Corsi's editor, Mary Matalin, claims
his book is "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that." There's
nothing scholarly at all about this pathetic excuse for a hatchet job.
Sean Hannity tried to push Corsi's crazy theories on his radio and
TV shows through multiple appearances. Hannity condemned "all you
left-wing bloggers who want to smear Mr. Corsi" and to prove the
author's credibility asked him,
"How many footnotes are in the book?" Corsi responded, "There's over
300 pages, 700 footnotes, and I'll stand by the truth of every
statement in this book."
Actually, there's only 681 footnotes. But maybe he'll stand by the
truth of every statement after that one. (For the record, I have 769
footnotes in my shorter book about Obama,
which, based on Hannity's faulty logic, must mean that my book is 13%
more true than Corsi's.) The fact is, a footnote to an unreliable
right-wing blogger isn't proof of the truth; it's proof that Corsi will
write and cite anything, no matter how false, if it serves his far
right agenda.
Corsi begins his book by noting that he titled it "Obama Nation"
because that sounds like "abomination."(x) This bad Biblical pun
damning Obama as evil reflects the sleazy attacks Corsi makes
throughout the book. Corsi recounts that at World Net Daily, "a large
number of e-mails were received from readers objecting that Obama was
not the Messiah but rather the biblical Antichrist prefigured in Saint
John's Apocalypse."(225) Corsi denies that he thinks Obama is the
Antichrist, but much of his book is devoted to demonizing Obama.
Corsi has admitted in one interview
about Obama's memoir, "I had to read it about six times before I began
to figure it out." Thousands and thousands of people have read Obama's
book, and Corsi seems to be the only one who had to read it six times
before he could figure out that Obama was critical of his father's
flaws. No, correct that: Corsi actually never figured it out himself.
He admits that he wondered "why Obama failed to discuss his father's
alcoholism and polygamy in his autobiography."(24) But Corsi writes
that he is told by journalist Rob Crilly that he's wrong, that Obama in
fact writes about all of this in his book (it's described in depth on
pages 125-126, 215-217, and 344 of Obama's memoir). Unable to confess
his own inability to read a book that he claims he's almost
"memorized," Corsi prefers to blame Obama: "What is Obama trying to
hide and why would he do so?"(24) Confronted with proof of his own
stupidity, Corsi prefers to believe that Obama tried to conceal his
father's flaws in a book which is all about discovering his father's
flaws.
It takes real chutzpah to read a highly acclaimed book six times,
overlook the most basic facts clearly written in it, and then blame the
author for concealing the truth that he actually wrote. But Corsi has
no shame. He writes: "That Obama's father was a polygamist and an
alcoholic may or may not tell us much about Obama. But that Obama does
not present the true story about his father outright in his
autobiography, in an easy-to-follow fashion, leaves the reader to
discover the revelation, much as Obama claims he himself did."(296) As
a literary critic, Corsi is simply dreadful. The brilliance of Obama's
memoir is that he lets the reader discover the flaws of his father just
as Obama did himself. It's crazy to imagine that Obama's memoir is
deceptive because he didn't follow a strict chronological order.
OBAMA'S MEMOIR
Corsi's embarrassing factual errors begin at the very start of his
book. Corsi writes: "Interestingly, Obama did not dedicate Dreams from
My Father to his mother, or to his father, Barack Senior, or to his
Indonesian stepfather. Missing from the dedication are the grandparents
who raised him in Hawaii...." That is very interesting, since Obama
wrote in the introduction to his memoir, "It is to my family, though --
my mother, my grandparents, my siblings, stretched across oceans and
continents -- that I owe the deepest gratitude and to whom I dedicated
this book."(xvii)
In an appearance on MSNBC, Corsi tried to explain away this mistake pointed out by Media Matters:
"In the introduction that he wrote after, this was going with the
second book. And the original book had no dedication page and this is
not the typical way that you dedicate a book. So I'm making the
distinction there is no dedication page in the book at all, never has
been." Once again, Corsi is wrong. The introduction where Obama
dedicates his book to his family appears in the original edition of
Obama's memoir, as well as the revised edition Corsi used for his book.
Moreover, Corsi's attack against Obama was that he had not dedicated
the book to his family, not that he didn't have a specific dedication
page. But rather than admit a clear factual error, Corsi continues to
deny that he made a mistake and tries to deceive viewers about his book.
Corsi claims that in Obama's memoir, "we find Obama caught up in
half-truths"(18) because, Corsi reveals, Obama's father had turned down
a full scholarship from the New School in order to attend Harvard.
Where did Corsi learn this? Well, actually, it was printed right there
in Obama's memoir. But Corsi calls it a "half-truth" because "Obama
does not make this important point chronologically."(18)
It's difficult to convey just how bad of a reader Corsi is. Although
he has a Ph.D. (as he reminds us on the cover of the book and the top
of every other page), Corsi seems incapable of the most basic reading
skills. Instead, Corsi complains about Obama's memoir, "Deciphering the
truth takes much effort...."(18) Unfortunately for his readers, Corsi
is not someone who likes to put a lot of effort into a book, whether
he's reading it or writing it.
Many of Corsi's critiques don't make any sense at all. Corsi attacks
Obama's memoir because he "never states precisely how many wives his
father had, or how many half-brothers and sisters he has from different
mothers...."(21) Yet Corsi himself interviews Obama's uncle: "Sayid
Obama was not even sure how many wives his brother had....The number of
children Obama Senior had is equally uncertain."(26) If Obama's uncle
doesn't know how many wives and children Obama's father had, why is
Corsi denouncing Obama for being unable to state the numbers
"precisely"?
According to Corsi, "Obama blames racism for breaking up his
parents' marriage, not his father's polygamist ways..."(21) Corsi
provides no citation for this false claim, probably because it's not
true.
Corsi devotes six full pages of his book to expose a "lie" about how
Obama's father came to America: "Obama is again lying about history to
claim JFK had anything to do with bringing his father to the United
States to study."(33) And what was this "lying"? As the Washington Post
discovered, John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family foundation had
funded a second airlift to bring African students to US colleges, but
that Obama's father had been part of the first airlift. When Obama
talks about the Kennedy family's role in helping bring students like
his father to America, he's not lying.
By contrast, Corsi's book is littered with factual errors, such as these identified by Media Matters:
Corsi claims that Obama's omits his half-sister's birth:
"remarkably, he makes no reference to Maya's birth"(48) In reality,
Obama mentions it on page 47 of his memoir.
Corsi claims that Obama's work as a community organizer in New York
City is "a job Obama does not mention in his autobiography."(129) Obama
does discuss it on page 139.
Corsi suggests that "Obama Senior, following the prescripts of
Islamic sharia law, divorced" Obama's mother in 1963.(44) In reality,
there's not any evidence, beyond the assertions of a right-wing blog, that the divorce had anything to do with sharia law.
According to Corsi, "Still, Obama has yet to answer questions
whether he ever dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and
cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into
his law school days or beyond."(77) In reality, Obama reports that
after he went to college at Columbia, "I stopped getting high."(120)
According to Corsi, "Nowhere in the autobiography does Obama
disclose that his wife-to-be accompanied him to Africa on the 1992
trip."(25) Not true. Obama writes on page 439, "After our engagement, I
took Michelle to Kenya to meet the other half of my family."
Corsi is fond of using a common technique: he cites some outrageous
claim as if it were true and then discusses the impact it would have on
voters. For example, he discusses a YouTube video and declares that
"What would be heard by most listeners is that Obama hates the military
so much that he might leave the United States defenseless against our
enemies..."(3)
False reports about religion form a major part of Corsi's book.
Corsi claims, "Obama's Kenyan father was Muslim."(20) In reality,
Obama's father was an atheist. This fact is confirmed in Corsi's own
book when Sayid Obama (Barack Sr.'s brother) declared, "I did not see
my brother practice Islam, especially after he came back from his
studies in the United States."(22) But Corsi claims, "there is no doubt
Obama Senior was a Muslim by birth and upbringing"(22) That's a lovely
claim, but unfortunately for Corsi, it's factually false: A Muslim,
like a Christian, is determined by faith, not by birth and upbringing.
Corsi writes, "Was Obama ever trained in Islam? Obama and his
presidential campaign vehemently deny he ever had anything to do with
Islam. But is that the truth?"(50) No, it's not the truth. But the lie
belongs to Corsi, not Obama or his campaign. According to Corsi: "Obama
did attend a government-run public school in Indonesia and he did
receive Islamic instruction, including study of the Koran. Here the
Obama campaign makes a mistake. I accept Obama's statement that he is a
Christian, but take exception to the claim that Obama was not
introduced to Islam as a child."(51) Of course, the Obama campaign
never claimed that Obama did not receive instruction about Islam, as he
explains in detail in his own memoir. Instead, the campaign asserted,
"Barack Obama is Not and Never Has Been a Muslim," which is true.
Studying the Koran doesn't make you a Muslim. Corsi claims that a blog
found Obama's school records and discovered his horrifying revelation:
"his religion was listed as Islam." Well, of course it was. You had to
be listed as Christian or Muslim at the school, and with an atheist
mother and a nominally Muslim stepfather, it was natural for Obama to
be listed as a Muslim.
Corsi attacks Obama at length because his memoir describes a
childhood Indonesian home in a "still-developing area on the outskirts
of the town." Corsi complains, "that physical description does not
match the Indonesia television news videos showing the house..."(54)
According to Corsi, it is "an attractive neighborhood in the center of
Jakarta."(54) Perhaps that's because things change. In 1970, my parents
lived in central Illinois near the edge of a cornfield; today, that
same house is in the center of town. In 1970, when Obama lived in
Indonesia, Jakarta had a population under four million; today, it's over 13 million.
But rather than the obvious explanation of urban growth, Corsi sees
only a vast Obama conspiracy: "it is hard to decipher what Obama might
be trying to hide by not being clear about the specific location of the
houses where he lived in Jakarta....Looking closely at Obama's
narrative, what dominates the story are the holes."(55)
Corsi notes "a bizarre but important story" where Obama recounts in
his memoir being nine years old and reading a Life magazine in the
embassy library and seeing a picture of "the black man who tried to
peel off his skin" after using a chemicals to lighten his skin.(65) An
extensive investigation by the Chicago Tribune found no such article in
Life magazine. It's possible that Obama had seen a July 1968 article in
Esquire, titled "A Whiter Shade of Black," which dealt with blacks who
used an ointment that turned their skin white. Or it's possible that as
a child Obama saw advertisements for skin bleaching products and simply
didn't remember it correctly two decades later. As a 1966 Time article noted, "Advertisements in the Negro magazines still hymn Nadinola skin bleach: 'Lightens and brightens skin.'"
Yet according to Corsi, "The entire episode suggests what
psychologists call 'hypothetical lying,' in other words, imagining
something that has not happened, but imagining it with so much precise
detail that the made-up memory functions for the person as if it were
real."(66) Astonishingly, Corsi concluded: "Has Obama lost the ability
to tell the difference between something that actually happened and
something he invented?"(66)
The irony here is that Corsi makes far more factual errors than
anyone has ever alleged against Obama's memoir, and Obama was trying to
remember incidents 20 years earlier that happened when he was a child.
Corsi offers yet another example of Obama's faulty memory: a photo
that Obama recalls seeing in Life magazine when he was in Indonesia was
apparently published in Life a year "after the date Obama wants us to
think he left Indonesia."(67) Corsi concludes, "the puzzle just adds to
the growing list of factual discrepancies or outright fabrications that
Obama manufactures, very likely on an ongoing basis. Even Indonesian
television reporters can't identify with certainty the addresses where
Obama lived with his family."(67) But it's ridiculous to conclude that
Obama is guilty of "fabrications" because he failed to remember the
exact year of his childhood that he saw a photograph in a magazine.
As Stephen Colbert said about Obama, "If we can't trust you to
remember which magazine you read in Indonesia when you were 9, how can
we possibly ever trust you to protect our country?"
WHO IS JEROME CORSI?
Corsi brags that he is a member of the far-right Constitution Party,
which "asked me to run as its presidential candidate in 2008..."(xi) As
Media Matters
noted, Corsi wrote many incredibly offensive and bigoted comments on
right-wing message boards. He called Islam "a worthless, dangerous
Satanic religion" and wrote that "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers." According
to Corsi, "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the
Pope as long as it isn’t reported by the liberal press." And Corsi
wrote, "didn’t John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has
paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
Corsi referred to Katie Couric as "Little Katie Communist." Corsi
called Bill Clinton "an anti-American communist." Corsi called Hillary
Clinton a "FAT HOG" and possibly a "lesbo," and repeatedly referred to
their daughter as "Chubbie Chelsea."
In short, Corsi is sexist, racist, and bigoted toward many different religions.
(Oddly, although Corsi has no problem denouncing Obama for a book
written almost 15 years ago discussing his childhood memories, when Bob
Beckel criticized Corsi's offensive online comments from 2002 and 2003,
Corsi complained, "you're going back to ancient history." But Corsi's
bigotry isn't ancient history. As recently as August 9, Corsi claimed that Martin Luther King Jr. was "a shakedown artist."
Corsi makes openly racist comments in his book, like "Obama's mother
chose another third world prospect for her second husband"(43) or
declaring, "the race Obama embraces is not that of his mother, although
he does have that choice."(63) Presumably, Corsi thinks that all Obama
needed to do was shout "Caucasian" loudly enough and no one would ever
notice that he's black. In Corsi's delusional imagination, "Obama wants
to will all the white blood out of himself so he can become pure
black."(91) Corsi declares, "His race, he self-determines, is
African-American. In making that determination, he rejects everyone
white, including his mother and his grandparents."(91) Of course,
anyone who actually reads Obama's memoir realizes that he never rejects
his family or white people. Corsi also worries, "If Obama does win the
presidency in 2008, he will be the first president in our history to
have an extended family in another country."(113) These sleazy attacks
are meant to convey that Obama isn't "American" enough.
Corsi writes, "I have pursued Obama's extensive connections with
Islam"(xv) and attacks Obama for being insufficiently anti-Muslim.
Corsi writes, "Obama could have an increasingly difficult time
convincing U.S. voters he is anything but pro-Islam"(298) and adds,
"Obama's experience with Islam predisposes him to Islam."(302)
Demanding that presidential candidates must hate all Muslims is a
particularly sick kind of bigotry.
Corsi even claimedin
an August 9, 2008 interview that Obama may not be an American citizen
and that his birth certificate is a fake: "We can't yet get the
authentic birth certificate....I'm convinced it's a forgery." According
to Corsi, "if a birth certificate were forged and put on a website,
it's conceivable that somebody committed a felony."
Here Corsi is embracing one of the dumbest conspiracy theories in the world. Obama's birth certificate, released by his campaign to stop these loony rumors, has been proven to be authentic, but far-right conspiracy theorists claimed
that the Obama campaign had taken the birth certificate of his sister,
Maya Kassandra Soetoro, and changed the date of birth, place of birth,
name, sex, and father's name to make it appear to be Obama's birth
certificate. This conspiracy theory supported by Corsi is particularly
stupid because Maya was born in Indonesia, not Hawaii, and therefore
doesn't have a Hawaiian birth certificate. The fact that Corsi supports
this conspiracy theory should make everyone question both his sanity
and his capacity for rational thought.
Corsi's crazy theories aren't limited to Obama. Corsi has accused
George W. Bush of running a secret conspiracy to destroy the United
States: "President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the
North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the
President is quietly forming....Why doesn't President Bush just tell
the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of
America into the North American Union." Conservative talk show host Michael Medved criticized Corsi and denounced these conspiracy theories as "puerile paranoia." Conservative blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News
condemned Corsi's lunacy: "Nobody has worked harder to convince people
that the completely moronic North American conspiracy theory is real."
Corsi wrote an entire book about this delusion, and has focused on a nonexistent "NAFTA superhighway" and even falsely published
an article saying that Mexican president Vicente Fox had confirmed
plans for the Amero, a fantasy of Corsi and the John Birch Society
about a new currency to replace the dollar.
PLAGIARISM
Corsi even accuses Obama of plagiarism, claiming his book was a
"borrowing of ideas." According to Corsi, "Many of the black-rage
paragraphs Obama wrote in Dreams from My Father bear a striking
resemblance to passages Frantz Fanon wrote in his first book, Black
Skin, White Masks...."(81) So what is this striking resemblance? Obama
wrote about the phrase "white folks" and Corsi quotes him: "Ray assured
me that we would never talk about whites without knowing exactly what
we were doing. Without knowing that there might be a price to pay." And
the "similarity" in Fanon's writing? "The black man has two dimensions.
One with his fellows, the other with the white man. A Negro behaves
differently with a white man and with another Negro."(81) The only
similarity here is the notion that blacks speak differently around
whites, which is one of the most common motifs in African-American
literature, and hardly original to Fanon or anyone else.
But Corsi has one last trick up his sleeve. He claims that Obama's
mis-remembered story about skin lightening was actually an idea stolen
from this passage in Fanon's book: "For several years certain
laboratories have been trying to produce a serum for 'denegrification'"
with all the earnestness in the world, laboratories have sterilized
their test tubes, checked their scales, and embarked on researches that
might make it possible for the miserable Negro to whiten himself and
thus to throw off the burden of that corporeal malediction."(82) This
is, of course, utterly silly. Chemicals to lighten skin had been around
for ages and widely advertised. Obama didn't need Fanon to come up with
the idea, especially since Fanon's bizarre notion of a
"denegrification" serum appears to be very different from the skin
chemicals.
To sustain this crazy theory of Obama plagiarizing Fanon, Corsi
asserts that "Frantz Fanon's revolutionary writings were instrumental
in shaping Obama's own political analysis of race."(126) Corsi goes
even further, imagining that Obama's distant father was the source of
some kind of Fanon obsession: "We do not know if Obama Senior ever
shared Fanon's writings with his son, but much of the expression of
black resentment Obama offers in Dreams from My Father appears strongly
influenced by Fanon's pages."(82-83) We do not know? Obama last saw his
father when he was 10 years old. Does Corsi really think that Obama
spent that short time as a kid with his father being indoctrinated in
the works of Frantz Fanon?
According to Corsi, "Obama railed against the same forms of racial
oppression his father must have felt under British colonialism."(83)
What is Corsi talking about? Obama ultimately rejects the "black rage"
that Corsi attributes to him, and nothing about it is "anticolonial" in
nature.
Corsi also accuses Obama of plagiarizing words from Deval Patrick,
ignoring the fact that Patrick had urged him to use those phrases and
was acting in the role of a speechwriter.(226) Then Corsi takes the
accusation of plagiarism to psychotic new levels. According to Corsi,
"Obama has repeatedly used the words bamboozled and hoodwinked,"
claiming that Axelrod was stealing dialogue from a Spike Lee movie that
used the same words.(228) Corsi also accuses Obama of plagiarism for
using the common pro-labor phrases "si se puede" and "yes we can."
Corsi even accuses Obama of plagiarism for using the word "change,"
claiming that "the use of 'change' as a political slogan dates back to
socialist Saul Alinsky and his desire to cause a radical redistribution
of income from the haves to the have-nots in America. Does Axelrod
really want his candidate identified with Saul Alinsky?"(230) Needless
to say, it's highly doubtful that Alinsky invented the word "change."
According to Corsi, "Obama has borrowed phrases freely even from
movies, taking 'bamboozled' from Spike Lee's movie about Malcolm X and
the phrase 'He is the One' from the Matrix movie series."(300) Of
course, "bamboozled" existed as a word long before Spike Lee, and Obama
has never said he is "the One." Oprah Winfrey once said, "Is he the
one? South Carolina, I do believe he is the one to bring us the
audacity of hope."(229) To claim that Oprah Winfrey plagiarized from a
movie because she used the word "one" is silly.
Corsi's false attacks on Obama as a plagiarist are particularly
ironic because Corsi is himself a plagiarist. After right-wing blogger
Debbie Schlussel discovered that Corsi was repeatedly stealing her work
(while adding in mistakes), Schlussel declared that Corsi "is a plagiarist, plain and simple. He cannot be trusted."
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
Corsi's favorite attack against Obama is guilt by association. Corsi
complains that Bill Ayers "likes to present himself as the
'Distinguished Professor of Education' at the University of Illinois at
Chicago."(119) Perhaps that's because his title is "Distinguished Professor of Education."
Corsi claims that Obama's distant connection to Ayers "could easily
block Obama from the White House, and not just in 2008 but
forever."(120)
Corsi claims that, "In his eleven-year reign of underground terror,
Ayers participated in thirty bombings."(139) This is false; Corsi's
sole source is a World Net Daily article that offers no source for this
claim. Altogether, there were perhaps 30 bombings and attempted
bombings blamed on the Weather Underground,
but no one imagines that Ayers participated in all of them, since the
organization was highly decentralized while on the run from the police.
Of course, there's no reason why Corsi needs to exaggerate Ayers'
crimes. What Ayers did was appalling and stupid. But it has nothing to
do with Obama, who has condemned Ayers' past. (By contrast, John McCain
has never been asked to criticize G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate
criminal he calls his "friend" who urged his radio listeners to shoot
federal law enforcement agents in the head; nor has McCain ever been
asked about Oliver North, the Contragate criminal who illegally
funneled government money and weapons to support the terrorist
activities of the Contras.)
Corsi claimed Alice "Palmer would never have introduced Obama to the
Hyde Park political community at the Ayres-Dohrn home unless she saw an
affinity between Ayers and Dohrn's radical leftist history, her own
history of far-leftist politics, and the politics of Barack
Obama."(137) But the event wasn't held primarily for Obama. It was
Palmer's own announcement that she would run for Congress, as the Politicoarticle
cited by Corsi made clear. Obama was there as Palmer's endorsed
successor for her Senate seat, but there's no evidence that he had any
role in deciding to hold it at Ayers' home.)
Corsi claims about Obama: "either he did not know Ayers and Dohrn
are still radical leftists—in which case he is implausibly naive—or
Obama did know, which would confirm he joined with Ayers and Dohrn
because Obama too continues to believe, albeit silently and secretly,
in the Far Left's radical agenda."(140) Of course, Corsi is so
desperate to push the conspiracy theory of Obama as a secret left-wing
radical that he omits another possibility: that Obama knew Ayers was a
leftist, but he didn't care. Perhaps Obama believes in the notion of a
free society, where you work with people you disagree with.
But according to Corsi, "Even today, Ayers appears to hold the same
radical political beliefs he did in the Weather Underground, and Obama
had to know that was also the case when he first met Ayers in
1995."(147) Corsi doesn't explain how Obama "had to know" Ayers' views
on politics when he first met him. Telepathy? Mind-reading?
Corsi is fond of quoting other people to make the distortions and
deceptions he's afraid to do himself. He quotes a blogger referring to
Ayers as "Obama's boss" and explains that reference was due to Ayers
being chair of the Woods Fund board.(147) Corsi doesn't bother to
correct this error (the chair of a foundation board is not the "boss"
of the members)
Much like David Freddoso's anti-Obama book (which I reviewed here),
Corsi uses McCarthyist red-baiting techniques to attack Obama, such as
his childhood friendship with an alleged communist poet, Frank Marshall
Davis. Corsi glorifies the "McCarthy-era committees seeking to expose
communists considered to be a security threat."(86) So what "threat"
did this committee find in Davis? According to Corsi, he wrote articles
criticizing a Hawaii "Commission on Subversive Activities" and a 1951
article in a communist newspaper. Corsi notes that authors read by
Obama were also reds: Langston Hughes and Richard Wright "both had
communist connections as well."(86)
Corsi also denounces Obama's alleged connections to Saul Alinsky,
because he worked for a community group that utilized some of Alinsky's
techniques. According to Corsi, "When Obama tells audiences that his
community organizing experience 'taught me a lot about listening to
people as opposed to coming with a premeditated agenda,' he is reciting
pure Alinsky dogma."(135) To Corsi, listening is "intrinsically an
elitist view; always, the organizer knows best."(135) This is an
Orwellian perversion of language to claim that listening is "an elitist
view."
Corsi quotes numerous far-right sources to "prove" his claims, such
as this: "Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has characterized Obama's
Dreams from My Father as a 'dimestore Mein Kampf,'" an insane notion
that Corsi doesn't criticize at all.(78) Corsi doesn't explain why he
thinks it's reasonable to compare Obama to Hitler.
Another guilt-by-association smear by Corsi is against Rashid
Khalidi, a brilliant Columbia University professor who once taught at
the University of Chicago and held a fundraiser for Obama. Corsi offers
only this baseless attack: "Khalidi's views are clearly anti-American"
because he criticizes US support for Israeli settlements in
Palestine.(142)
Corsi even condemns Obama for attending a 1998 Arab community
fundraiser featuring the scholar Edward Said. Based on photographs of
the event, Corsi makes this accusation: "Obama engages in what appears
to be animated conversation with the professor. A second photograph
shows Obama and Michelle paying close attention to Said as the
professor delivers the evening's keynote address."(142) What a shocking
revelation! Barack Obama actually listened to a world-renowned
professor and then had a conversation with him.
Corsi even goes after the parents of Obama campaign workers. He
attacks Obama advisor David Axelrod because his mother wrote in the
1940s for PM, a left-wing newspaper in New York.(216) Corsi even
includes a bizarre section noting that Axelrod's father killed himself
and "Obama's father killed himself driving drunk."(218)
According to Corsi, Michelle Obama "made herself look like a black
racist."(233) How, exactly, did she do that? Michelle's senior thesis
at Princeton on race included an analysis of "black separatism" and she
helped define that term by using a 1967 book, Black Power, which was
co-written by Stokely Carmichael, who has since often made crazy
speeches insulting whites and Jews. So, even though Michelle never
embraced black separatism, because she cited a book to define it
written by a controversial figure, she is therefore a "black
racist."(232) Incredibly, Corsi extends his guilt-by-association
attacks even to the reading of books.
Nothing quite embodies the sleaziness of Corsi's attacks so much as
his smear of Sam Graham-Felsen, one of Obama's official bloggers. Corsi
recounts how "Graham-Felsen's bookcase in the Quincy House dorm
included titles by Karl Marx and Howard Zinn..."(149) Imagine that: a
college student who has books! Graham-Felsen is also deemed guilty for
praising Noam Chomsky.(149) And then, as Media Matters pointed out,
Corsi falsely presents an article Corsi wrote for the Nation as being
written for the magazine "Socialist Viewpoint" (which in reality
reprinted it from the Nation, as it reprints many mainstream
publications). Corsi then describes the publication in breathless
detail: "The Socialist Viewpoint is a magazine published by the
Socialist Workers Organization, a group that describes itself as
'formed to advance the revolutionary Marxist political program in the
United States.'"(150) Finally, Corsi declares, "Little Green Footballs
has called Graham-Felsen 'a hardcore Marxist.'"(151) Wow, Little Green
Footballs, there's an unimpeachable source. Corsi quotes another
blogger who embraces his McCarthyism: "exactly what is a Democratic
candidate doing with a staffer who acts as the campaign's public's face
when the staffer is featured in Marxist publications?"(151)
Corsi concludes his chapter on Obama's radical views by writing:
"How possibly can Obama argue his association with radicals such as
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn was a long time ago, when he continues
to recruit a Marxist sympathizer such as Sam Graham-Felsen to be an
official blogger of his 2008 presidential campaign?"(151) Corsi
actually believes that Obama should be held responsible for the failure
of his campaign to ban anyone who has read a book by Karl Marx or
Howard Zinn. Perhaps it would assist the Obama campaign if Corsi came
up with a list (let's call it a "blacklist") of books that anyone
associated with his campaign is not allowed to have read at any point
in their lives.
REVEREND WRIGHT
Not surprisingly, Corsi joins in the right-wing attacks on Obama for
attending the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Twice in the book, Corsi
observes that Wright is often "wearing a dashiki"(10) and "gives his
sermons while dressed in African garb,"(180) as if his clothing alone
should be used to condemn him.
Corsi attacks Wright's sermon after 9/11 that mentioned America's
"chickens coming home to roost." According to Corsi, "Reverend Wright
adapted the phrase to imply that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were
divine retribution for white America's continuing racial
injustice."(181) That's not true. Wright never said
that 9/11 was due to "divine retribution" (that was Pat Robertson's
theory) or "racial injustice." Wright was making the argument that
America's foreign policy had bred resentment in the world, and
"violence begets violence."
When Obama said that he hadn't heard the most outrageous comments of
Rev. Wright being shown over and over again in the press, Corsi wrote:
"Obama's denial spurred investigators to prove the contrary. On March
16, two days after Obama's denial appeared on the Huffington Post, new
evidence emerged. NewsMax's Ronald Kessler reported that Obama had been
in Trinity United Church of Christ on July 22, when Kessler was
present. Kessler claimed he and Obama both heard Wright preach a sermon
that day in which the preacher blamed the 'white arrogance' of
America's Caucasian majority for the world's suffering, especially the
oppression of blacks."(196) As Media Matters pointed out, Obama was
actually in Miami giving a speech at 1:30pm that day. But for Corsi,
facts don't really matter. Corsi also gets his basic facts wrong. It
was Jim Davis, not Kessler, who falsely claimed to be in church with Obama that day. Corsi toldthe
New York Times, "We can nitpick the date to death." But the whole point
of this fake story about the date was to prove that Obama was in the
church when Wright made one of his controversial remarks. If the date
is wrong (and it is), then the accusation is false.
Corsi recounts how Obama criticized Wright's "distorted view" of
racism and America and accuses him of "clearly contradicting" himself,
writing about this gotcha moment: "How could Obama know these were the
subjects of Wright's sermons unless he had heard them?"(197) Gee, I
don't know, maybe it could have been the round-the-clock news coverage
showing Wright's speeches over and over again. Is Corsi really this
stupid? Or does he think his conservative readers are so stupid that
they will swallow this nonsense without thinking?
Corsi regularly attacks Obama's faith. Corsi writes, "before Obama's
baptism at Trinity, when he was nearly thirty years old, there is no
other life incident evidencing he is a Christian."(187) It's a
particularly bizarre accusation: Before Obama became a Christian, there
was no "life incident" showing he was a Christian. But that's really
the definition of what it means to become a Christian. Corsi seems to
think that a Christian must prove that he was a Christian before he
became a Christian in order to be called a real Christian.
Corsi also makes another baseless attack on Obama's faith, claiming
that Obama felt that he "did not necessarily have to be a believer" to
join his church. Corsi tries to prove this by quoting what Obama writes
in The Audacity of Hope: "faith doesn't mean you don't have
doubts....religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical
thinking...."(188) Amazingly, Corsi compares Obama to Machiavelli for
this, calling Obama's faith "a calculated decision to position yourself
favorably in the eyes of those you want to lead, whether you believe in
the decision or not."(188) In Corsi's view, Christians are incapable of
critical thinking and doubt, and by showing his ability to think
rationally, Obama must not be a Christian.
Corsi tries to associate Obama with black radicals, and even
mentions a short profile on biography.com about Louis Farrakhan that
declares, "along with other prominent black leaders such as Al Sharpton
and Barack Obama, Farrakhan helped lead the Million Man March on
Washington."(191) Corsi writes, "Obama's supporters, who clearly want
to move Obama as far away from Farrakhan as possible, will be certain
to disavow that Obama had any leadership role in Farrakhan's 1995
march."(192) Actually, they'll be certain to disavow it because it's
not true. Obama attended the event, but he never had a leadership role
(in fact, he criticized the march organizers).
Corsi seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to put false information
in his book as long as he's quoting someone on the internet.
THE KENYA CONSPIRACY
According to Corsi, "Obama's 2006 trip to Kenya evidenced his
continued ties to a Raila Odinga, a fellow Luo tribesman, who was
running for president of Kenya as a Muslim sympathizer with well-known
communist political roots."(93) Corsi falsely claims that Obama was
"supporting Odinga openly in Kenya."(93)
What was the connection? When Obama spoke publicly to a crowd,
Odinga was nearby. That's it. No endorsement. No mention of Odinga by
Obama. Just this appearance where Odinga could be seen near Obama.
According to Corsi, "Obama, by being seen this prominently with Odinga
in public, had injected himself into the presidential contest on the
side of his tribesman."(95-96)
From this slight connection, Corsi goes on for an incoherent 20-page
diatribe against Odinga and the intricacies of Kenyan politics. Corsi
condemns Odinga, a Christian, for making an agreement with a Muslim
group to maintain "open links of communication" if elected president,
which Corsi calls "an undeclared radical Islamic political agenda."(107)
Corsi also attacks Obama for criticizing the corruption of the
Kenyan government that Odinga was opposing. Corsi seems to be arguing
that there's no corruption in Kenya, and the shakedown fees reported by
a local Chicago news team to enter Kenya were simply a
miscommunication.(96)
After the disputed election, when violence broke out between
supporters of each candidate, Obama recorded a message urging peace at
the request of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Corsi condemns this
by writing, "Senator Obama has continued to insert himself into Kenyan
politics."(104) Corsi even repeats conspiracy theories by some in Kenya
who think that Obama as president would overthrow the Kenyan government
"by means either military or political" to install Odinga.(106)
In one particularly bizarre part of the book, Corsi recounts how
political consultant Dick Morris showed up in Kenya to volunteer for
Odinga's campaign (he was expelled from the country by the Kibaki
regime Corsi admires). According to Corsi, "Morris's showing up in
Kenya makes no sense outside the Obama-Odinga connection. Odinga
critics speculated that Morris had been recommended by former Clinton
associates working for Obama."(115) In reality, Morris worked in the
past for both Democrats and Republicans before his sex scandal
involving a prostitute drove him to the far right-wing. Corsi mentions
that "Morris had been openly critical of Hillary Clinton's campaign
against Obama"(115) without bothering to mention that Morris is a
conservative who hates the Clintons but also hates Obama, even falsely reporting
in a January 2007 column that Obama had voted against an ethics reform
bill that Obama actually voted for. Like so much else in this book,
Corsi's fantasy of an Obama-Odinga conspiracy has zero evidence to
support it.
THE REZKO CONSPIRACY
Corsi falsely accuses Obama of taking bribes from Antonin Rezko.
According to Corsi, "As we shall see, Rezko was persistent, ultimately
convincing Obama to drop working for political organizing causes so he
could supplement the dwindling advance he had received at Harvard to
write a book with real income as a lawyer, working the small Chicago
law firm where the lead partner did much of Rezko's slumlord legal work
for him."(157) This badly-written sentence includes some astonishing
accusations, namely that Rezko was the one who convinced Obama to work
for a small law firm that specialized in civil rights advocacy so that
"Obama could work for Rezko indirectly and benefit from Rezko's
connections."(158) There's only one problem with Corsi's assertion: He
doesn't have any evidence to support it. In a section completely free
of footnotes, Corsi simply proclaims: "The likelihood is that Rezko
played a role in getting Obama to join Davis Miner Barnhill &
Galland."(158) Likelihood? That's a strong word for a completely
baseless accusation.
Rezko had tried to hire Obama for his firm after he graduated from
law school, which Obama turned down. But Corsi treats this as some
secret conspiracy: "Alinsky taught that power was everything and that
image, words, and positioning were just methods to capture power,
working from communities up. Whatever Obama and Rezko talked about in
their first meeting, the record shows Obama ended up working for the
lawyer Allison Davis, who was one of Rezko's business partners."(159)
None of this makes any sense. After law school, Obama could have worked
almost anywhere and made a lot of money. Obama gave that up to work for
a civil rights firm, not because Rezko made him some kind of a deal to
promise him work at the law firm that he could have gotten anywhere.
Yet Corsi concludes that Obama "took steps that helped Davis and
Rezko in their business relationship."(159) In reality, all Obama did
was his job. He did about five hours of routine legal work on behalf of
community groups doing affordable housing projects with Davis and
Rezko, since it's not surprising that Davis would choose his former law
firm to do the work. But this is Corsi's attempt to blame Obama for
Rezko's corrupt business dealings and Rezko's failure to maintain
low-income housing.
Throughout the book, Corsi demands that Obama should have quit his
job even though no one knew about Rezko's crimes. Corsi wonders why
Obama "continued to work for a law firm that had Rezko as a
client."(164)
Corsi declares, "There is no record that Illinois state senator
Obama ever so much as placed a speech in the record objecting to the
public-housing practices perpetuated in his district by Tony Rezko, let
alone calling for investigation of Rezko and his business
practices."(164) That's because there's no record that Obama ever knew
about the problems with Rezko's business. The newspapers never reported
on it until long after Obama left the state senate, and complaints from
tenants would go to local aldermen and city officials, not to a state
senator.
Corsi repeatedly tries to claim that Rezko overpaid for the lot he
bought alongside Obama's house, but it's not true. Corsi admits that
Rezko's wife sold the lot for a profit to Rezko's former attorney,
Michael Sreenan, but treats this as part of the conspiracy: "in an
article titled 'Obama is one lucky fellow,' Rezko Watch found it was
unlikely that Sreenan would actually construct any condos on the lot he
had bought from Rita Rezko."(167) Corsi omits the fact (revealed in a
Salon.com article Corsi cites) that Sreenan currently has the lot for
sale at $950,000, $375,000 more than he paid for it. As numerous
reports have found, the price Obama and Rezko paid for their properties
was perfectly legitimate.
Unable to show any wrongdoing, Corsi offers this desperate argument:
"Even if no illegality is ever identified, Obama's continued
willingness to take campaign contributions from his 'friend' Rezko,
even after serious allegations about Rezko's low-income housing empire
began to be raised, have the feel of impropriety."(170) But according
to Opensecrets.org, Rezko's last donation to Obama came on October 3,
2003, long before any scandal about Rezko appeared—and two months
before Rezko gave $4,000 to George W. Bush's campaign. Would Corsi
blame Bush for the "feel of impropriety" of taking money from Rezko?
Corsi declares, "investigative reporters have drawn a line from
Obama to Rezko to Saddam Hussein's Oil for Food scandal, with the key
connecting point being billionaire Nadhmi Auchi."(173) But that same
line could be drawn from George W. Bush or any other politician Rezko
knew, since it's pure guilt by association.
Corsi concludes his corruption chapter with one final outrageous
lie: Obama "overlooked Rezko's questionable activities to take money
not just to finance his campaigns but to buy the mansion he feels his
family deserves."(175) Corsi's claim that Obama somehow took money from
Rezko to buy Obama's house is a total fabrication. There is not even
the slightest bit of evidence to support it. Obama had a bank loan and
a $1.2 million book advance to buy his $1.65 million home. It's insane
to imagine that Obama, after winning a seat in the US Senate, took a
massive cash bribe he didn't need from Rezko and somehow concealed all
the money.
CORSI ON THE ISSUES
In the final line of the book, Corsi writes: "If he sticks to the
issues, McCain will defeat Barack Obama."(304) That's ironic advice
from a writer who devotes almost all of his book to false
guilt-by-association smears. Corsi includes almost nothing in this book
about Obama's policies, and what he does write about is usually wrong.
For example, Corsi claims that Obama "pledged to reduce the size of
the military,"(257) and claims that there are "video clips that show
his saying he wants to reduce the military"(279) but Corsi provides no
evidence or citation for this assertion. In reality, Obama has pledged
to increase the size of the military by 92,000 troops. Corsi attacks
Obama for declaring, "America seeks a world in which there are no
nuclear weapons."(261) Of course, he ignores the fact that Ronald
Reagan (and many other presidents) have made similar statements.
Corsi even tries to attack Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq.
Twice in the book, Corsi notes that "Obama's speech was not recorded by
anyone."(258) The text of Obama's speech is widely available, and it's
not clear if Corsi is claiming that Obama never made the speech or
later on changed the content of it to oppose the war. Corsi even tries
to refute Obama's claim that he was in the midst of a U.S. Senate
campaign: "he gave his famous antiwar speech in October 2002 but didn't
officially declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate until January
2003."(258) Of course, anyone familiar with politics understands that
candidates are often running for office long before an official
announcement is made. Like so many other "gotcha" moments in Corsi's
book, he's simply wrong.
Abortion is the issue Corsi is most obsessed about. According to
Corsi, "Obama has consistently refused to support legislation that
would define an infant who survives a late-term induced-labor abortion
as a human being with the right to live."(238) In reality, Obama has
said he supported a US Senate bill that protects the life of any infant
surviving an abortion of any kind at any time. Corsi also claims, "He
insists that no restriction must ever be placed on the right of a
mother to decide to abort her child."(238) This is also factually
wrong. Obama has endorsed the standard of Roe v. Wade, which allows for
state restrictions on late-term abortions so long as the health and
life of the mother is protected. In fact, Obama drew some criticism
from abortion rights supporters because he said that a mother's "mental
distress" alone should not qualify for the health exception. What Corsi
calls "Obama's radical pro-abortion views"(240) actually represent what
a majority of Americans believe.
On Fox and Friends, Corsi declared:
"Obama on the floor of the Illinois state senate said that woman had an
absolute right to abortion, to kill the baby even if it survived that
abortion." When he was challenged, Corsi declared: "You haven't looked
at the tapes, I'm sorry." In reality, the transcript of the 2001 senate session
cited by Corsi shows that Obama says nothing close to what Corsi
claims. Obama expresses support for caring for fetuses after botched
abortions. He only objects to the wording of the bill out of fear that
it might be used to "essentially bar abortions" by defining the fetus
as a person entitled to Constitutional protections.
Corsi offers a particularly inept attack on Obama's support for
raising capital gains tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. After
confusing corporate taxes with capital gains taxes, Corsi claims that
with higher taxes, "the government ends up collecting less capital
gains tax revenue, not more. Why? The answer is fairly simple: under
higher capital gains tax rates, investors realize their gains before
the higher capital gains rates kick in."(245) Of course, a capital
gains tax increase causes investors to cash out their gains (which
provides a temporary revenue jump for the government). But that doesn't
reduce future capital gains. Corsi argues that higher tax rates produce
lower tax revenues, a standard conservative canard: "The economics of
this principle have been proved repeatedly in the two decades since
Reagan was president."(245) Actually, exactly the opposite is true: tax
revenues have grown substantially since tax hikes were passed by George
Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton. By Corsi's logic, tax rates
should be reduced to 0.01%, which would magically produce the highest
tax revenues.
Some of Corsi's policy attacks on Obama are comical. According to
Corsi, "Obama quietly steered his Global Poverty Act, known as S. 2433,
through the Senate."(250) Corsi cites right-wing critics who declare
that the legislation "would commit the U.S. To spending 0.7 percent of
Gross Domestic Product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal
total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already
spends."(250) This is utter nonsense. The $845 billion figure is
entirely fictional, although the Republican National Committee
continues to push it for fundraising purposes. Nothing in the bill
commits the US to any level of spending, as merely reading the text of
the bill would show. Did Corsi even bother to do that? The fact that
Corsi repeats yet another right-wing crackpot fraud as if it were real
shows how little journalistic credibility he should have.
Rather than examining issues, Corsi concludes one chapter with a
section titled "Obama, Secret Smoker,"(234) in which he actually asks
this question: "If Obama takes pains to hide his smoking from us, what
else does he take pains to hide?"(235) His book features subheadings
such as "Obama: Angry in Hawaii"(71), "Obama's Communist Mentor"(84),
"Obama Can't Bowl"(212), "Michelle, the Angry Obama"(230), and "Obama
Fails to Hold Hand over Heart During National Anthem."(253)
Corsi misreads Obama's books, selectively cites bits of information
from the mainstream press, quotes unsubstantiated smears from
right-wing bloggers, and then adds his own mix of lies, unsupported
speculation, and conspiracy theories to this stew of slime.
Crossposted at Huffington Post and DailyKos.
