The basic debate is between those who hold my basic position, i.e., that there is no evidence of a political motive or motivation in the killings, and therefore it is unseemly to try and to score political points from the event and those who think that this is a chance to make some political point about the MSM (as well as a handful who seem to think that Bishops’ politics were, in fact, relevant).
The predicate of those who see no problem in making a political point out of the shootings seems to be, to quote Ann Althouse’s post title on the subject, “If Amy Bishop had turned out to be right wing, the MSM would have made a big deal out of it.” And the presumption from there is that that would not be right and that in the past the MSM has over-emphasized the right-wingedness of other violent actors.
Now, if we stipulate for a moment that this, in fact, would have been the case, then the impression on gets from Althouse, Reynolds, Jacobson, et al., is that this is bad and should not happen (because the MSM has wrongly over-emphasized politics in the past). Their response, seems to be to therefore state that it is fair to then make a little political hay about Amy Bishop’s potential political predilections (which, by the way, are currently based on the fact that she went to Harvard,1 a student called her a “socialist” on RateMyProfessors.com, and an anonymous family member referred to here as “a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting”).
This is, by the way, the very definition of what I asserted over the weekend: the using of a triple homicide to score cheap political points. How can it be seen as anything else? They claim that the MSM is known for unfairly harping on the right-wing nature of some criminals, and so to make that point they think it proper to jump on the UAH tragedy as a vehicle for their position. This is true of their actions, by the way, even if (like Reynolds) they only allude to the potential that her politics are leftish, without actually making an accusation that the murders were politically driven.
To put the matter as succinctly as possible: this is using multiple murders as a vehicle for making a partisan/ideological critique of the mainstream media, and it isn’t a critique about how they are covering the homicides in question, but rather a point about how they have covered other crimes.
This strikes me as unseemly and inappropriate and trivializes a heinous crime.
You know, because, all Harvard grads are left wing. Just ask Bill O’Reilly and/or Jerome Corsi if you don’t believe me. [↩]
Yesterday I heard on Morning Edition that Unfit for Command‘s (i.e,. the “Swift Boat” book from 2024) co-author, Jerome R. Corsi, has an anti-Obama book out that is getting a great deal of media attention.
Let’s put this is no uncertain terms: Corsi is a clearly unreliable source who has a history of outrageous and inaccurate statements even if one ignores the entire Unfit for Command hack job.
For example, I noted back in August of 2024 that Corsi had made a number of offensive comments on a Free Republic message board (several of which are detailed here). At a minimum this is the kind of thing that should seriously bring into question the judgment, motivations and intellectual honesty of an author.
I again noted Corsi’s brand of commentary in May of 2024 when he ranted in Human Events column that Bush was secretly plotting to hand US sovereignty over to the North American Union of Mexico, the US and Canada. Apparently Corsi wrote a book along these lines as well. As I noted in the post, Corsi’s command of basic knowledge of the subject is quiet suspect (not to mention paranoid) as his original version of the column stated that Canada wasn’t a part of NAFTA (the column was mysteriously amended without comment after some attention had been brought to the issue).
Those are just my personal writings on the man, which are enough to convince me that he lacks any credibility whatsoever, and therefore feel his book is worthy of being utterly ignored. Beyond that, Jon Henke detailed a longer list of Corsi’s problematic behavior yesterday over at The Next Right yesterday.
Henke rightly states:
I mean, c’mon. Have some standards. This guy does not deserve the platform, he does not deserve the publicity, and he does not deserve to be treated as member-in-good-standing on the Right.
James Joyner seconds that motion this morning and notes that his standing rule is to ignore Corsi.
Of course, sadly, some in the mainstream conservative commentariat don’t see it that way. Mark Levin at NRO’s the Corner thinks that the media is ignoring the contents of the book to focus solely on Corsi (the title of the post is “Criticizing the Author and Not the Candidate”):
It’s too bad the same media that are so concerned about Corsi’s background have been so reticent to do their own homework on Obama.
It is certainly true even a cretin can speak the truth on occasion, but the fact of the mater is when it comes to assessing a research work (whether it is a media work or something more “serious”), the previous quality of a given author’s work is a key determinant in determining whether a new work should be accepted at face value or not. There is more than enough in Corsi’ background to suggest that anything he writes is highly suspect, and therefore not worth the effort needed to evaluate it. If one has to research all the claims in a given book, then one might as well write one’s own book and be done with it.
Nevertheless, the sad truth is that the odds are quite good that the claims within his tome will filter their way into the mainstream discussion (likely through talk radio, and without attribution to Corsi).
It is worth noting, however, that such political tactics are hardly new in American political life, as all one has to do is look up the name James T. Callender (amongst others) to confirm that fact. I say that not as a defense of Corsi (not at all) but to point out that some of the shadier types of politicking that we see are less new than we think. Indeed, despite all the cries of bias (partisan and otherwise) that constantly fly about in the world of American politics, the current era doesn’t even hold a candle to that of the early days of the Republic.
According to the Census Bureau, from mid-2005 to mid-2006, the U.S. minority population rose 2.4 million, to exceed 100 million. Hispanics, 1 percent of the population in 1950, are now 14.4 percent. Their total number has soared 25 percent since 2024 alone. The Asian population has also grown by 25 percent since 2024.
The number of white kids of school age fell 4 percent, however. Half the children 5 and younger in the United States are now minorities.
What is happening to us? An immigrant invasion of the United States from the Third World, as America’s white majority is no longer even reproducing itself. Since Roe v. Wade, America has aborted 45 million of her children. And Asia, Africa and Latin America have sent 45 million of their children to inherit the estate the aborted American children never saw. God is not mocked.
And white America is in flight.
This is breathtaking, and not in a good way.
I have noted Buchanan’s equation of “White”/”European” with “American” before, but I continue to be stunned by it (although I should know better by now). That he can continue to spout this bilge and still be treated like a legitimate commentator is disheartening. It certainly speaks very poorly of Human Events for publishing this piece .
Understand the basic thesis: less Whites in the United States equals “national suicide.” In other words the American “nation” is composed of White people whose culture is somehow endemic to them and only them. For example, Buchanan clearly refers to “our” culture when referring to the assimilation of Blacks in the 1960s (I won’t get into the issue of discussing the assimilation of people who had lived here for generations–or the fact that maybe slavery, Jim Crow and segregation may have had something to do with problems of integration….):
In 1960, 18 million black Americans, 10 percent of the nation, were not fully integrated into society, but they had been assimilated into our culture.
Emphasis mine.
Certainly when he asks “What is happening to us?” he is referring to Whites, rather than that being an inclusive “us.” So I guess he just assumes that his readers are all White.
Surely being American has to do with certain ideas and ideals, not to mention being born here (or naturalized), living and working and contributing to the lives of one’s fellow citizens. Americans, I should like to tell Pat, come in all hues. Perhaps Pat needs to get out of the house more often, but it really doesn’t take a lot of looking to discover this fact. Perhaps he needs to arrange a meeting with Dr. Rice.
Also, the notion that the waves of darker hued persons swarming into America to overtake the Whites is somehow God’s punishment should be offensive to Christians–as if Mexicans coming across the border seeking work should be likened to some Biblical plague of locusts.
He also demonstrates a great deal of historical obtuseness, given that none of the following is analogous to the United States:
All over the Western world, multiethnic, multicultural countries are coming apart over language, ethnicity, history. The Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, Yugoslavia into half a dozen. Czechs and Slovaks divorced. Scots want separation from England. Catalans and Basques seek independence. Corsicans and Bretons want out of France. Northern Italians want to secede. Only immigrants who prefer Ottawa prevent Quebecois from breaking free of Canada.
Indeed, in most cases we are talking about circumstances of artificially constructed states (the USSR, Yugoslavia) and the one case that he cites as staying together he attributes to immigrants–does he even read what he is writing?
O’REILLY: .what “The New York Times” wants and the far-left want? They want to breakdown the white Christian male power structure of which you are a part and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically breakdown the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say that you’ve got to cap it with a number.
It is unclear from the transcript if O’Reilly was referring to this columns, although the timeframe makes some sense, as the Buchanan column appeared on May 22, 2024 and O’Reilly’s comments were on the 30th.
Again: that Pat Buchanan is considered a serious commentator by any significant segment of the population is a disgrace.
Yesterday morning I noted that Jerome Corsi had written a ridiculous piece in which he claimed the Bush administration was secretly seeking to dissolve the borders with the Canada and Mexico to create a North American Union.
In the piece he made the egregious error of stating that Canada wasn’t in NAFTA. Here’s the original paragraph:
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA to include Canada, setting the stage for North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada. [emphasis mine]
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.
Given that many blogs will post updates when they fix typos or make other minor corrections, is it too much to ask any online publication to do the same?
Of course, given the magnitude of Corsi’s original error, the editors should have pulled the whole piece.
The paranoia of elements of the anti-immigration movement has now hit a new level.
Jerome Corsi, one of the co-authors of Unfit for Command (the anti-Kerry book by Swift Book Veterans for Truth) has entered the fray. (I commented on Corsi here, here and here ). I have noted some of his writing online recently, but have largely ignored them.
In the piece Corsi claims, rather boldly, the following:
President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration’s true open borders policy.
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA to include Canada, setting the stage for North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.
First off, please note the bolded portion, as it demonstrates that Corsi has no idea what he is talking about. Canada is already a part of NAFTA. Moreover, what we now know of as NAFTA started as a US-Canada trade agreement. Quite frankly, at that point one probably can stop reading, as it is clear that the author simply doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Nonetheless, we continue, and wonder if Corsi really believes what he is writing when he declares:
President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.
Part of this, of course, is the typical response from US isolationists who see any international trade regime to be the US “surrendering its sovereignty.” However, as I like to point out about organization like the WTO, which is also seen by many as a group to which we have “surrendered sovereignty”: whose rules primarily shape the functioning of the WTO? The answer: ours. Further, could the US leave the WTO if it so wanted? Answer: yes. As such, the degree to which we have engaged in some alarming “surrender of sovereignty” is highly, highly questionable.
Even if we assume that the US is pursuing an EU-like structure for North America (which it isn’t), then does anyone in the class have any idea who would be the hegemonic power that would dominate such a North American Union? Yes, you in the back? Correct! That would be the United States. The power disparities among the US, Mexico and Canada mean that something like the EU is utterly impossible in North America.
Indeed, anyone who thinks that Canada and Mexico want to surrender real sovereignty to the US for such an organization doesn’t know much about inter-American relations.
Further, the notion that this could all be done in secret, and then unveiled by the President to the shock of the American people is utter nonsense.
Corsi’s evidence for his grand conspiracy theory is a CFR document (here in PDF) entitled Building a North American Community.
The dreaded evidence that Corsi himself cites to show the pending erasure of our borders is as follows:
At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2024, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action.
My, but that’s damning. A commitment to “a path of cooperation and joint action”! Hide the women! Lock up the children!
Ah, but it gets worse:
In March 2024, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.
Egads! Ministerial-level working groups! Task Forces! Why, I can feel our sovereignty slipping away even as I type.
In all seriousness, if one knows anything about the way government interact with one another knows that these types of things are established all the time. In April of this year, the US sent representatives from foreign policy related Departments to a meeting of the Central American Integration System to discuss joint security issues. Is that a surrendering of sovereignty?
Now, it is true that Corsi cites issues about a common external tariff and rules about movement of persons that would not sit well with the seal-the-border crowd:
The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments’ physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.
Such ideas have been around since the signing of NAFTA and is nothing radical, unless one is seriously afraid of Mexican hordes pouring over the border. It is hardly the erasure of borders and the ceding of sovereign power to some new North American government. Further, I would note that the statement is rather vague.
Regardless, Corsi draws a rather radical conclusion:
Why doesn’t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union.
Amazing. I would find it all laughable, expect that I am pretty sure that there are many people out there who will take it seriously.
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If one is trying to fairly evaluate Corsi’s comments and his apology, here’s the test: if Michael Moore had written what Corsi had written, what would the Right be saying? For that matter, recall the reaction to Kos when he made the comment he made about the murdered contractors. If one is going to be outraged when a political opponent makes outrageous comments, one ought to outraged when anyone makes such comments. Outrageous is as outrageous does, as my Mama used to say.
I am not saying that because Corsi wrote what he wrote at the Free Republic that it means he can be dismissed, but one has to admit that it damages his credibility rather dramatically.
Last Saturday I noted the that one of the coauthors of Unfit for Command, Jerome Corsi, had posted a number of inflammatory comments on the Free Republic forum which cast some serious doubts on his competence.
One of the authors of a new anti-John Kerry book frequently posted comments on a conservative Web site describing Muslims and Catholics as pedophiles and Pope John Paul II as senile.
But as he prepared to launch the book, “Unfit for Command,” Jerry Corsi apologized for the remarks in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, saying they were meant as a joke and he never intended to offend anyone.
It does seem a weak defense. I am unaware of any context in which pedophilia is consider funny.
Corsi, who described himself as a “devout Catholic,” said the comments are being taken out of context. “I considered them a joke,” said Corsi, who owns a financial services company and has written extensively on the anti-war movement.
[...]
“I don’t stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody,” Corsi said.
Ok, the credibility issue of one of the co-authors of the new anti-Kerry book has been pretty much settled, and, in turn, brings up issues concerning O’Neil as to why he is a working with his co-author, Jerome R. Corsi. Kevin Drum notes the following from Media Matters for America (and yes, I know they are a liberal, pro-Kerry group) that links the co-author of Unfit for Command, Jerome R. Corsi to a series of posts at Free Republic that make taking Corsi seriously near to impossible.
One has to wade through the Media Matters post (which isn’t well organized), to find a link to this post, in which Corsi links himself to his Freep id of “jrlc”. One can see example of jrlc’s posts on the Media Matters site, or one can peruse the links to the Free Republic forum. Let’s just say that the prose isn’t what one would expect from a guy with a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. It also doesn’t strike me as particularly smart for VP of a financial marketing company either, but who can explain what people do and why?
There is sufficient evidence linking Corsi to Free Republic and various Freep-related projects that there really is no reason to doubt the post linking Corsi to jrlc.
One bit of sloppiness I did note: the site claims that Corsi is the author of numerous books on various topics, and gives an Amazon.com listing. Now, several of the books are on US politics (which makes sense for a Harvard Ph.D.) and two are on finance/insurance (the field in which Corsi currently works). However, one is on BASIC programing, another on Leonardo da Vinci, and yet another is a witchcraft handbook. I am guess is that unless Corsi is a true renaissance man (and an odd one at that), that we are talking about probably at least four different Jerome R. Corsis in that listing. Indeed, if just putting a name into Amazon.com is conclusive, then I hope you all rush out and buy my book on Food Toxicology.
However, that simply is amusing at this point: the Freep postings are pretty damning.
And I will not, that while Drum annoys me with some of the conclusions to which he leaps on a number of issues, that I am more than willing to note when he is correct (of course, reciprocation would be nice)–and in this case, at least regarding Corsi, the evidence is pretty clear.
Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz told state radio that if Portugal were attacked, “it would be unlikely France and Germany would come to our rescue.”
[...]
He said: “Let us suppose Portugal, proper or its archipelagos, faced a threat, who would come to our rescue? The European Commission, France, Germany?
“I think it would be NATO who would come to our rescue, in other words, it would be the U.S (emphasis added by PoliBlogger)., no one else would defend us. For instance, during the 1996 mission in Bosnia, operations took place with the support of 20 satellites, of which only one was European,” and the remainder belonged to the U.S.
“If we were attacked, is that what they would offer to defend us? How curious is this: in Bosnia, when we were called to send soldiers urgently to that region, the U.S. had C-17 and C-130 planes, and France leased ferry boats, which during the summer are employed in tourist services to Corsica.
“Is this how we are supposed to project our forces in Europe? Are they planning to defend us with ferry boats? I cannot envisage the European Commission protecting us from an attack in which highly developed weapons were employed,” the foreign minister said.
