Rick Reuben wrote:

The Corsi book, released late last week, is already in its third printing, with a total of 375,000 copies in print so far.

The Corsi book is #1 in every political book category on Amazon and #8 overall. The New York Times has not yet mentioned it, according to a search.

I just dropped a huge magnum-sized deuce; shall I send you a link?

Rick Reuben wrote:Mary Mitchell in today's Chicago Sun-Times:

mitchell 8-14-08 wrote:Jerome R. Corsi's book about Barack Obama is a good example of the right wing's racial fear-mongering.

Corsi is the Harvard Ph.D. who is credited with launching the attack that weakened Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign and led to the infamous "swift-boating."

Unfit to Command was largely discredited,

Actually, it was never largely discredited. Not even close. None of the men who contributed to the book claimed they were misquoted, none of their memories of the war were ever proven to be lies, nobody was ever sued for libel.

One of the sworn affiants later retracted. Several members of Kerry's crew were deliberately not interviewed, and several who were later came forward and said their statements were carefully edited to cast Kerry strictly in a negative light and contained none of the positive things they said about his service.

Both US veterans and Vietnamese nationals who participated in the same battles as Kerry or were eyewitnesses to his actions contradicted statements by the Swift Boaters, some of which were reiterated in the book.

But you're right, there was no libel suit.

Corsi, coincidentally, is a 9/11 Turther wacko.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yCfI3VmL88

A large font doesn't make you any more right, Rick. Sworn affidavits have been contradicted by their affiants. The official Navy records contradict the Swift Boaters, including an appraisal by Kerry's commander that gave him the highest possible marks in moral judgement, courage, and decisiveness. He called Kerry "beyond reproach."

That same commander later became Swift Boater and said the exact opposite. When did he become a Swift Boater? When Bush/Rove money appeared. Some of the Swift Boaters themselves, in as little as 1 year before the Swift Boat ads started, were praising Kerry as the best swift boat commander they knew and they refused to say anything bad about him. In describing how Kerry won his Silver Star, the Swift Boaters said back in '96 that all accounts had been corroborated and that the review was carefully executed.

Then money from the Bushies appears and some of these same men do a complete 180 on all of it.

If you were on the other side of this issue, the connection to Bush/Rove, the Republican political machine, and the money subsequently involved would be the only evidence you'd need that this was a smear and a set-up. You'd point to the Swift Boaters' connections to Republican money and draw an ironclad conclusion that they invented this to take Kerry down.

I haven't read the Obama book, so I won't comment on it. But don't rewrite the Swift Boat issue to suit your own ends. Many of the claims in the book and made by Swift Boaters were in fact discredited, and we're not talking about minor errors.

"The Heartland Institute" is a right-wing fairly nutjob-style organization.

I am voting for Cthulhu.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:I won't be voting for him anyway, unless it comes down to an extreme close call of "keep abortion legal or ban it altogether," which I doubt will happen in this election.

I understand having to compromise a bit to get votes/support, but the offshore drilling, zionist-assist pledges, charitable religious organization support, and the FISA thing are shitting on everything that I believe in. I refuse to vote for this man. If necessary, I will do as my father once did in he 70s and write in Daffy Duck.

Don't do this. It is immature and wrong headed. Vote for the best candidate on the slate, the one you agree with the most. It is the least you can do for your country.

Oh and the president gets to pick supreme court justices, rememeber - and they get to decide on important shit that you care about - and the decision point may be 15 years from now. So Vote goddamn you.

Rick Reuben wrote:

zom-zom wrote:"The Heartland Institute" is a right-wing fairly nutjob-style organization.

It looks Libertarian to me. Does that make it 'right wing and nutjob'?
[quote]

Yeah, more or less.

Corsi also posted some "hilarious" things on Free Republic.

I don't know why Kerry handled it so poorly, Rick. But the investigations done by multiple media outlets show that it's simply untrue to imply that the Swift Boaters were largely correct or that the meat of their claims had not been discredited. The media were not repeating "minor errors." There was some very good investigative journalism performed (though due to the shamelessness and brazenness of the key Swift Boaters, anyone could've poked large holes in their story; they contradicted their own accounts of Kerry's service and those of soldiers and sailors who were right there, for fuck's sake).

I will say this on the thread topic at hand. The fact that the Obama book is being published by S&S and not some right-wing conservative pet publisher like the Swift Boat book is at least a slight indication there's nothing glaringly libelous in it. Though who knows what risks they'd take for the guaranteed pay day of a blockbuster Obama expose?

Rick Reuben wrote:

Ty Webb wrote: But the investigations done by multiple media outlets show that it's simply untrue to imply that the Swift Boaters were largely correct or that the meat of their claims had not been discredited.

The meat of their claims were not discredited. Most of what was in the book was opinion and he said/he said conflicts of memory, and the stuff with the medical records pertained mostly to the two Purple Hearts, and not the Silver Star, and the Kerry side keeps claiming that the book got the Silver Star story wrong.

1. He said/he said? True if the "he" you're talking about is the same man. Multiple instances of praise for Kerry's abilities and actions by his comrades and commander over a period of many years, then a total 180 when the money rolls in. More than just opposing hearsay.

2. Opinion? No. Eyewitness testimony, much of which was contradictory and conveniently left out of the book or edited to change its meaning.

3. I didn't even get into the medical stuff, but according to comrades who were there, the official records, and the award review conducted by an eventual Swift Boater, a review he himself said was well executed and thoroughly corroborated, the book DID get the Silver Star story wrong.

You're just wrong on this one, Rick. This isn't just the media batting around hearsay. The book and the Swift Boaters' claims have gaping holes in them and their credibility is low.

As far as 'major media outlets'- the major media outlets also tell me that JFK was shot from the rear, 110 story buildings blow up from paper and kerosene fires, and the Federal Reserve is a public agency that works on behalf of the citizens.

Knew that one was coming. You're right, no mainstream investigative journalist has ever gotten anything right and can never get anything right again. But those ace reporters at The Heartland Institute are on it!