Cheat Seeking Missiles

Posted by: Laer at 12:52 pm

The Corsi Affair

Jerome Corsi, author of the hyper-attack book Obama Nation, is not an easy guy to defend. His reporting style has much more vicious attack than careful documentation, and his politics and choices leave him open to cheap (and possibly legit) shots from the Left (here, here, here).

There’s plenty of fodder the media can dredge up to go after Corsi, but the NYT decided the first thing to do was to reach way back and discredit his earlier book on Kerry, Unfit for Command:

In its timing, authorship and style of reporting, the book is strikingly reminiscent of the one Mr. Corsi wrote with John O’Neill about Mr. Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” which included various accusations that were ultimately undermined by news reports pointing out the contradictions.

Hmmm. An entire book, an entire crowd of Swift Boat vets with sharp memories and sharper tongues, all “undermined” by news reports? Maybe in the liberal media’s mind it was, but the American people, asked to judge between reporters and military vets, sided overwhelmingly with the vets and Unfit for Command and the ensuing Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign were instrumental in defeating Kerry. Undermined, indeed!

Like most of the other reports on the Corsi book and subsequent rebuttals by Media Matters, the Obama campaign and others, the NYT focuses on rebuttals that are responsive to charges in the book, but overlooks all the unresponsive rebuttals that came out of the Obama camp. Why? Pro-Obama bias.

And Media Matters? The rabidly left-wing “fact-checking” site? NYT helpfully describes it for us:

Media Matters, which is run by David Brock, a former right-wing journalist who wrote a classic of the attack genre, “The Real Anita Hill,” has been particularly aggressive in fact-checking the book …

If you didn’t know better, you’d think Brock and Corsi were birds of a feather, which would make you consider Brock’s criticisms anything but biased. Be of course we know Brock has done a 180 and now is one of the loudest loudmouths of the left. A kindergartener could have written a better description of Media Matters - and a better article on the controversy about the book - but not the NYT.

Media Bias 2008 will cover pro-Obama media bias all the way up to the election. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.

Share this Logic Bomb with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.