JEROME CORSI'S TARGET AUDIENCE

The Obama Nation author is plugging the book on a white-supremacist radio show:

Perhaps Corsi’s most telling appearance, however, has been on The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke.
Along with promoting Corsi’s appearances, Edwards is boasting on his website that the three-hour weekly show will join the Republic Broadcasting Network in September. This conspiracy-minded network, heard via satellite and the web, features talk about a sinister “New World Order” and wild theories about the causes of 9/11. Shows that air on the network include The Piper Report, named after host Michael Collins Piper, who has contributed to the holocaust denial magazine The Barnes Review, and Mark Dankof’s America, which has interviewed Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust denial group.">The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke [and Pat Buchanan - DP].

Along with promoting Corsi’s appearances, Edwards is boasting on his website that the three-hour weekly show will join the Republic Broadcasting Network in September. This conspiracy-minded network, heard via satellite and the web, features talk about a sinister “New World Order” and wild theories about the causes of 9/11. Shows that air on the network include The Piper Report, named after host Michael Collins Piper, who has contributed to the holocaust denial magazine The Barnes Review, and Mark Dankof’s America, which has interviewed Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust denial group.

A Washington Post editorial for Friday's paper calls Corsi an "expert of misrepresentation," and adds, "footnoting to a discredited blog item does not constitute careful scholarship, and the bulk of Mr. Corsi's book has nothing to do with issues. He gets facts wrong. ... He makes offensive statements."

Mincing few words, Post columnist Eugene Robinson declares today, "Here come the goons, right on schedule." Corsi, he adds, "has crawled back out from under his rock to spew vicious lies about Barack Obama."

A New York Times blog item on Thursday connected Corsi to the "9/11 Truth" fringe, citing his questions about the official explanation of why the twin towers collapsed. Earlier this week, in a front-page article, the Times charged, "Several of the book’s accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate."

Among the other Corsi pieces this week one stands out. It appeared Thursday night via The Associated Press, written by one of its top political reporters, Nedra Pickler -- a journalist the liberal blogosphere has frequently criticized. It covered the Obama campaign’s release of a 40-page book parsing of Corsi’s “The Obama Nation” but, significantly (in the new “AP style”), Pickler added a huge dose of attitude as well. Adding to the Obama team's argument, Pickler observed on her own:

-- "The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false rumors against Obama — that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a 'black rage' hidden beneath the surface. In fact, Obama is a Christian who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago."

-- "Corsi suggests, without a shred of proof, that Obama may be using drugs today. Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine as a teenager but says he quit when he went to college and hasn't used drugs since."

-- "He claims Obama received extensive Islamic religious education as a boy in Indonesia, education that was only offered to the truly faithful. Actually, Obama is a Christian and as a boy he attended both Catholic school and Indonesian public schools where some basic study of the Koran was offered."

-- "He accuses Obama of wanting to weaken the military even though Obama's campaign calls for adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines."

-- "Corsi writes for World Net Daily, a conservative Web site whose lead headline Thursday was "Astonishing photo claims: Dead Bigfoot stored on ice."

-- "In a series of Web posts several years ago, Corsi said Pope John Paul II was senile and unconcerned about sexual molestation of boys, referred to Islam is "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion" and suggested Kerry was secretly Jewish."

On Monday, Michael Tomaskey, writing for The American Prospect's Web site, took issue with Downie's decision: "The Washington Post should not even be running such a story ... in the first place. Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor. But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune 'truths' while missing the larger story."