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View Full Version : Corsi, Swift Boats, Obama, The Enquirer, and Smears



red states rule
08-14-2008, 10:09 AM
It looks like the liberal media is in full spin and attack mode over the new book about their messiah


Corsi, Swift Boats, Obama, The Enquirer, and Smears

The Politico is in full anti-smear mode this evening, devoting a number of articles to attacking Jerome Corsi and, glancingly, the National Enquirer. I'm not here to defend either one, but it would be nice to see clearer thinking in some of our political commentary.

On Corsi, the Politico has posted two articles, "Corsi Book Tries to Undercut Obama" and "'Obama Nation' Author Has Lurid Past." They are a combination of news and commentary — like we often do here on NRO — but they suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of Corsi. Both articles suggest that in Obama Nation, Corsi is trying to replicate what he did to John Kerry in 2004:


Four years ago this month, the release of a critical book by Jerome R. Corsi undercut the cornerstone of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign narrative, his military service in Vietnam.

Now, Corsi has reappeared with another popular book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, attacking yet another Democratic nominee, Barack Obama…

Does anyone remember that the true author of the Swift Boat book was John O'Neill and the other Swift Boat veterans who served alongside Kerry in Vietnam? The power of the Swift Boat accusations was based on the fact that Kerry's fellow officers believed him unfit to be commander-in-chief. They had specific stories, based on their first-hand memories, to tell about Kerry's service in Vietnam. I've written before that some of those memories were accurate and some weren't, but in any event, Jerome Corsi wasn't part of that group. Personal testimony is powerful; Corsi didn't have any to add to the Swift Boat accounts in 2004.

Now, Corsi's Obama book, while selling well, doesn't have the same impact. If he had written it with — to come up with a hypothetical — several of the ministers who worked with Obama in the 1980s who say he is unfit for office, then that would have been a big story, and comparable to the Swift Boat book. But those ministers aren't saying that. This is not 2004.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWEzNmUzNDM1ODBmNmQ1MTNmZDVlZDgwZGY2Y2RjYWM=