I wish that, in addition to the blaring "#1 on the NY Times booklist" theme I keep hearing, that someone in the publishing industry would point out which portion of those sales are bulk sales, rather than individual sales.

I think the majority of the MSM tongue wagging about the book is simply an attempt to stir the pot. Knowing that every time they rehash the book's allegations the Obama camp has to respond, the purveyors of non-content get to seem like they're part of the "discussion".

How do you prove a negative?

By exposing the disseminator as a fraud and prevaricating huckster, at the least.

I don't think it will work this time. "Swift Boating," has entered into the American languange and equates to, "To lie, mislead and twist facts in order to win elections via character assasination."

This guy, Corsi, is THE orignal Swift Boater. Therefore he is THE liar. People know this.

Can we hope that the 2004 election immunized the American Public to this kind of nonsense?

Then again, politicians rarely lose by betting on the stupidity of the American public.

The Obama campaign needs to link this book to the McCain campaign, forcing him to either denounce it or give up his sainthood.

The bulk sales issue is important. Without the pumped up bulk sales this book probably wouldn't make the to 500. My guess is it is going to end up in discount bins near you real soon.

I would like to see who bought the book in large numbers. Maybe we should boycott. Make the smear machine pay for its wingnut welfare program.

Corsi is a nutter. I think going after Matalin and even Simon and Schuster here for giving an mentally unstable man such a platform. Matalin even defended her reason for printing it by saying it's a "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that."

I'd even consider launching a lawsuit if there would be a case to be made. It's not like it's going to give it any more free publicity then it already is. Maybe if you target S&S and Matalin's pocketbooks them might think twice next time.

Corsi likes any publicity he gets, Matalin and especially S&S will not like the negative publicity nearly as much. Smear Corsi as the nutter he is, paint Matalin as tried and true Republican who deeply supports Cheney and S&S as opportunists trying to make a buck by any means necessary.

Why not organize a third party boycott S&S books?

The word to use for this book is "lies," and Obama surrogates should use the word in every other sentence when talking about the book.

Maybe every sentence.

Media Matters's surrogate Paul did a great job ripping Corsi on Larry King.

THEY WHO LIE TO OBTAIN THE OVAL OFFICE WILL LIE ONCE THEY GET THERE.

The Obama Camp could also help itself by buying and running ads like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfngOsvmA0&eurl=

it should be on the best seller list for FICTION

So why is it that Corsi's fictitious swill gets front-page coverage in The Washington Post and national television and radio exposure, while Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain, which is actually carefully and exhaustively documented gets bupkes?

And another thing, Obama is releasing another book in October I believe called "Change we can believe in" and it will surely debut a top the best seller lists. I wonder if that book will get all this publicity.

I think Corsi needs to be linked to Matalin in every breath, because then the next logical step is to spell out Matalin's connections to the Republican party.

Use Matalin to connect Corsi to McCain.

The campaign should dig as deep into Corsi's background and his connections until they hit real paydirt. Make it all about Corsi and his buddies. Even if it takes a private investigator to look in every knuck and corner.

Keep it simple Barack. Corsi=lying smear merchant; Corsi=lying smear merchant; Corsi=lying smear merchant; etc., ad nauseum.

Roadkill writes: "At the risk of seeming naive, how can they even get away with it? Isn't what Corsi et al are doing libelous and if so subject to legal action? I mean he can't simply back his claims up with bogus sources and say it's legitimate. Can he?"

Yes, unfortunately, he can. Multiple court cases have established that libel laws do not protect public figures to any significant degree.

In other words, if I write that Charlie Shmidlap is a chickenf--ker, Charlie can sue the pants off me. If I write the same thing about Barack Obama, or John McCain, or any figure who's significantly in the public eye. it's almost impossible for them to win any kind of judgement against me.

Peace,
Paul

I would make one more suggestion for Obama:

Call McBush out for not condemning this book.

And for running a deceitful, negative campaign.

He's doing a good job including the phrase, "old, tired" in everything already. LOL

It's on amazon.co.uk so even if there are only a handful of copies in the country, Obama could actually sue the author and publisher under english law which frowns upon libel. If memory serves, a Saudi prince recently won a rather large judgement in absentia after a US author published a critical book after 9-11 that was only available in the UK by import. East european politicians have sometimes used english courts to silence critical newspapers at home even though only a handful of copies are sold in England.

Another, admittedly small, tactic would be to "tag" the book on amazon.com with words like "lies" "false" "libel" "debunked" etc.

Call McBush out for not condemning this book.

Exactly. It should be SOP for this kind of thing. Sure is on the right--Obama is apparently supposed to apologize for anything any black person ever said that offended a CorpMedia mouthbreather. If McCain isn't condemning it, he's endorsing it--isn't that the logic? And b.t.w, he ought to be facing demands he renounce Lieberman's statements slurring Obama's patriotism as well.

Gotta love how they're sure to put "Ph.D" after his name right at the top. That must mean it's well-researched and credible!

Fine, spend some time explaining it on other blogs where the voters are, "ahem," less decided.
And don't forget to refute the "facts" in the book along the way.

The Obama counter-attack sound great. My only question is why are they PLANNING a fact-check NOW? Couldn't they have gotten their hands on a copy a little ahead of time?

Man, check out the Boozer's Rouge on this guy.

Worse than Hitchens.

And in October:

While John McCain was being tortured in a Vietnamese prison camp Barry Soetoro was an Indonesian citizen, studying the Koran and learning Arabic. Who is Barry Soetoro? He now calls himself Barack Obama. Who is Barack Obama?........

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/fogu2/

Looks like Obama's campaign has a lot of ammunition to use against Corsi. Here's TNR's compilation of some recent quotes. I hope they ask McCain whether or which of these he agrees with:

Maybe while he's there [referring to Pope JPII] he can tell the UN what he's going to do about the sexual crimes committed by "priests" in his "Church" during his tenure. Or, maybe that's the connection -- boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press. (03/03/2003)

So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the laywers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it. (12/16/2002)

Let's see exactly why it isn't the case that Islam is a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion? Where's the proof to the contrary?

Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects... No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the body. (11/26/02)

How's this as an analogy -- the Koran is simply the "software" for producing deviant cancer cell political behavior and violence in human beings. (02/15/2002)

Isn't the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA -- oh, I forgot, it was just an accident that Clintoon's first act in office was to promote "gays in the military." RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together. (11/18/2001)

HELL-ary loves the Arabs so much (kiss, kiss Mrs. Arab*RAT) -- wonder how she would look in a Burkha? (05/21/2002)

Mullah Ali'Gore-ah is very proud of his new Bin Laden beard and he hopes others in the Democratic Party will follow his lead. Hell-ary is disappointed she cannot grow a beard, but her press secretary reminds us she can still enroll in flight school. (01/07/02)

Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she? (06/08/2003)

Too bad the plane didn't crash into the TV set of the NBC show "THE LEFT WING" -- especially when Martin Sheen was "acting." (06/07/2003)

John F*ing Commie Kerry and Commie Ted [Kennedy] discuss their plan to hand America over to our nation's enemies. (02/04/2004)

"Obama aides also say they'll soon be blasting an extensive fact-check of the book "

W H E N?

Careful my fellows, bulk buying leads to bulk selling. And once the books are printed and shipped, they have to be sold by the election even at a loss otherwise they will go stale on the shelf.

Talking Point:

Well, this piece of trash was published by the former chief of staff of the Liar in Chief, Dick Cheney. So what kind of truth can you expect.

I question the demand for Corsi’s book that is suddenly propelling it onto the New York Times list. It could be a result of an massive buyback that the author himself orchestrated, which some commenters are noting.

A book can hit the bestseller list if there’s a strategic buy, done on the same day, which greatly inflates the sales percentage differential from the week before. For example, a new author with $35k at his disposal could hire someone like Michael Drew, who flags bookstore buyers to put in their orders on the same day, which then artificially inflates sales numbers from the previous week and lands my book on the list. The New York Times list will usually record such massive movement, even if the numbers aren’t driven from consumer demand – but it can be spun as consumer demand.

Other readers are noting the same thing -- perhaps a large bulk buy from some political organization?

One way of dissolving Corsi’s anti-Obama message is to dispute the validity of the sales numbers and the reasons why it’s a “guaranteed New York Times bestseller.” The attacks from his book can’t be very resonant, and certainly would poke holes in the book’s “staying power,” and certainly the author and his message, if you discover that the author bought back massive amounts of his own book, or that he hired someone to green-light an orchestrated buy. Common knowledge in the book industry, but perhaps not so for your readers.

To be fair, the book is receiving a phenomenal amount of publicity, but because it’s a Times bestseller doesn’t lend it any gravitas. Prove that this is not just consumer-driven, and you’ve dampened his credibility.

Just a thought.

Books, schmooks. We know who Barack Obama is. And all we need is a click on a link -- via this one photo (link below & NY Times story) -- to show the voters just who John McCain really is.

The photo: John Hugs George

The New York Times story:
THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE ARIZONA SENATOR; Bearhug Politics: Careful Steps to a New Bush-McCain Alliance

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: August 21, 2004

It was one of the odder embraces in American politics since Sammy Davis Jr. hugged Richard M. Nixon at the Republican Convention 32 years ago this summer: George W. Bush and John McCain's back-wrapping bearhug and side-head-smooch on the campaign trail last week.

For most of the past four years, Mr. McCain and the man who beat him for the Republican nomination in a bitter campaign in 2000 have treated each other like a pair of reversed magnets, members of the same metallurgical family held apart by reciprocal repulsion. Now their locked arms are raising eyebrows.

"Don't make people who hate you hug you," Bill Maher joked on the HBO program "Real Time." "Whatever the Bush administration is blackmailing John McCain with, stop!"

The newfound friendship may be good for late-night laughs, but it is deadly serious political business for both men, the result of a deliberate, months-long effort by the White House to woo the Arizona senator - the most popular national political figure in the country - and of Mr. McCain's self-interested susceptibility to same. The turnabout could not be more striking, and for both men the stakes could be nothing less than the presidency itself.

Four years ago, relations were so strained that Mr. McCain left the Republican convention in Philadelphia two days early, returning for the final night only after a last-minute request by the Bush team. This year, he will have a prime-time speaking slot on the convention's first night in New York City, play host to the network anchors at a private dinner the day before, campaign with the president in several states the day after, speak to 10 or 15 state delegations and preside over a celebrity party with the comedian Darrell Hammond on the eve of Mr. Bush's re-nomination.

So what's up? Pure political physics, friends of both men say.

Mr. Bush is locked in a tight race with Mr. McCain's old Senate friend John Kerry and needs all the belated help he can get with the moderate, Democratic and independent voters who like Mr. McCain. And Mr. McCain, who has spent months earning the ire of his party by saying nice things about Mr. Kerry and nasty ones about some Bush policies, is eager to show, like Dr. Seuss's punctilious pachyderm, that he may have meant what he said and said what he meant, but "an elephant's faithful 100 percent."

Whether Mr. Bush wins or loses, the Republican race for the White House will be wide open in 2008, and while Mr. McCain has often suggested he would not run again, politicians never really mean never. As he learned in 2000, Mr. McCain could not win the nomination without broader backing from the party establishment than his independence sometimes allows.

"John is so sharp," said former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming. "I think he knows that whatever his future is, it can never go anywhere unless he's seen as supportive of the party and supportive of the president, and anything else will abort whatever he may have in mind."

And what can Mr. McCain do for the president?

"A lot," Mr. Simpson said, "because he knows the power of John McCain, he's felt the sting of that before himself, and I think he's gratified and genuinely pleased and very happy that John will do this. We need all the horses in the corral for this one, I'll tell you."
[ NY Times ]

This is posted on Jonathan Martin's blog at Politico:

"In a move that is one part genuine pushback and one part message-sending, Obama's campaign has released a 41-page pdf file designed to rebut accusations made in Jerome Corsi's book, "The Obama Nation."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0808/Obama_pushes_back_hard_on_Corsi_book.html

A link to the pdf file can be found on the page.

Okay, I've been reading the 40-page PDF rebuttal and it's very good. While it seems unfortunate to have to read all the lies, after a while it sinks in how crappy a book this is. Perhaps this is good to have it all out, and whenever anyone brings up this crap, it will be dismissed by pointing to the 40-page rebuttal.

If anything, Corsi should be condemned for making a really bad (and obnoxious) pun as the title of his miserable little book...

Over at Firedoglake they call it Wingnut Welfare the way they buy the books in bulk. The way Right Wing organizations prop up books that contain utter fabrications and lies. Not worth the paper they are printed on.

It is often contrasted with liberal tomes that have good sales all on their own without these "bulk" sales.

The BULK SALES has been utilized by the righteous righties for quite some time..LOL, Coulter has contract that specifies publisher to buy(back) her books which then are used for giveaways but has allowed her to proclaim "best selling author" status for her trash. The Swifties of 2004 had to outlay a meager $300,000 or so, the MSM folks then PROMOTED and DISTRIBUTED their talking points for them with constant "catch" phrasings/excerpts to the detriment of Kerry/the nation. Many THINK that folks are smarter, not guillible enough to accept trash as truth but IS a mistake for rational thought processes are not always employed and the results have shown it !!Honorable to take the "high road" approach, but at peril and is why responding with hard hitting FACTUALS is more than appropriate, it is needed as well ergo'd, a mandatory neccessity !! (as for Matelin, gg, she was a Cheny-bot and her spouse a Clintonite to his core beiengness...makes for an unsual household no doubt but they have similarities that bind them , the rest of us CAN walk away, they remained entwined and each easily disparageable !!)