Faccia di culo

Eugene Robinson - Obama Faces The Smear Machine - washingtonpost.com

Here come the goons, right on schedule.

The "author," and I use the term loosely, whose vicious lies damaged John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign has crawled back out from under his rock to spew vicious lies about Barack Obama. Right-wing radio talk-show hosts are dutifully transmitting this concocted venom. This presidential campaign has officially gotten ugly.

The "author" I'm talking about is a man named Jerome Corsi. In a book published last year, "The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada," Corsi claimed that George W. Bush was at the heart of a secret conspiracy to subsume the United States into a post-national, one-worldish North American Union. Corsi's writings on far-right blogs have been even more paranoid and delusional. He has written that pedophilia, for which he used a more graphic term, "is OK with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press." He has referred to Muslims as "ragheads."

Corsi would be known as just another visitor from the outer fringe if he had not been the co-author of "Unfit for Command," the book that slimed Kerry's exemplary record as a Swift boat commander in Vietnam. The allegations in that book were discredited, but not before they had been amplified by the right-wing echo chamber to the point where they raised questions in some voters' minds -- perhaps enough to swing the election.

Wingnut welfare and the right-wing smear machine work hand in hand as follows to debase democracy:

1. Lying, amoral slimeballs like Corsi get paid to churn out hard-bound offal;
2. Ideologically driven publishers artificially pump up the sales numbers to get the piece of tripe on the bestsellers list;
3. Right-wing hate radio and propaganda networks like FOX shill relentlessly, giving the book inordinately disproportionate coverage;
   
4. The corporate media plays right along: "Hey! This book is number 1 on the Times Bestsellers List! Lets write about it and talk about it non-stop!";
5. Numerous sane individuals thoroughly discredit said "book" which, in the process, is given even more attention by the corporate media;
6. Corporate media points to all the attention the book is getting as proof that it's a story worth covering;
7. The book's lies get burned into the consciousness of America's voters.

The only way to shut this shit down is to make the complicit media outlets feel the pain, and the most sensitive part of their anatomy is THEIR WALLETS. Boycotts, negative publicity, harassed advertisers, the works. In addition, those few in the media who haven't sold their souls need to step hard on some big swinging corporate dick, not only by decrying the despicably corrupt process but by shining the light on their own employer's conduct. This piece by Eugene Robinson is a step in the right direction, but much more is needed.

Technorati Tags: Eugene Robinson, truth, Jerome Corsi, lies, MSM, right-wing smear merchants