I don't like books on either side of the political spectrum that smear people. I'm just curious, what did you all think about the book "The Truth About Hillary" by Ed Klein? It's the same type of book. Were you willing to believe everything in it as readily as the load of crap from Corsi?
Some of the falsehoods in "Obama Nation" (from
here, where you can find many more):
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."
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:
It is to my family, though -- my mother, my grandparents, my siblings, stretched across oceans and continents -- that I owe the deepest gratitude and to whom I dedicated this book. Without their constant love and support, without their willingness to let me sing their song and their toleration of the occasional wrong note, I could never have hoped to finish. If nothing else, I hope that the love and respect I feel for them shines through on every page [emphasis added].
What about Barack Senior or his Indonesian stepfather?
Obama's sister
Corsi falsely claims that Obama does not mention the birth of his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, during the chapter in Dreams in which he discusses his time living in Indonesia. Corsi writes:
In the midst of the personal drama being played against the background of this Indonesian turmoil, on August 15, 1970, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, was born to his mother and stepfather. Obama devotes the entire second chapter of his autobiography to his time in Indonesia, but remarkably, he makes no reference to Maya's birth [Page 48].
In fact, on Page 47 of Dreams, in the chapter discussing his time in Indonesia, Obama writes that "my mother and Lolo would remain cordial through the birth of my sister, Maya."
He mentions his sister's name once in the entire book?
Zulfin Adi
Corsi writes that in a March 16, 2007, Los Angeles Times article, "The newspaper quoted Zulfan Adi, who described himself as one of Obama's closest childhood friends" during his time in Indonesia. Corsi further writes:
Adi said neighborhood Muslims worshipped in a nearby house. When the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Adi remembered seeing Lolo and Barry walk together to the makeshift mosque. "His mother often went to the church," Adi told the Times, "but Barry was a Muslim. I remember him wearing a sarong" [Page 56].
In fact, as Media Matters has noted, key aspects of the March 16 Los Angeles Times article were later challenged by the Chicago Tribune, which reported that Adi said he "was not certain" about his statements regarding Obama's childhood and that he "only knew Obama for a few months." Additionally, the Tribune reported that "
nterviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia."
A 'regular, practicing' Muslim? Why the qualification?
Drug use
Corsi falsely claims that Obama "has yet to answer questions" concerning whether "he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug use extended into his law school days or beyond." Corsi writes:
Still, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he ever dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond. Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois? How about in the U.S. Senate? If Obama quit using drugs, the public inquiry certain to occur in a general election campaign for the presidency will most certainly aim at the when, how and why questions George W. Bush successfully avoided [Page 77].
In fact, Obama wrote in Dreams that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate. From Dreams:
When Sadik lost his own lease, we moved in together. And after a few months of closer scrutiny, he began to realize that the city had indeed had an effect on me, although not the one he'd expected. I stopped getting high. I ran three miles a day and fasted on Sundays. For the first time in years, I applied myself to my studies and started keeping a journal of daily reflections and very bad poetry. Whenever Sadik tried to talk me into hitting a bar, I'd beg off with some tepid excuse, too much work or not enough cash [Page 120].
As Media Matters documented, a July 30 WorldNetDaily.com article about Obama Nation also claimed that the book "points out" that "Barack Obama admitted using drugs in his autobiography but never revealed if or when he stopped."
