Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Jerome Corsi, 'fair and balanced' hatchet man

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.

Here’s a wonderful Metafilter post skewering Corsi. The author was the first person I’ve heard point out the “subtle” play on words in the title Obama Nation. It’s really quite charming actually if you say it aloud to yourself. Naturally, the way Metafilter works, it was deleted (mustn’t be too political now) but you can still read it here. My post has also been published at Huffington Post.