Corsi Won’t Quit on Birther Issue (Plus a Transcript Footnote)

Not surprisingly, Jerome R. Corsi has conjured a conspiracy theory about Obama’s long-form birth certificate over at (shock of shocks) WNDWhat is it about twin girls born day after Obama?

Of course, since Corsi has a book coming out called Where’s the Birth Certificate he has to do something to keep hope alive, so to speak.

I bring this up because Corsi is someone with whom readers ought to be aware if they are not already, simply because he is still taken seriously in some quarters, but does not deserve to be.

If anything, his basic analytical and research skills came into serious question when he failed to understand that Canada was already part of NAFTA (see here and here).

See also, James Joyner’s post:  Jerome Corsi and the Coarsening of American Politics and mine:  On Jerome R. Corsi.

The transcript postscript is this:  Corsi has a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard.  While I do not know his GPA, I would consider such a degree a significant accomplishment.  Not only is getting a Ph.D. hard work (and, in fact, most people who start down that path do not finish), but getting into, let alone finishing, graduate school at Harvard is especially hard work.

Having noted that, I would point out that the operative way to judge Corsi’s fitness as an analyst and researcher is to look at his body of work over the last ~40 years.  I would argue that he comes up wanting in that regard, even if his educational pedigree is impressive.

Ok, I will now try to refrain from posting on this topic.

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. jwest says:

    It will be interesting to read his book.

    He did a fine job exposing the fraud of John Kerry with meticulous research, so I would expect this effort to be on the same unimpeachable level.

  2. mantis says:

    He did a fine job exposing the fraud of John Kerry with meticulous research, so I would expect this effort to be on the same unimpeachable level.

    jwest has an extremely loose definition of the word “unimpeachable.”

  3. Davebo says:

    He did a fine job reinforcing ideas Jwest already heal and thus he’ll likely sell a lot of books.

    Obviously idiocy sells, among idiots.

  4. The Other Ed says:

    I read Corsi’s revelation that some twins born after Obama at the same hospital had lower file numbers stamped on their certificates than Obama. Since he acknowledges that the file numbers are stamped on by the Dept. of Health and not by the hospital, just maybe it shows that the Birth Certificates are not sent immediately and in time sequence to the Board but in a stack sent over all at once. They are then stamped as a clerk works their way through the stack.

    Remember, we are talking about 1961 when paperwork was either carried or mailed by the hospital to the Board of Health. How likely do you think it is that they sent them over and processed them one-by-one. Or how likely is it that both the Hospital bureaucracy and the State Board of Health dealt with the paperwork in batches?

    As usual, Mr. Corsi, your evidence is more innuendo than fact. Very weak sir, very weak.

  5. DC Loser says:

    Follow the money. I mean, this is about the only paying gig Corsi has. Milk it for all it’s worth.

  6. Neil Hudelson says:

    jwest has an extremely loose definition of the word “unimpeachable.”

    Also of the words “interesting” “book” “fine” “fraud” “meticulous” and “research.”

  7. mantis says:

    I mean, this is about the only paying gig Corsi

    There’s always plenty of wingnut welfare available for a scumbag like Corsi.

  8. mantis says:

    Also of the words “interesting” “book” “fine” “fraud” “meticulous” and “research.”

    Heh. I’m also questioning his understanding of “the” and “and.”

  9. hey norm says:

    when pathological liars are confronted by their lies, they don’t admit they are lying, they simply expand the lie. hence corsi sees other additional conspiracies…hence palin participated in trade missions to russia she didn’t participate in…hence wmd were smuggled out of iraq just prior to our invasion and occupation…hence climate change scientists are intent on world domination.
    the question is why any of these people is given any sort of platform whatsoever? just let them fade away.

  10. jwest says:

    Collectively, for the misinformed liberals:

    If you can find an error or lie in “Unfit for Command”, you should bring it forward with links so that you won’t seem so ignorant. Also, John Kerry would probably appreciate someone pointing out anything Corsi got wrong. Since it hasn’t happened so far, I will stick to my assessment of his book being meticulously researched.

  11. Dustin says:

    @The Other Ed, how that isn’t readily apparent to birthers is staggering.

    The argument is pretty funny, being that when Obama released his “short form” 4 years ago, his team was bright enough to go back through birth records and get a certificate number for his possibly fake document, that actually lines up properly with the historical record, yet were clumsy enough to get it out of order?

  12. mantis says:

    If you can find an error or lie in “Unfit for Command”, you should bring it forward with links so that you won’t seem so ignorant.

    Here you go, racist shitbird.

    Rood, who commanded one of three Swift boats during that 1969 mission, said Kerry came under rocket and automatic-weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and that Kerry devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by superiors. He called allegations that Kerry’s accomplishments were “overblown” untrue.

    “The critics have taken pains to say they’re not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It’s gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there,” Rood said in a 1,700-word, first-person account published in today’s Chicago Tribune.

    Rood’s recollection of what happened on that day was backed by key military documents, including his citation for a Bronze Star he earned in the battle and a glowing after-action report written by the Navy captain who commanded his and Kerry’s task force — and who now is a critic of the Democratic candidate.

    Rood’s previously untold story and the documents shed new light on a key historical event that has taken center stage in an extraordinary political and media firestorm generated by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

  13. Hey Norm says:

    There are 70 or 80 lies in that morass. Then there is the plagiarism.

  14. jwest says:

    Mantis,

    Since you’re too naïve and ill-informed to know that it was Kerry who wrote the after-action report that predicated this story, you don’t realize he was lying to cover for his own incompetence.

    “ Had Hoffmann known the true circumstances of events that day, O’Neill said, he would not have issued congratulations.”

    Kerry was a disgrace to the Navy and this country – in Vietnam and continuously since then.

  15. mantis says:

    WARNING: Comment in violation of site policies.

  16. george says:

    There are several descriptions I can think of for someone who wrote that Bush was secretly trying to expand NAFTA into Canada … but well-researched isn’t one of them. Which is fine if he’s just someone making comments on a blog, but why would someone consider buying a book written to that standard?

  17. mattb says:

    One important thing to note: Publishing Houses do not hire or fact check non-fiction.

    SAM TANENHAUS (Editor, The New York Times Book Review): And it’s one of the odd things in publishing, in media in general. Newspapers also don’t use fact checkers. Publishers and newspapers don’t use fact checkers. Magazines do. … I believe what the publisher initially said was that it, like other book publishers, holds authors accountable for the content of their books. And I think it’s even written into contracts. I know it’s written into the book contract I have.

    http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135711014/vetting-memoirs-a-tricky-problem-for-publishers

    So just because it’s published doesn’t mean it’s vetted. It’s also true that just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean it’s libel. And providing something libel gets increasingly difficult the more public an individual is.