It certainly is interesting to see the amount of attention Jerome “Swift Boat” Corsi’s new smear book, The Obama Nation, is already garnering. We wait with breathless anticipation Corsi’s multiple appearances on cable TV talking about Obama’s “unanswered questions” and anti-American attitudes, yadda yadda yadda — during which, one can rest assured, there will be no questions about Corsi’s history of ugly hatemongering at Free Republic.
In comparison, Cliff Schecter’s expose of John McCain, The Real McCain, has been given the classic media blackout treatment. There have been some brief references — like the Jon Stewart skit that discussed the “c word” story — but otherwise, Cliff’s cable appearances could be counted on one hand, as can the book’s mainstream-media reviews.
One of the things I put in all my book proposals when I was shopping this last one around was the concept of platform: That I had a way to let people know about the book already. The Internet has been great for this, for liberals especially, because otherwise, as you can see above, we’d be shut out of the conversation entirely. But it’s not enough to give “our” side of the argument credibility on the national stage, not on a level the wingnuts and slime molds like Corsi enjoy.
Even with supposed “debunking” stories, you still end up putting their book covers on TV for hours at a crack, making an issue out of what ought to be a ten second “Nixon bag man’s buttboy cashes wingnut welfare check” brief, if it’s noticed at all. Corsi’s a bestselling author, and we can talk about bulk sales all we want, everybody in America knows what “bestselling” means, and once you start explaining the scam, you’re done. We don’t like explanations. We like labels. It’s why I do like the “wingnut welfare” construct so much, it works where a long thing about the mechanics of book club orders doesn’t.
Our platform has to grow, if we’re to equal that for things that, you know, aren’tcompletely made up and motivated by insanity. And that requires old-fashioned infrastructure, investments of time and money by people whose time and money are considerable, and support not only from our own but from outside as well. There’s been a lot of chatter lately about these idiots Twittering away, because they’re claiming to be the grassroots, but ain’t none of them working day jobs. After four solid years of the blog revolution, it’s infuriating, to watch that scumbag motherfucker Corsi get the attention someone like Schecter deserves, just for getting up in the morning and signing his name.
A.