Jerome Corsi

Sen. Obama's campaign and the Left are going all out to discredit Jerome Corsi and his book The Obama Nation.

I'm inclined to think this Corsi's book won't have the punch as the Swift Boat one did in 2004. What made the Swift Boat attacks so effective were they cut straight to the heart of Sen. Kerry's message. Throughout the campaign Kerry made so many references to his Vietnam service it became a running gag, but it still played a key role in making Kerry present himself as a possible President. The Swift Boat veterans swooped in undercutting his narative.

In Corsi's case there's no people lining up to appear on television and around the country to counter Obama's biography. Now, if William Ayers were to renounce his terrorist past and campaign again Obama, that would be something.

Instead, we're left with a best-selling book that won't have much traction beyond the anti-Obama Right.

The French Revolution produced the saying "no enemies to the Left" - a mindset that has poisoned both the Left and the Right in American politics.  As a result, some figures who should be repudiated have, instead, become prominent representatives.  On the Right, in particular, the "go along to get along" approach has created a Movement where the bad guys are protected, and the people who get promoted are those who make friends, not waves.

It's wrong, and it needs to stop.  So, with that said...

The continued tolerance and prominence of Jerome Corsi - his books, columns and appearances - is just embarrassing.  It is embarrassing for the Right, embarrassing for Republicans, embarrassing for conservatives and libertarians, embarrassing for all of us. 

It's not just that he's frequently, remarkably wrong - something pretty well documented and acknowledged by both the Left and (while less enthusiastically) the Right.  (and the Obama campaign (PDF), of course)  Both the Obama campaign and Hugh Hewitt acknowledge that Jerome Corsi is "fringe".

Bad as his gross errors are, though, it's not just that.  It's also about who Jerome Corsi is. 

• Jerome Corsi is a smear artist (e.g., he has claimed that "Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lesbian and Muslims worship Satan").  
• Jerome Corsi has advocated the hysterical, deceptive North American Union conspiracy theory. 
• Jerome Corsi associates with white supremacists.
• Jerome Corsi is guilty of plagiarism.
• Jerome Corsi is a 9/11 Truther.

I mean, c'mon.  Have some standards.  This guy does not deserve the platform, he does not deserve the publicity, and he does not deserve to be treated as member-in-good-standing on the Right. 

The Right seems to engage today in social promotion of hatchet men, bullies and political hit men.  Those people poison the Right, and - whatever their temporary electoral effects - they serve to discredit us all.