Some time ago my rightwing brother blasted a note to siblings/friends touting Corsi's book and claiming that there was no way anyone could read that with it's 700 footnotes and not come away believing anything except Obama is nothing but a socialist who will destroy the country.
There's no point in arguing with him about any of this, so I don't really try. I wouldn't even consider wasting my money on that trash in order to go thru and refute it all. I also don't have time for that, but I do think it is important to communicate trusted info along to folks when those false chain emails go flying around. I always seem to be copying info to rebut them from snopes.com and factcheck.org and blasting it back at the lists. Despite most of these folks being reliable rightwingers, they seem to understand that these are pretty reliable, non-partisan sources for the facts.
I kept waiting for one of those sites to rebut the Corsi claims and factcheck.org has finally come through.
Corsi's Dull Hatchet
Besides pointing out many of the inaccuracies many have discussed here, factcheck also takes Mary Matalin to task for her trying to promote it as a scholarly effort:
Mary Matalin, the chief editor of the book's publisher, told The New York Times that the book is not political, but rather, "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that." The prominent display of Corsi's academic title (he holds a Ph.D. in political science) seems clearly calculated to convey academic rigor. But as a scholarly work, "The Obama Nation" does not measure up. We judge it to be what a hack journalist might call a "paste-up job," gluing together snippets from here and there without much regard for their truthfulness or accuracy.
So it's now time to forward the factcheck email back to this crowd and await the next onslaught from my brother...