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New Obama Book Offends More Than Reveals

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 15, 2008

Call Barack Obama a flip-flopper, an inexperienced senator or even an empty phenomena. Examine his voting record, his speeches and his interviews, and draw your own conclusions. But dipping into his past and painting an outrageous bio of him as a closet Muslim masquerading as a Christian, an unpatriotic American and a radical black with a long drug use - after extrapolating bits of information here and there - is stooping really low.

Politics is a dirty game but modern Americans can't let the political discourse fall to that level - even when the stakes are high.

After months of smear campaigns on Obama's values and upbringing, a new book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," by conservative author Jerome R. Corsi, apparently takes character assassination to new heights or new lows - whichever way you want to look at it.

The timing is particularly telling. The book is making its debut days before Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for president.

According to CBSNews.com, the book's plot goes something like this: "The son of an 'alcoholic polygamist,' Obama deals with his abandonment issues and 'black rage' by experimenting with drugs and radical thought. He makes a calculated entrance into politics despite having accomplished little and having developed some 'anti-American' sentiments. Once in office, he regularly manipulates the political machine and becomes a liberal who will 'divide America.'"

If the book sounds like a conservative conspiracy, it probably is, although the John McCain camp has denounced the book in some media interviews. Corsi himself is not voting for McCain, he said on the Larry King show, as though to state his lack of bias on the whole issue. Corsi also has a track record of making extreme comments - he once called Pope John Paul II "senile," although he said he later apologized for saying it.

We don't know the extent of conservative support behind the book but there seems to be interest. His book will debut as a No. 1 New York Times bestseller for non-fiction, apparently driven by purchases by conservative clubs that buy such books in bulk to catapult them on bestsellers lists.

From what we've read about the book, it appears to be a malicious attack on Obama's multi-cultural upbringing, his race and his differentness. It has nothing to do with the issues. What does it matter if Obama is half-black, had a Muslim father and spent his childhood in foreign countries? Does the Constitution disqualify him from the job because of that? Disagree with him on his policies; don't bash him because he, literally, does not look like those guys on dollar bills.

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