Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Mary Matalin says that The Obama Nation, the innuendo-filled spawn of her new publishing venture, is not a political book but a “piece of scholarship.”
Uh huh. If Jerome Corsi is a scholarly writer, I can diagram the human genome on a matchbook cover.
Scholar? He’s closer to an ogre, but not the fearsome kind. In literary terms, he’s the troll who hides under the bridge.
Four years ago he co-authored a book that was central to the “swiftboat” effort to question the war record of John Kerry.
Now he’s back floating another thin shell of a narrative and rumor. He’s backed by the politically driven (Matalin was one of Dick Cheney’s top aides), and promoted by the politically driven (Fox News).
Fortunately, unlike when Kerry took the hits — deemed weak for an inadequate response to the attacks — this time the focus has turned to the accusers.
On Obama’s behalf, Kerry, meanwhile, has set up a Web site, truthfightsback.com, to cofront the accusations.
Last week, challenges on CNN by the watchdog group Media Matters and by interviewer Larry King left Corsi playing the victim of “ad hominem” attacks and unfair accusations.
You mean, like insinuating that Obama is a drugged-out, closet Muslim?
Corsi does his “reporting” for WorldNet Daily. For those not initiated, it is to news what the Unabomber was to the art of letter writing.
Corsi has made statements that would cause any publisher to think twice about him. He’s authored such lines as:
“We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that’s probably about it.”
And this reference to Islam: “Ragheads are boy-bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters — it all goes together.”
Corsi said on CNN that he’s apologized for such remarks and that it is unfair to judge him by them.
But of course it is not unfair to judge Obama, say, by comments made by his former pastor or to pluck words from Michelle Obama’s college writings to imply that she’s a latter-day Stokely Carmichael.
Corsi’s joint effort with John O’Neill on Unfit for Command, which targeted Kerry’s war record, was full of attribution to unfit sources.
Kerry won a Bronze Star for turning his boat around in the face of enemy fire and rescuing a fellow soldier. That man is alive to corroborate the story.
But the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — a politically bankrolled organization hiding behind a term of valor — sought to obscure Kerry’s deeds in a swamp of innuendo. What kind of enemy fire? Automatic? Small arms?
Regardless of what was flying through the air, Kerry was there. When and where and if he dodged bullets, he didn’t dodge service like numerous individuals who later would hitch rides on fortune to posts where they would send sons and daughters off to wars they would never fight.
Now the fight is to paint Obama as somehow not a true American because of his exotic familial ingredients and influences.
No question, this new smear campaign has a receptive audience. But those political operatives who nod and wink as the effort proceeds are deceiving themselves this time.
The receptive audience is so firmly locked in the “base” of the Republican Party as to be in the basement when it comes to the bloc of voters Obama and McCain are fighting to win.
The voters up for grabs don’t care about pre-fab smears and guilt by pseudo association. They care about matters like the economy, health care, wars based on falsehoods and who will populate the Supreme Court.
Corsi is going to sell some books as sure as there’s a Fox News. But this time the rest of the news world is not so inclined to give a politically fueled “swiftboater” a free pass. Indeed, it is he who comes under fire this time.
John Young’s column appears Thursday, Sunday and occasionally Tuesday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By coma kid
Aug 22, 2008 12:35 AM | Link to this
Jim,
your response to #1 is certainly plausible. it seems that the trouble is separating economic theory from economic practice... which theory actually bears fruit? ...and i am no economist either. i'm just frustrated that, after total republican control of the government for six of the last eight, the benefits haven't trickled down. bush's tax cuts have been in place for a while now, but i don't see a lot of new jobs. unemployment rises, jobs get shipped overseas, recession looms. am i wrong to doubt the president's economic policies?
i realize that the counter argument to this is that, well, it takes a long time for the executive branch to effect meaningful change, and bush's tax cuts haven't had time to work yet. but i really just don't buy it. then again, no economist here.
as to your response to #2, i guess i should just say that, while inefficiency is inherent to any beaurocracy, the government, with all its inefficiencies, may still be the only way to provide for the people that the free market has left behind. there's some fatalism in you when you write,
"Until then the rest of us with insurance can still grit our teeth and pay the premiums and those without can keep praying nothing bad happens."
and of course, there's plenty of reason to be fatalistic. i don't intend that as a criticism. but hey, i just want to try something new! or maybe even borrow some ideas from other countries. european countries, at least some of them, do a better job of caring for their sick then we do. they might not invest as much in new treatments or better drugs... hell, maybe that's our role... the cruel innovator... but i doubt you'd see someone die on the floor of a waiting room over there (did you see that video, recently? it was awful. this poor lady in Brooklyn just lay there, dead, for a long time, before anyone showed any concern).
anyway, i seem to have lost the thread (it's late, i'm sorry). but i appreciate the dialogue. i look forward to more of it, maybe under another column?
By jim
Aug 21, 2008 12:53 PM | Link to this
coma kid,
In response to comment "1" I think that it could be argued that tax increases on the rich would lead to more outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries. I can barely balance my own checkbook so I'm by no means an economists but it seems to me that if corporations are asked to reduce their profit as a result of increased taxation those corporations will look to other means of recouping those loses such as outsourcing, cutting jobs, wages or all of the above.
In response to comment "2" the health care issue is simply too complicated for me to decipher. From my own personal experience I know that barely middle class and middle class folks that do not have the option of gettng health insurance from an employer and cannot afford it on their own, suffer greatly when they need even a simple medical procedure performed. I also know (again from personal experience) that people under a certain income level have the medicaid option. However no matter how cut-back the plan is it will be administered by a highly ineffiecent bureauacracy. This will lead to higher taxes, ridiculous amounts of red tape, and substandard care. If our government would cut back on current spending to make room for a national health care plan I would say "what's the harm?" but under our current situation I could not see supporting such an expensive undertaking. With the current U.S. government (both Republicans and Democrats) I see no hope for real budget cuts, but maybe someday they can reduce it enough to allow room for taking care of our own health care needs. Until then the rest of us with insurance can still grit our teeth and pay the premiums and those without can keep praying nothing bad happens.
By Bastrop Bob
Aug 21, 2008 10:58 AM | Link to this
Walt Mares makes some interesting points. When indeed did civil discourse begin going down the tubes? Now no one likes "uncivil" treatment of their favorite candidate.
However, in my opinion, what you are seeing is a REACTION to a specific strategy of misbehavior deliberately selected by the extreme Left dating back to the Vietnam "antiwar" movement (really "pro-defeat") I can remember the utter futility of debating anuyone in the SDS (Students for a "Democratic" Society).
Kerry sowed the seeds of his own destruction and motivated the writers of the "Unfit for Command" book when he spread vicious slander about millions of veterans returning from Vietnam. I was amazed at the apparent indifference to Kerry's infamous behavior demonstrated by the Democratic Party when they nominated him in 2004. This enraged the vets even more. The Vietnam Veterans beat John Kerry, not Karl Rove.
I engaged Corsi in a one-on-one, hour-long debate on a cruise ship last year. The topic doesn't matter, but he dis not engage in hystrionics or invective. I suspect his book is largely accurate.
By walt mares
Aug 21, 2008 1:21 AM | Link to this
I see you have a few repeat comment contributors. For some it seems to a form of therapy by which to become emotionally ramped up as if they were observing or participating in some type of virtual reality dogfight. What ever happened to civil discourse? The exchanges found herein that pass for dialogue remind of me of my drinking days at bars in which the restrooms alway smelled like last night's puke.
Young puts forth an issue that should be closely examined. Is this Corsi a liar or is he not? What credibility does he carry? These are questions that should be asked of anyone who postures himself as a purveyor of truth to a national audience? The issue is not one of being liberal or otherwise, but rather it is whether this man telling the truth?
One contributor asks about Young's military service. As a Vietnam veteran, I am far more interested in Corsi's military record, just as I am in that of George W. Bush.
Obama's severed ties to his former pastor should be no more pertinent than Cindy McCain's past drug addiction, during which time she stole drugs from her charitable foundation - a well-documented fact published in the Arizona news media. Neither should allegations of her father's ties to organized crime via his booze distributorship, also reported in the Arizona media.
You see? Dragging up the past can leave more than just one side quite soiled? I vote for civility.
By coma kid
Aug 20, 2008 7:02 PM | Link to this
oh, this is just too easy. hey, knucklehead! you misspelled "mispelling."
also, Jim,
first off, I dig where you're coming from. but, a couple of things i'd like to say in response.
1. i'm skeptical that the people making $250,000 and up would really invest that money in creating american jobs. if you look at the decisions being made by corporations and larger businesses, they're investing that money in creating jobs overseas, where employees are cheaper and labor laws are weak. i'd rather we reroute that money to the middle class, which, in theory-land, means increased consumption, which helps small businesses in the US, etc. what do you think?
2. national healthcare would indeed cost a lot. please don't think i'm not concerned about this. truly universal coverage, i think, is unrealistic in the states, for this reason, and that's one of the reasons i shied away from hillary and her universal health care plan. obama's, as i understand it, is more of a compromise, which relies on tax subsidies for the poor and doesn't mandate coverage after you turn 25. but, i gotta say, i think we've reached the point where improved access to health care is a moral requirement for our supposedly christian nation. we have so much, but it's spread so unevenly. we need to try something.
let's talk more?
By knucklehead
Aug 20, 2008 9:59 AM | Link to this
It only took the Trib one day to correct its mispelling of the word "swiftboat". No wonder the Waco rag is on the auction block. Any takers out there?
By jim
Aug 20, 2008 9:31 AM | Link to this
coma kid,
Tax releif will not happen if the rest of what you want does. Except for troop withdrawl and protecting roe vs. wade everything else takes tax dollars. National healthcare would cause a huge tax increase. Even middle-class tax relief which I would love to see is going to mean taxing the upper-class (which already funds most of our government spending) even more. Those are the people that provide most of our jobs. Government incentives that will likely last for years and years to come up with alternate energy sources will also increase taxes. The U.S. already has vast oil reserves were just not allowed to touch a large portion of them. IF Obama was able to do any of this it will just lead to a bigger and more ineffiecent government. Could we really expect to trust the current Congress under a democratic President to control spending?
Obama does not address any of these issues as far as how he would actually get them done while maintaining a healthy economy. Why? Because he is clueless.
Again I do not uderstand the fascination with Obama. How could anyone be drawn to a candidate that had any hint of anti-American sentiment. Supporters (including the media) spend most of their time trying to defend his past. Is that the type of person that you should be supporting? The fact that he has and for all we know is friends with Bill Ayers should cast enough doubt about his patriotism to eliminate him from the race.
By coma kid
Aug 19, 2008 11:35 PM | Link to this
"WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE THINK THAT THIS MORON SHOULD BE PRESIDENT?"
jim, well, i'm glad you asked.
i want tax relief for the middle class. conversely, i would like to end tax handouts to people making over $250,000 a year. i'm tired of our soliders getting killed in Iraq. i.e., i would like to see us withdraw responsibly from Iraq. i want roe vs. wade protected, not overturned. i want to see meaningful government incentives that fast track alternative sources of energy so that we won't be forever dependent upon undemocratic countries with atrocious human rights records. i would like to see pay-as-you-go spending when congress makes its budget. i would like to see health care made a national priority. i would like a government capable of responding to the next katrina, which means putting an end to republican cronyism. et freaking cetera.
the man has explained his positions, jim. you're just not listening.
By sammy
Aug 19, 2008 6:12 PM | Link to this
"[Obama's] exotic familial ingredients and influences" is Young-speak, not for "he's out of the American mainstream," but "he's so far away that he can't see the trees along the riverbank."
By knucklehead
Aug 19, 2008 4:15 PM | Link to this
And Comrade Young's military experience is...?
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