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

[totallynext]

I invite everyone to watch - Hard Ball from August 13, 2008. with guest host David (?) cant remember name right now.

Great Democratic spokesperson - slamed the book for what it is - A HACK JOB.

Go to media matters for a complete debunking.

[Lvm]

As part of the White House Iraq Group, Matalin was quite successful in marketing an illegal war causing thousands to die. She obviously knows how to sell lies. Kudos Mary!

[deke33]

Are these people for real! Wouldn't they be perfect studies for someone interested in warped thinking. Statements such as McCain's "in the 21st century nations don't attack other nations", referring to the Russian attack on Georgia. Did he think our preemptive attack on Iraq with trumped up and lying causations happened in the Twentieth Century

[bmonaghan]

Because we're descent people. If we begin this "means justify the ends" mentality, we will no longer be liberals. We will be ideologues or something worse - Republicans.

[rh654]

Why is the the Conservatives are so good at this type of hard ball politics and the Liberals aren't?

[VOTER]

Answer: It is easy to make up lies and write distortions of facts while it takes intelligence,

integrity and a great deal of time to research material for honest authorship.

[Soothsayer08]

I have often wondered this myself. I think it's because liberals are just "Nicer more Decent" people.

[SpoxLogic]

Could it be because LIBERALS couldn't look themselves in the mirror if they did what the CONSERVATIVES (these conservatives) did. Unfortunately, it seems that conservatives of this ilk believe their own press clippings and actually do not see themselves as doing anything wrong!

Very sad...and scary at the same time.

[Torus34]

Hint: it has something to do with ethics.

[MoeSart]

Dems are wimps. They're also petrified they're going to offend someone.

Repubs couldn't care less.

[Eoin45]

Dems are wimps? Please name one major player in the Bush adminstration who has ever served in the armed services beside Rumsfeld who was safe as a flight instructor. I can name a bunch of Dems. You are right about one thing. Repubs couldn't care less about fair play and the truth.

[timregler]

I agree it's a piece of something. But scholarship isn't the "S" word I had in mind.

[edva]

No judge, no justice, no god - Ms. Matalin herself is a proof of that. Just a bunch of greedy, angry, ignorant people, destroying each other and the planet on which they live.

[Hillrick]

I agree. I believe they are people who want to try to control everything that frightens them. People who don't worry if the pie is big enough for everyone, they want all they can eat and then foul what's left over.

[isis]

Maybe getting a written record of the the and lies is going to be useful. But unless sane responsible people start pointing out the extremism of those on the right, more of us are going to get shot by the hate filled people they produce. Maybe intentional deceptive lies in context of a political campaign should be called treason because they endanger democracy.

[Richard Silverstein - Huffpost Blogger]

In answer to a previous commenter, my understanding is that he HAS written a negative book about McCain, though some time ago.

And regarding the NYT bestseller list, yes, it's not based on books sold. I'm hoping many of the books credited on the bestseller list actually end up in the remainder bin.

[PeacefulRevolutionary]

Write a book I'll buy it!

[BlackWidowPilot]

Sir,

what in fact *is* the criteria being used for the Best Seller list?

IIRC a bit over 20 years ago one of the major news magazines (Newsweek or US News & World Report) issued an in-depth expose on the Church of $cientology. Among the details brought to light in the article was the fact that the Church of $cientology would routinely buy up thousands of copies of their own "latest" releases of L. Ron Hubbard to ensure their placement on the Best Seller list.

Could this be the case with Corsi's latest screed?

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[JustDealWithIt]

Just saw the author on Larry King Live.

He claims that he is a member of the Constitutional Party and will be supporting the Constitutional candidate. His stated purpose is to defeat Obama but he claims he really has no vested interest in the outcome of the contest between Obama and McCain. My question is: why not come out with a book attacking McCain as well then? Let's start with his poor academic performance at the Naval Academy but his appointment as a Naval flight officer because of his legacy status. And then let's move on to his extramarital affairs and, oh yes, leaving his first wife because she had been crippled in an accident. That's fodder for at least 3 or 4 chapters.

[robotfog]

maybe the guy can only write lies. He may have a filter that prevents him from truth telling, so he can't write much about McCain since, even if you make stuff up, it tends to be true with McCain.

what can swiftboat-boy say about McCain?

poor scholar - truth
lousy pilot - truth
he lies - truth
cheats on his wimens - truth
takes money from lobbyists - truth

See. I can go on forever trying to discredit McCain and only end up with truths. Someone else should do the McCain thing. Someone with credibility who backs up their facts. Even if swiftboy told the truth, no one would believe him.

[AnnieinOR]

Media Matter is already saying that this book is FICTION and lies.

[berkeleygirl1962]

For people like Matalin (and her husband/counterpart Carville), politics is sport; they lose all sense of the impact of their politics on human suffering. The political class has never had the sort of megaphone they've enjoyed with the rise of cable television and the internet, so what used to be insider preoccupat­ions--one-­upsmanship­, handicapping, prognosticating, and pontificating--now have much wider, and even more negative, implications.

So when Matalin has an opportunity to push her political agenda and capitalize on it at the same time by publishing this harmful pseudo-"sc­holarship"­), and her Democrat husband countenances augmenting the family coffers with profits derived therefrom, they are exposed as truly amoral NON-ideologues for whom any and every tactic, no matter how demagogic or divisive, is excused, legitimated, or even celebrated for its strategic value. Cynics like Matalin and Carville are very much two peas in a pod: entrepreneurial careerists who see dollar signs in keeping the "game" dramatic and exciting, while doing nothing to enrich legitimate debate and everything to keep citizens ill-informed and queasy about the political process.

By the way, i remember reading that the NYT "bestseller" list is based on print run, or books shipped to stores--so it's about books ordered/di­stributed, not books sold., and doesn't account for returns. you can have a huge number of copies in print, with few of them actually sold, and fewer still actually READ.

[Tropiholic]

don't forget that whatever job was promised to carville by hillary isn't going to happen now, so i suppose they need the $$$$.

[boing007]

Tropiholic

don't forget that whatever job was promised to carville by hillary isn't going to happen now, so i suppose they need the $$$$.

Let us hope for James Carville's sake that he and his wife, Mary, have a shared bank account. That way, James can protest the book and still collect his cut.

[historian1900]

Well put...the Matalin-Carvilles of this world are completely cynical, and we all know the definition of a cynic: The man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[robotfog]

also don't forget that every time Obama looked positive and Hillary looked even just a little bad, carville would get all red in the face and apoplectic and start sputtering nonsense. Especially when someone like richardson followed his own conviction.

[mydoglucky]

Great post Berkeley. Years ago, Matalin and Carville had lunch at The Palm in DC. (local power broker place to eat) They brought their 2 little girls who were allowed to basically run through the place and do whatever they want. These folks were given a center table and proceeded to hold court. Yuk. They used to, not sure now, own a large waterfront townhouse, in Old Town Alexandria. They never put their cars into the garage. Know why? Matalin had all her clothes on long coat racks. Rows and rows and rows.
....as far as I'm concerned they are the original political hacks.