Comments on: Web War Waged For The White House

On The Internet, The Medium Is The Message - So How Do The Two Candidates Stack Up?

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The dedication

On Pages 49-50, Corsi falsely claims that Obama did not dedicate Dreams from My Father to his mother or his grandparents. Corsi writes:

Interestingly, Obama did not dedicate Dreams from My Father to his mother, or to his father, Barack Senior, or to his Indonesian stepfather. Missing from the dedication are the grandparents who raised him in Hawaii, especially during the years his mother abandoned him to return to Indonesia to be with Lolo [Soetoro, Obama''s stepfather].

In fact, while the 2004 edition of Dreams -- the version Corsi cites in Obama Nation (Part One, endnote 2, Page 306) -- does not contain a separate dedication page, on Page xvii, the last page of the book''s introduction, Obama writes:

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"It wasn''t your father''s fault that he left, you know. I divorced him. When the two of us got married, your grandparents weren''t happy with the idea. But they said okay -- they probably couldn''t have stopped us anyway, and they eventually came around to the idea that it was the right thing to do. Then Barack''s father -- your grandfather Hussein wrote Gramps this long, nasty letter saying that he didn''t approve of the marriage. He didn''t want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman, he said. Well, you can imagine how Gramps reacted to that. And then there was a problem with your father''s first wife he had told me they were separated, but it was a village wedding, so there was no legal document that could show a divorce " [Pages 125-126]

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n the blog post that Corsi cites, the author asserted:

The senior Obama married a fellow student, eighteen-year old Shirley Ann (Anna) Dunham of Witchita, Kansas. Dunham was an anthropology student. Obama Jr. was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu.

Two years later, the senior Obama divorced Dunham according to Sharia law and returned to Kenya the same year that Kenyatta took control as the first prime minister of a self-governing Kenya (June 1963).

In Dreams from My Father, Obama quotes his mother stating of Barack Obama Sr., "I divorced him":

The teapot whistled, and I stamped my envelope. Then, without any prompting, my mother began to retell an old story, in a distant voice, as if she were telling it to herself.

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On page 44, Corsi writes:

The circumstances of exactly how or why Stanley Ann ended her marriage with Obama''s father, like much else in the narrative, remain unclear. One version is that Stanley Ann divorced Obama Senior in 1964, when Obama Junior was three years old and Stanley Ann realized Obama Senior had returned to Africa to rejoin the previously undisclosed wife he had abandoned in Kenya. The other version is that Obama Senior, following the prescripts of Islamic sharia law, divorced Stanley Ann when he returned to Africa in 1963 to begin his work as a bureaucrat in the Kenyatta government.4

The endnote for Corsi''s claim reads as follows:

The first version, that Stanley Ann Dunham Obama divorced Obama Senior, is the version commonly found. The version that Obama Senior divorced Stanley Ann under sharia law is told in sources such as the following: Majalah Bulanan Kumunitas Indonesia Di Edmonton, "Barack Hussein Obama was Muslim for 31 Years," March 20, 2008, at

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previously documented false and baseless charges Corsi made in Obama Nation about Obama''s positions on the Global Poverty Act of 2007 and nuclear weapons. Media Matters also pointed out false statements Corsi made while discussing the book with Fox News host Sean Hannity, concerning Obama''s position on abortion and Obama''s memoir Dreams From My Father (Crown, 1995).

Below are additional falsehoods from Obama Nation, listed in the order in which they appear in the book:

The divorce

Corsi baselessly suggests that Obama''s father, Barack Obama Sr., may have divorced his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, "following the prescripts of Islamic sharia law." Corsi''s sole source for this statement is a blogger who made the claim in a March 20 post, which featured the false headline, "BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA WAS MUSLIM FOR 31 YEARS" and misstated Obama''s mother''s name as "Shirley Ann." The blogger Corsi cited, "Majalah Bulanan Kumunitas Indonesia Di Edmonton," provided no substantiation for the claim that "the senior Obama divorced Dunham according to Sharia law."

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Summary: In its preface, Jerome Corsi compares his new book, The Obama Nation, to his 2004 book Unfit for Command. The comparison seems apt: Just as Unfit for Command contains false attacks on Sen. John Kerry''s military service, a Media Matters review finds that The Obama Nation similarly contains numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama.

In the preface of his recently released book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, author Jerome Corsi writes: "My intent in writing this book, as was the case in coauthoring Unfit for Command, is to fully document all arguments and contentions I make, extensively footnoting all references, so readers can determine for themselves the truth and validity of the factual claims." Indeed, Corsi''s comparison of the two books seems quite apt: Just as Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry contains false and baseless attacks on Sen. John Kerry''s military service, a Media Matters for America review finds that Obama Nation similarly contains numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama.

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The new election law also unfairly impacts black and Latino Americans and other voters of color. Advancement Project anticipates that significant number of voters of color will be included on the county generated caging lists because census data indicates that they move more frequently than whites. Furthermore, in light of the fact that college students change residences frequently, it is anticipated that large numbers of young voters will be included on the lists as well.

"Voter suppression and intimidation is driven by a desire to maintain the status quo, concluded Judge." "These acts are carried out in an effort to deprive certain Americans, especially those most marginalized, of a voice in our democracy. Election Day is the great equalizer -- it is the one day where if all was right in our democracy, it would not matter if a person is rich, poor, black, white, educated or not, we all would have the same amount of power."

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"Partisan, challengers who have obtained a list of returned letters shouldn''t be allowed to strip Ohio voters of their right to update their addresses" said Teresa James, attorney with Project Vote. The lack of notice to challenged voters under Ohio''s 2006 challenge law allows this interference to take place quietly and behind closed doors. This violates the principles our nation was founded on. It is imperative that Secretary Brunner establish guidelines so that partisan challengers will not be permitted to lodge unfounded challenges that clog the election process, burden poll workers and disenfranchise eligible voters."

Ohio''s current law is internally inconsistent. For instance, Ohio law permits voters who move from one precinct to another to change their address from 28-days prior to the election, up to and including Election Day. Yet, if a voter is challenged and removed from the rolls within 20 days of the Election and their registration is canceled, without notice, this cancels the effectiveness of a voter changing their address since there is no longer a registration on file. It also violates Ohio law and equal protection of the laws because this voter is not provided the same meaningful opportunity to update a valid registration up to and including Election Day as other Ohio voters.

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Advancement Project and Project Vote would like to see the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, issue a directive prohibiting Ohio electors from challenging Ohio voters whose name appear on any returned mailings and/or any past, current or future caging list. This is the best remedy to ensure that all Ohio voters are treated in a uniform manner during the November 2008 election because it permits the county boards to send out information to Ohio voters and at the same time ensures that all voters are permitted to vote without the threat of being placed on a list that is subject to challenge for no other reason than a returned mailing.

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This law was effective beginning 2006 and covers all primary, general, and special elections from 2006 through the November 2008 General Election. Advancement Project finds it extremely interesting, that this law "sunsets" effective January 1, 2009.

"A single returned piece of mail is not a reliable basis for challenging the right to vote," said Donita Judge, Ohio staff attorney, Advancement Project. "Mail may be returned for many reasons, including errors in the database from which the mailing is derived, errors in the mailing labels, failure to include an apartment number or poor matching criteria."