Latest Swift Boat Attacks Paint Barack Obama as Black Radical
Reported by Ellen - August 2, 2008 -
Jerome Corsi, the co-author of the Swift Boat book that did its best to sink John Kerry's campaign (in concert with FOX News), was back on FNC prime time for the 2nd night in a row last night promoting his new book, a blatant attempt to smear Barack Obama the same way Kerry was smeared. If Corsi's last two appearances are any guide, the focus of this new, undoubtedly prolonged barrage will be an effort to portray Obama as some kind of undercover black radical. With video.
Corsi's appearance on last night's (8/1/08) special weekday edition of Hannity's America followed a double segment on Hannity & Colmes the night before. In both appearances, Corsi made a point to highlight Obama's connections to African Americans that conservative-leaning white viewers would likely view with alarm: Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan and, of course, Rev. Wright.
Ironically, this occurred just as the McCain campaign has started attacking Obama for playing the race card.
I haven't read either of Obama's books nor have I read Corsi's so I'll have to rely on Media Matters to fact check last night's show. But I do know something about Barack Obama's appearance at Farrakhan's Million Man March. How do I know? Because an earlier edition of Hannity's America reported that Obama attended the march as "an observer, rather than a participant." During that same show, Hannity read a quote indicating that Obama had specifically rejected and repudiated Farrakhan's tactics. But just as he did on that previous show, Hannity ignored his own reporting last night, too, and joined in Corsi's effort to paint Obama as a soulmate of Farrakhan's.
Despite bragging about his own exhaustive research, Corsi seems to have missed or overlooked Obama's criticisms of Farrakhan and The Million Man March. Corsi told Hannity, "Obama also doesn't want us to know - as I fully covered in his Chicago period in the book - that he participated on (sic) Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March."
Hannity eagerly replied, "We've covered that because nobody else in the media picked up on that."
Hannity failed to mention Obama's negative comments about Farrakhan. Instead, Hannity deliberately insinuated that Obama shared Farrakhan's views. Hannity said, "We don't know if he ever met with Louis Farrakhan. Now, he knocked on the door of (former 60's radical, current University of Chicago professor) William Ayers. And I've often wondered, considering he went to the Million Man March, he's in Chicago, he was politically ambitious. Any evidence he knocked on the door of Farrakhan?"
"I haven't had a picture yet of the two of them together," Corsi answered, implying that one would likely surface eventually. "But if you take a look at Father Pfleger and all the rest of the associations, that whole group - and Rev. Wright was very close to Farrakhan - I demonstrate in the book, very carefully, that Rev. Wright was for a time a black Muslim."
Media Matters has already found two falsehoods in Corsi's Obama book and they have reported a host of bigoted, radical statements Corsi has made in the past which brightly illuminate the kind of character he is. Yet there was no guest to balance Corsi's accusations during any of his three segments. On Hannity & Colmes the night before, substitute co-host Kirsten Powers was disappointingly meek in her questioning of Corsi. Last night, his smears were unencumbered by any opposing view at all. Predictably, Sean Hannity ate up every word the author uttered and took it as gospel.
Ironically, just before Corsi's segment (and included in the YouTube video below), FOX News ran a promotional ad for itself in which it announced, "Fox News Channel is committed to providing viewers with more factual information, in a balanced, fair presentation (the 'balanced, fair presentation' was said by Sean Hannity, no less)... Our job is to tell them the truth wherever that truth falls."
Unless that truth should happen to cast doubt on a Republican talking point, apparently.
