Matalin: 'Obama Nation' Attack Book "Good Piece of Scholarship"

Jerome Corsi, the right-wing pamphleteer who wrote Unfit for Command, and helped set the tone for the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004, is back. He's now trying to do the same to Barack Obama with Obama Nation:

Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama...as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up "extensive connections to Islam" -- Mr. Obama is Christian -- and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased. Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is "Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1.

The book is being published by none other than Mary Matalin, who released this hilarious defense of the book:

Ms. Matalin said in an interview that the book "was not designed to be, and does not set out to be, a political book," calling it, rather, "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that."

Given that she's married to James Carville, I assume the woman has his rather impish sense of humor and that she held her hand over her mouth to conceal her laughter while she made this comment. Otherwise, perhaps she was on drugs.

I find it astonishing that this "piece of scholarship" otherwise known as a--dare I say it--"book" begins its life as number 1 on the NY Times Bestseller List. I've been struggling with the idea of whether or not to pursue writing a book myself. The fact that this jerk has written not one, but two of these execrable pieces of nonsense is galling beyond belief. There is no judge and there is no justice, is all I can say.

Comments

[research]

It's another conservative trick to have their rich buddies buy up enough books to make a bestseller.

Read "The Republican Noise Machine"

[Candyx]

It will soon be on the bargin isle of your local bookstore after all the right wing nuts have bought it up.

[Fremon]

No, they will give it out and send to the troops and true believers and use them as tax deductions. Murdoc at Fox does the same buying books by O'Reilly, etc to pump up sales then gives them out to the Kool Aid drinkers. Go to many bookstores and you will see these books quickly at 30+% off the week they come out;

[lisakaz2]

The bestseller list has more to do with the amount of books saturating bookstores vs. units actually sold. So making the list is about how much a publisher wants to push a book. If it doesn't have "legs" it won't stay there long. Some publishers try to jam a book onto the list in the hopes it garners attention from enough ppl to keep it there. Sure explains the msm here.

[BlackWidowPilot]

A favorite documented tactic of the so-called Church of $cientology is to buy up enough copies of their own books to earn placement on the Best Seller list.

No surprises here...

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[Beninn]

One Lie from the book:

==Mr. C0rsi writes that Mr. 0b.ama had “yet to answer” whether he “stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended to his law school days or beyond.” “How about in the U.S. Senate?” Mr. C0rsi asks.

But Mr. 0b.ama, who admitted to occasional marijuana and cocaine use in his high school and early college years, wrote in his memoir that he had “stopped getting high” when he moved to New York in the early 1980s. And in 2003 The State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill., quoted him responding to a question of his drug use by saying, “I haven’t done anything since I was 20 years old.”==

So 0b.ama DID answer.

[MissKaren]

I am shocked at Mary Matalin. I thought that she was better than that.

[Fremon]

Why?

[chosenson]

Mary Matalin is the former chief aide to Dick Cheney

[Beninn]

Why are you shocked? Why did you think she was better than that? Look at where she's been in her life, the decisions she's made, the people she has chosen to work with and for, and live with and marry (Carville's her third husband), which has included a lengthy relationship with Michael Carvin. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html

Her history includes working as chief of staff to Lee Atwater when he was the head of the RNC, and in April 2006, she was appointed Treasurer of Virginia Republican Senator George Allen's re-election committee.

For the last 8 years she has worked as special assistant to Dick Che.ney, was a member of the WHIG (White House Iraq Group), which was tasked with selling Americans on the Iraq war.

Matalin is just one of many bad people in the Republican Party. A good haircut and an expensive suit can get you far in life.

Trivia: The eye-popping diamond engagement ring next to her wedding ring was a gift to Matalin from Matalin. She bought it for herself.

[Mickeleh]

If you thought Mary Matalin was better than that, you haven't been paying attention.

[Massconfusion]

She worke for Dick Chaney - need I say more.

[PuppaX]

Mr. Corsi even acknowledged Obama's reply in an interview. Corsi just claimed that his response was inherently unreliable since he was a drug user.

[papasmif]

So maybe people who were previous drug users are unreliable in their speech. Does that include Mr. Limbaugh as well?

[SeeDaddy]

With that logic, everything Corsi says, writes and does is unrealiable because surely he has abused alcohol some time in his life. Therefore, his denials are unreliable because of his previous alcohol use. There is no way to prove your innocence with this logic."You're a drug user because I said so. And any proof to the contrary is proof that I'm right." And this guy is raking in the millions with this garbage. Lying pays and pays very well for neocons.

[S1m0n]

I doubt it'll have much effect. This is the kind of thing that can work once, but if done a second time, the public is able to see it as crying wolf.

It'll convince some people who'd never have voted for Obama in the first place, and everyone else will ignore it.

[4real]

It's a good piece of toilet paper.

BTW Corsi was ripped up on Larry King...looked like the fool that he is.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Obama should sue Corsi and Matalin for libel. Once they are under oath, they will wither away under the factual evidence that disputes their lies.

[DRaymond]

Yes a good piece of scholarship. He's studied very well how to make a bunch of lies sound scarry and convincing, studied how to work the self-promotion game, how to work the 'independent expenditure' organizations to help fund it, How to artificially punch a book to the number one spot on the NY Times list before it even hits the shelf.

Yes, a lot of carefull study went into this book.

[timregler]

Please join me in this effort. Every time I walk past a bookstore, I pledge to go in, grab a copy to this book, and quietly walk to the "fiction" section to place it where it belongs. C'mon, it'll be fun!

[RedWhiteandBrooklyn]

I do the same thing whenever I see a Kenny G CD in the Jazz section. I put it into easy listening.

[thereigoagain]

that's right, free speech only for us!!!!

[Boboday555]

Corsi writing books for neo-cons who don't read!
"I'm not a big reader!"
George W. AWOL

If the head of the GOP doesn't read, do you honestly think his base of NASCAR children do?
Heh, heh, heh...no wonder America is a global laughing stock these days!

[hillaryj]

I don't think we should print or air anything about this piece of trash............it only encourages people like Mary and this guy!

Wonderful piece of scholarshi­p.........­...what world does this woman live in????

[chosenson]

Is Mary a lobbyist? Or married to one?

[chosenson]

I just found out. Mary Matalin is former chief aide to Dick Cheney.

Well, that explains everything!

She works for the publisher and the book is her imprint.

[Cay]

I was at Borders yesterday to buy Tom Frank's "The Wrecking Crew." "Obama Nation" and some other hideous attack book were the front and center display. And I live in the proudly progressive Portland, OR metro area!

[PrairieSunshine]

Publishers buy this front and center space. That's as "cooked" as the rest of the book.

[Spud777]

Conservative wing nut organizations are buying the book in bulk to make it look like it is "popular". They then try to foist them on anyone who contributes to a right wing lunatic fringer. These liars have no morals at all.

[thereigoagain]

reading a book before it is judged is ridiculous. it makes no sense. I read all my fellow commenters here, then I make my decision.

[cheshirecat831]

This "book" will probably have less of an effect than the earlier swift boating because O is not Kerry and will deal with it effectively

http://sfbaysailingpix.com/pez2008p1.htm