September 17, 2008 Arts+Movies » Books

BOOK REVIEW: Obama Nation 

A Tale Told by an Idiot: Corsi's Obama Nation signifies nothing

by Dylan Hales
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The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality [Buy Now]
By Jerome R. Corsi
Threshold, 384 pages, $28

Within days of the 9/11 attacks, websites were popping up all over the internet suggesting some level of government complicity in the crime of the century.

Before long this "9/11 truth movement" would be responsible for dozens of books, promoting a wide variety of theories, some unlikely but plausible, but most nonsensical and lacking.

Having read many of those books, I can say that while few of them were convincing on any major point of contention, virtually all of them were better written and less reliant on absurdities and rampant speculation than Jerome R. Corsi's new book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. As one can tell from the title alone, Corsi doesn't much care for Sen. Barack Obama. He believes Obama's politics are "on the extreme left," that the he is "antimilitary," and perhaps worst of all, that he is an "elitist."

These declarative statements litter the text, which is also filled with some of the worst pop psychology one can imagine.

Little support is provided for any of this nonsense.

Most of the book's first chapter is picking apart minor inconsistencies and exaggerations in Obama's biography, a task performed already, in a far more interesting and readable fashion, by conservative columnist Steve Sailer.

Sadly, from a critical perspective, this is probably the most thoroughly researched part of the book.

Contradictions abound throughout The Obama Nation and Corsi hardly seems to notice — or care. At one point, he claims he doesn't himself believe that the Democratic nominee for President was a ever a Muslim. Immediately following this, the reader is treated to several dozen pages on Obama's background as a Muslim and his supposed sympathy for Islamic causes. Amazingly, Corsi admits a key piece of evidence linking Obama to a supposed friend of radical Islamists in Kenya is a document of questionable authenticity.

What does this all mean? Who the hell knows?

There are so many silly accusations in the book, at times I wondered if Corsi is engaged in Swiftian satire of epic proportions. For instance, Corsi claims Obama's use of the word "bamboozled" was "borrowed" from Spike Lee's film Malcolm X. Like nearly all of the "evidence" in this book, his source is "an Internet article." A little later, he accuses Obama of being a "radical" lefty, because he opposed Hillary Clinton's universal health care proposal in the Democratic primary season. That position is so curious, it must be intentionally comedic — and it's hardly the only one of its kind.

Like most conservative critics of Obama who worry about his ties to black nationalists, no effort is made to explore why this allegedly ambitious, allegedly racially obsessed, radical would run against Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther, in his first race for a federal office (a Democratic primary; he lost).

Furthermore, there is virtually no mention made of Obama's Senate race against Alan Keyes, which was highlighted by the allegedly "ultraconservative" Keyes running hard left of Obama on reparations for slavery. Perhaps not surprisingly the eccentric and bizarre Keyes shares a home with Corsi as a columnist at WorldNetDaily, a website of conservative commentary.

None of this should be surprising.

Corsi is a professional character assassin, who simply hates Democrats. In 2004, he was co-author the infamous Unfit For Command, which argued that John Kerry really wasn't the war hero he was cracked up to be.

I didn't support Kerry in 2004 and I don't support Obama in 2008, but the shameless throw-shit-against-the wall-and-hope-it-sticks methodology of the so-called Dr. Corsi tempts me to donate my next paycheck to the DNC.

As with a broken clock, Corsi is right twice. There is in fact a disturbing "cult of the personality" surrounding Obama and his "change" motif. Corsi also does a reasonably good job laying out some of the suspect financial behavior Obama may have been involved with while sitting in the Illinois legislature.

Scoring on these points, Corsi has inadvertently stumbled upon the truth about Obama — he's a typical American politician.

Barack Obama is not the second coming of Malcolm X. He's the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

Reading books by the likes of David Ray Griffin and Michael Ruppert on 9/11 occasionally made me think about certain aspects of the World Trade Center attacks and the many things about them that didn't make sense.

Without agreeing with their conclusions, I could find a piece of information here or there that was worth examining.

Corsi's conspiratorial ramblings fail to meet even this standard.

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This book review appears to me to more protectionism for Obama. Why won't the so called main stream media investigate him. He is a socialist, elitist stooge of George Sorros and other big money one worlders. If you doubt that he is a socialist all you have to do is look at what he has done in his first 40 days in office. Hugo Chevez is more to the right than Obama. Obama clearly has no head for economics. The biggest problem we face is the economy and he let's the Treasury secretary sit alone in his office. Obmama is more concerned that treasury appointees not embarass him like his other tax cheat appointees have so the vetting process is taking too long. However, it is hard to find an honest man among liberal socilist America haters isn't it. Nor does Obama understand anything about military power. He is going to get us in big trouble in Afganistan/Pakistan. The Chinese are ramping up military spending by 15 percent and Obama wants to cut military spending by 25% to pay for his wacko socialist thanks for voting for me and please do so again in 2012 plans. Obmama is the worst thing that could happen to America at this time and the mainstream media won't investiage because they would have to admit that they were useful idiots and wrong about Obama. Buy this book and read this book to understand how serious the trouble is for America ahead.

Posted by The splinter9 on March 9, 2009 at 8:11 AM | Report this comment

I find it interesting that absolutely nothing has been said by Obama defenders or the so-called "objective" members of the media about Obama's early books which are clearly "racist" even in the more strict version of that particularly offensive term. Certainly any white politician who had written about blacks as Obama has about whites including his own personal feelings and beliefs would not now have a career in politics much less be a candidate for the highest office in the land.

Neither is there much concern for the terrible political baggage Obama brings with him from one of the most corrupt "machines" in the US, the Daly Machine in Chicago from whence the man got his political start.

Further, there seems little interest in Obama's radical leftist agenda. After all, here is a man who is admittedly the most leftist man in Congress - and that takes some doing!

And finally, there seem absolutely no concern or interest in the fact that Obama has never accomplished anything and has come from nowhere with more money than God to take the Democrat nomination from the all powerful Clintons. Nobody seems to find this unusual or even intersting.

I really don't care much about more exotic "conspiracy theories" when the above facts seem to be sufficient for any objective and intelligent person to question the candidacy and qualifications of Barack Hussein Obama.

Posted by Lady Val on October 3, 2008 at 9:58 AM | Report this comment

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