCo and am reading it now.

    So far my take on the book is that there is a whole lot of smoke, but little sign of fire in most of the material presented. Maybe this, lots of smoke, little fire, is because after the lawyers got done with the book that’s all that was left, but…

    In general the book lays out a circumstantial case against Nobama, and lifts the veil on who he really is, but that’s about it.

    My takeaway from reading Obama Nation, about 3/4 done now, is that Nobama is one of those whinny types of folks that play the race card when they want to get over but only when it suits them. Nobama also comes off as holding Socialist/communist views only slightly to the right of Hugo Chavez.

    Nothing really surprising in the book and unfortunately mostly a circumstantial case being made, but worth the $15 I suppose.

    • ZootSuit

      Your argument is like saying that John McCain must have had an affair with [sorry, forgot her name] because he was upset that the New York Times printed the story insinuating that he had.

      • rjd27

        Corsi could work for the NY Times, then?

        • streiff

          because right now I’m looking for the 40-page rebuttal combined with attacks by editorial pages and columnists on that unsourced story in the NYT. I can’t find them. Want to help us out on that.

          • BrianH

            I’ll pick up “The Case Against Obama” instead. I prefer solid facts to innuendo anyway.

  • gamecock

    nt

  • Neil_Stevens

    When wimps and nuts fight, America wins no matter who loses.

    • blooch

      right there in the circular filing cabinet with McCain’s rebuttal to Obama’s NYT editorial.

      • gamecock

        that’s pretty good for the non-attentive voter that might buy the book or hear about it from others

        agree?

        • gamecock

          nt

          • gamecock

            Its the one ZootSuit mentioned that appears to be much better.

            I see your points better now.

          • ZootSuit

            My reply is simply that it is a canard to argue, as was stated in the post I was replying to, that if the allegation were not true then Obama and his camp would not be upset. That argument — again, made by “Lorraine” above” — is, in my opinion, false and even silly. Sometimes you get upset precisely because what is said is a lie.

            As for McCain’s 40-page reply to the New York Times (in my opinion, very false and scurrilous) article, there obviously is none. That is (for better or worse) not McCain’s style. But it is (for better or worse) Obama’s style.

            Say what you will about how Obama replied (which I believe is the subject of your diary and which I have no problem with, per se), but to argue that since he did reply then Corsi’s allegations must therefore be true and accurate is nonsensical.

          • ZootSuit

            I’ve missed the rooster crowing in my absence (even if I am more of a tiger)!

          • gamecock

            to slander laws given the First Amendment has all but eliminated such suits since NYT v Sullivan in the 20s?

            Remember the movie Absence of Malice

            Not only must an allegation be false, the plaintiff must prove that the writer “knew it was false”, an almost impossible burden of proof.

          • ZootSuit

            Made me laugh when I read it.

          • gamecock

            nt

          • ZootSuit

            I can realistically see us going 10-2 plus a significant bowl appearance this year. Only Georgia Tech and FSU are better teams this year (with all due respect to Maryland and, of course, our opponent of November 29).

          • streiff

            that he replied because he knows a lot of people will think the charges are true. People will think the charges are true because based on what we know about Obama they are believable.

  • shadowtax

    I have not read the book, nor do I have the time.

    However, I have heard Corsi interviewed on talk radio by Sean Hannity and Andrew Wilkow. He does not sound like a nut. He certainly doesn’t rant. He sounds like a knowlegeable professor. He’s written several books some as co-author with the likes of John O’Neill and Ken Blackwell.

    The vast right wing conspiracy is prescient indeed if they delegated the Swift-Boater-In-Chief to research and write a mudslinging book about Barack Obama months before he clinched the nomination.

    I rather think that Dr. Corsi took a gamble by writing about a subject which has been willfully ignored by media elites. He will make some money for his efforts.

    By attacking Corsi, the Obama campaign is trying to change the subject. My opinion is that Obama Nation doesn’t so much sling mud as wash away the make-up from the Obama image. If there were smoking guns or serious skeletons in the closet, I am sure that I would have heard about them already.

    I really don’t care if he has also researched and written or co-written about the North American Union. This book should be considered on its merits.

    At this point other than Obama Nation and the Case Against Barack Obama, the only books dealing with Obama’s background are autobiographies.

    The more the merrier.

  • uglyandproud7

    are they blaming mccain for the book and pushing mccain to discredit it, why hasnt obama stopped the dems from badmouthing mccain, etc. puhleeze!

  • CJB68

       At my workplace, we get spoon-fed CNN and now CNBC.  I haven’t seen anything from the endless reruns of Anderson Cooper 360? and Larry King Live! that get aired on the former yet, but the latter re-airs Hardball ad nauseum, and that program has a section called “Bushed” and appears to be aping the Obama rebuttal line almost exclusively.  Compared with CNBC, I’m starting to think that Cooper is the better of the two, CNN environmenalism line notwithstanding.  The other guys must have Bush on the brain.

    • CJB68

      oboy.  …no spell checking.

      • gamecock

        ‘Cocks need to Beat NC State.

        • bk

          The lefties are complaining about “swiftboating”. I agree with that – doesn’t “swiftboating” mean you publish a bunch of facts about a candidate and then he and his lefty friends whine that it’s not fair?

          • bk

            why he reneged on the “I’ll debate you anytime anywhere” pledge. He’s spending too much time:
            a) Going on photo-op love-ins abroad
            b) Going on vacation in Hawaii
            c) Writing voluminous whine-a-grams

          • simpson316

            it has spell checking built in.

            I’m told IE has the option, but why would you want IE? It’s terrible.

  • bk

    Commander in Chief Obama sitting down and writing a 40-page missive to Osama after the first terrorist attack of his presidency explaining to Osama why he is wrong.

  • jonlester

    After all, his next book is all about the North American Union conspiracy theory, which I’ve been told is something people are banned for talking about on RS.

    Seriously, do you see Corsi as anything more than an opportunist and profiteer?

    I’ll agree that the folks at Media Matters are pretty whiny most of the time but there’s no way they’re always wrong. They’re doing good work debunking this latest book.

  • SomeYahoo

    To pay too much attention to these bios. For those who are interested in taking these hit-pieces and floating innuendo so seriously, don’t forget these damaging lies floated out there against John McCain. The book “The Real McCain” claims McCain called Cindy a “C—” in presence of reporters, and we all remember the all time smear classic: In SC in 2000, Bush’s folks invented a phony push poll that asked, ‘Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?’”

    I think these political tactics are the worst kind and it’s my view that Obama’s folks put out a 40 page rebuttal a) because the book is loaded with falsehoods that not only are found in the book but in emails and blog posts all over the net and b) they’re trying to stamp this garbage into the ground before it gets legs, unlike Kerry and McCain, who lost because people started believing them.

    It’s fair to scrutinize Obama’s relationship with Wright and to a much lesser extent his association with Ayers, just like it’s fair to question McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five scandal and his affair with Cindy during his first marriage. But this black love child crap and the “Obama is a closet muslim and might be a drug addict” crap is lame and should be rejected by all. Let’s stick to policy differences. There’s plenty of debate around that.

  • dld1717

    I am amazed by liberal media although I should not be. I mean how many books out there that are anti-Bush and they focus on this 1 book?

    • aaronbg

      n/t