We make fun of the terrible timing of the release of Jerome Corsi’s book Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, just weeks after Barack Obama answered the book’s titular question with the release of that very birth certificate, but in this essay I want to focus on Corsi’s August 2008 book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. I was prompted to think about Dr. Corsi this morning while reading Michael Shermer’s book, The Believing Brain. Shermer says that the popular notion that smart people are less prone to believing “weird things” than dumb people, is a myth. He says:
…smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.
Dr. Corsi’s PhD from Harvard makes him the quintessential “smart person” in the birther movement. I have seen speculation that Corsi’s Harvard degree is fake, but it’s not. I personally researched Corsi while chasing down an angle about the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004 and I even bought a copy of his dissertation in Political Science on microfilm from the Harvard Library.
We have a taxonomy for birthers that says birthers fall under two high-level categories: true believers and shills. Being one who feels morally bound to give people the benefit of the doubt, and believing that true believers are less reprehensible than shills, I’m going to put Corsi in the true believer class and therefore a smart person who is skilled at defending his beliefs.
With that background laid, I come to the question of the article:
What didn’t he know, and when didn’t he know it?
I think that anyone familiar with Dr. Corsi’s The Obama Nation would agree that the purpose of that book was to oppose Barack Obama’s bid for the Presidency. Corsi says himself in the preface:
In this book, I intend to argue that an Obama presidency would lead us into an ‘Obama Nation.” … that the result of those policies would lead the United States in a costly and self-destructive direction….
Given Corsi’s education, his stature as a best-selling conservative political author since 2004, and his political activism against Barack Obama, I think it is beyond doubt that he engaged in high-level conversations with other conservatives opposing Obama including politicians and conservative thought leaders, that surely must have included some strategizing on ways to defeat Obama.
It would seem obvious that the most direct way to defeat Obama, the simplest, the surest and the most cost-effective way, was to show that he was ineligible. If it were true, what is proclaimed all over the Internet today, that Obama is trivially ineligible because of the undisputed fact that his father was not a US Citizen, then surely Corsi with a PhD in Political Science from Harvard knew this or barring this, that one of his conservative friends, lawyers or political operatives would have told him. And if he believed Obama was ineligible, it is hardly credible that he would have withheld this slam-dunk argument from his book, which was written, after all, to keep Obama out of the White House. His failure to question Obama’s eligibility in The Obama Nation on the basis of the definition of “natural born citizenship” is strong proof that the two-citizen parent hypothesis does not predate the writing of his book.
In addition to Corsi’s education and contacts, he also researched Barack Obama for his book, including interviews with Obama relatives in Africa. If it were true, what is proclaimed all over the Internet today, that everybody in Kenya knows Barack Obama was born there, that it is an open secret that he was born there, that his relatives say the President was born in Kenya and even that his birthplace is no less than a national shrine, then Jerome Corsi would certainly have picked some of that up in the research for his 364-page book and in fact Corsi’s interview with the President’s uncle Sayid Obama includes the statement that Barack Obama’s first time in Kenya was as an adult. There is not so much of a hint in The Obama Nation that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This omission is proof that no such widespread view in Kenya that Obama was born there existed at the time Corsi wrote his book.
What Jerome Corsi failed to say in his first Obama book is a telling indictment of what he did say in his second.
“What Jerome Corsi failed to say in his first Obama book is a telling indictment of what he did say in his second.”
Exactly. Not a hint.
Hi Dr Conspiracy,
Have you had a chance to read Corsi’s book Black Gold Stranglehold?
You should read it. Let everyone know what you think about it. It would be a TREMENDOUS blog report.
Thanks.
In terms of timing, Corsi claims in the Preface to ‘The Obama Nation’ that he “finalized the
decision to write this book in March 2008,” and the book mentions dozens of specific events that took place up through May 2008.
Based on citations and footnotes, he clearly finished writing the book in the last days of May or the early days of June. Thus missing the explosion of (unfounded) skepticism over Obama’s birth/eligibility by less than two weeks.
Even when Corsi started doing press for the book, he didn’t raise eligibility concerns. Comments he made in mid-August on Fox & Friends and on Andrea Shea King’s radio program show that he was familiar with those arguments by then, but he still didn’t make a big deal out of them. (Although he lied on Fox & Friends and claimed that he had discussed Obama’s birth certificate in ‘The Obama Nation.’)
http://mediamatters.org/research/200808150001
Additionally, Corsi didn’t mention Obama’s birth certificate in any of his WND writings until September 2008, and even then it was just a passing mention in the course of defending his book. He didn’t write his first WND article about Obama’s birth or eligibility until October 26, 2008, just a week before the election.
Jerome Corsi is a clumsy, unskilled and incompetent investigative reporter and a pseudo-scholar. Corsi is also an unscrupulous character. Jerome Corsi vs Eagle Publishing (case filed in 11.06.2007) which is a conspicuously unscrupulous case in which Corsi knows that he can’t sue his imprint underling publisher that published his crappy book because of the contract that he has with them so he (Corsi) attempts to sues the imprint’s parent company.
Read more at Lucas Smith’s Patriot1980 scribd.com account:
‘11.06.2007. Jerome Corsi vs Eagle Publishing. Complaint‘
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49714732/11-06-2007-Jerome-Corsi-vs-Eagle-Publishing-Complaint
‘01.30.2008. Jerome Corsi vs Eagle Publishing. Memorandum Opinion by Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. Case Dismissed‘
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49715096/01-30-2008-Jerome-Corsi-vs-Eagle-Publishing-Memorandum-Opinion-by-Judge-Ellen-Segal-Huvelle-Case-Dismissed
‘01.30.2008. Jerome Corsi vs Eagle Publishing. Order. Case Dismissed‘
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49715707/01-30-2008-Jerome-Corsi-vs-Eagle-Publishing-Order-Case-Dismissed
Dr. C –
You said that you simplify two categories for birthers – True Believers & Shills. If you throw all the con artist & manipulator types under shills and include the con artists that are [either/both] out for profit (grifters) and/or political manipulation (smear merchants), then I would argue that you are being way to nice in giving Corsi *any* benefit of the doubt here.
I think he clearly falls into the Smear Merchant category as well as Grifter. If you roll that up into Shill, then that’s clearly where he belongs and the rest of your article which points out that he didn’t seem to care one whit about “eligibility” issues until later supports that conclusion.
Remember, over time it seems many con artists can become so invested in their own lies that they start to fool even themselves and buy into their own BS.
So, maybe Corsi has crossed the line and is now too far gone that he’s snookered himself and really is a “true believer”…but that doesn’t change where he really falls on the scale and where he clearly started on this – A Shill. And one who is clearly a cynicpal and manipulative Smear Merchant and Grifter.
I don’t think he’s earned nor deserved any reason to give him any benefit of the doubt on this. His past history speaks for itself. He’s long been a self-serving scumbag and will continue to be.
AGREED! Thanks for the post & the links.
Anytime, G, anytime.
You two have a lot in common. Is he your real father? Lucas Corsi?
No, Corsi is not my father.
But I’ve heard that your mother is so nasty that she brings crabs to the beach.
The scope of Corsi’s pseudo-scholarship is really evident when you step back and look at the nature of his work.
He plays pseudo-scientist in “Black Gold Stranglehold.”
He plays pseudo-historian in “The Shroud Codex.”
He plays pseudo-legal scholar in “Where’s the Birth Certificate.”
Usually writers specialize in one kind of fake scholarship; Corsi is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s equally crappy in a broad spectrum of expertises. And that’s before you get into his claptrap on the North American Union conspiracy theory.
They must have really liberal computer privileges at the jail in Iowa.
Is that where Corsi says the core of the earth is full of oil and that oil is not a fossil fuel?
This is one of the reasons I put him in the “true believer” category. People who hold one crank belief seem prone to others.
Lesser mortals have been known to be thrown into moderation for remarks like that.
Yes. Corsi states that oil is not a fossil fuel. I’m not sure that he said that the core of the earth is full of oil though, but he does state that the oil does not take so long to make as scientists want us to believe and that that is why that oil replenishes itself in some locations.
I don’t really have an opinion about the book. I’m not an expert on it really. All I can say is that the contents of the book are unorthodox and significantly atypical. I once had a discussion about the book with Charles Edward Lincoln, III. I stated to Lincoln that some of the things that Corsi said in the book were very compelling, or at least interesting, but that I didn’t have the right sort of educational background to really have a level-headed opinion of the book.
Charles Edward Lincoln III then told me that anyone can look at oil under a microscope and tell right then and there that oil is fossil fuel.
That’s all I can really say.
Sorry about that. I’ll stop now with that stuff.
Hello bird-medulla-oblongata,
I’m not jail. Also please note that jails in Iowa, as far as I know, don’t have internet access for inmates. But perhaps the penitentiaries in Iowa now have email access for prisoners. I wouldn’t know, because I’m not going back.
However, I did enjoy email correspondence while I was at Pima County Jail, Arizona.
My mind’s eye saw this as jacka**-of-all-trades, and I credited you with a quite amusing name…then I realized it was I who made up the name unintentionally.
It’s been a long day for me.
Gee that was actually pretty compared with the normal gutter talk you throw around her.
I *knew* there was a joke in there somewhere, but I was focused on the latter half of the phrase, and then gave up too quickly. I’m definitely stealing that.
Long day??? How much money do you get paid to hangout here and post on Doc’s blog? Or do you just get double rations of Victory gin and Victory cigarettes and the occasional night out with with an older looking Prole woman?
Me myself, I don’t get paid much to post here. Emmanuel Goldstein has me on a low paying salary. All I get is all the gyros the Gyro Hut or Zio Johnos or the Flying Weeniie the USA that I can eat and all the pica pollo and papas en RD that I can eat and free airfare around the world and also about $30,000 Pesos RD per month to keep my wife from throwing her wedding ring into the Ozama river. (yeah, its really called the Ozama River).
🙂
Thank you, thank you so much.
I just have one more question for you though, why does your mom think that Taco Bell is a Mexican telephone company?
I thought it was jack-of-all-tirades.
Loren,
I actually think I even know why I saw the added word. You can stop reading now if you want because it has no bearing on anything, just my own unnecessary explanations I feel compelled to make too often. Our neighbors had a party on the holiday weekend and my husband was given the “jacka**” shot glass for the evening. I asked if I could borrow it, and we all had a good laugh. That is how the subconscious works I guess.
Corsi, having a PhD in Political Science, obviously did not learn about the “two-citizen parent requirement” at Harvard, so I would certainly like to know where and when he learned about it. I would ask him myself, but I’m still waiting for him to respond to an e-mail I sent to him weeks ago asking about the license of his P.I. in Hawaii.
Oh dear Mr. Smith….do you really think the infantile attempts of a convicted forger/admitted child molester to fling mud really bother me in the least?
Shermer says that the popular notion that smart people are less prone to believing “weird things” than dumb people, is a myth.
When I was a kid the New York Times Book Review regularly ran ads for a book called “The Hollow Earth” by Dr. Raymond Bernard. The book’s thesis is that flying saucers actually come from a subterranean world through openings in the earth’s crust at the Poles. When I scraped a few dollars together I ordered a copy.
“Dr. Raymond Bernard” was actually Walter Siegmeister, who had a PhD in Education from New York University. By all accounts, Siegmeister actually believed his crackpot theories. He even moved to Brazil in 1955 to search for tunnels which he thought would lead him to the Hollow Earth. His father was a surgeon and his brother, Elie Siegmeister, was a composer of operas, symphonies and film scores.
Not at all my dear lady,
I was just wondering if you are that same lady with the breath that smells so bad that when you yawn your teeth duck?
“Shermer says that the popular notion that smart people are less prone to believing “weird things” than dumb people, is a myth.”
Another example of this is Emory University professor Courtney Brown. He has a PhD in political science and teaches PoliSci, and he apparently has some level of expertise in math.
And he also is a firm proponent of remote viewing and ancient civilizations on Mars. His appearance on Art Bell’s radio show, where he foretold the coming of a giant spacecraft alongside the Hale-Bopp comet, led to the Heaven’s Gate suicides.
Shermer actually discusses Brown briefly in his book “The Borderlands of Science.” He’s an educated man, but his extracurricular beliefs are so weird that Emory doesn’t allow him to mention his university employment during any of his remote viewing promotions or activities.
Lucas Smith is like the 8 year old kid who learns a new curse word but is so childish that he can’t discern when and where to use it appropriately, but he’s so eager to use it that he just trots it out willy nilly…………….
That’s how I’m reading all these “your mother” posts of his. He’s so childish and just plain pitiful……
“Lucas… I AM YOUR FATHER!”
Ahh, remember the days when people liked star wars…
I was thinking the same thing and neither one a Jedi but both definitely on the Dark Side.
Doen’t Lucas qualify as a “lesser mortal”? 😉
Bet you are happy you didn’t get busted in Phoenix, aren’t you?
Poland doesn’t have any openings to the earth’s crust. [bada-bing]
Thank you. I’ll be here all week.
Was Dr. Bernard looking for Skartaris? Or was Warlod looking for Dr. Bernard? I hope Warlord runs for President again. Obama has been far to skimpy with the broadsword action … several obstructionists in the House could use a little off the top.
Reminds me of the 12 year old who begs to sit at the grown-ups’ table at Thanksgiving and then proceeds to eat with his fingers, belch and pick his nose.
So what? Roy Cohn was well educated, and he made a career out of destroying the careers of others.
There are a lot of well educated people who are filled with superstitions. I was fortunate: every time I repeated something I heard, my mother and grandfather would say, “stop that. There’s a scientific explanation for everything.”
The Moe, Larry and Curly of Birtherdom just joined forces.. Jerome Corsi has a “huge” scoop, “shocking news” he will release to the world next week. And WHO is helping him?
Well, you’ve got to see this video to believe it.
http://www.thefogbow.com/Corsi-Hale
oh, and Orly, well…
“I got a phone call from Gerome Corsi. Another article will be published shortly”
So who is JimBot?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhSbrmoC26k
Unfortunately, we know how Lucas gathers vocabulary and information. And we know he has met Orly (according to Lucas, Orly, like the people of Haiti, speaks six languages fluently).
“Your mother” (accusative) is in fact the worst insult possible in Russian, so much so that Russians avoid saying “your mother” in the accusative.
Just saying.
My apologies, Lucas, I forgot to quote the vital second part of your assertion:
“but English is not one of them,”
I seem to recall one “strong” phrase in Russian that is something like “идти к чертовой мать.” That’s probably not declined right.
Aha!! Russian. I knew you were a commie. Who else would publish such a website? Other than Lenin, of course.
Can’t be. Communists have no class.
Yeah, there were quite a few very smart and/or very credentialed but waaaay “out there” folks that would appear on Art Bell’s radio show. (For as crazy as the topics got – the show was actually quite interesting and fun to listen too during the Art Bell days… not so much after he left). One of my favorite’s was Richard C. Hoagland. He was always a hoot. Nice guy but his stuff went way, way beyond the “Face of Mars” topic that he’s most well known for and much of it really was out on a limb. I did find his tetrahedal physics tangents quite intriguing. As with most crazy things from smart people…there are grains or gems of some valid concepts…but they soon detour way out into conspiracy and quack territory.
Yes, it is матери. Dative. That is a “nice” way to get the expression into a dictionary or a court report of a drunken fight, without shocking too much (although my dictionary also mentions the short version).
Dirty language in Russian is matershchina. There is a lot of matershchina in Russian, like in English, but a modern one that you have to watch out for is when your (nick)name is “gifted” with a link, and the link turns out to be one to the Belgian town of “Huy”.
Or course. Once I read “dative” the phrase “к plus dative” jumped to mind.
Nice pun.
Another one of my favorite “intelligent poeple” is Sir Isaac Newton. While reading some of his original writings on the book of Daniel, I also discovered that he could not handle criticism well, often suffered paranoi and a nervous breakdown later in life. Speculation that some of the later life mental deviations could have resulted from mercury poisoning in his alchemy endeavors.
Wow. That was some interesting tidbits on Sir Isaac Newton. Thanks for sharing.