How Obama's Campaign Is Confronting Corsi

Barack Obama's campaign hasn't said much publicly about Jerome Corsi's 2008 polemic against Barack Obama, but don't think for a minute that his aides aren't paying attention, and don't confuse the relative silence for a lack of action. Chastened by Sen. John Kerry's 2004 refusal to respond quickly enough to Corsi and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads, the campaign is determined to discredit Corsi, quickly.

"We are aggressively attacking the factual errors in this book, and making sure that everyone knows about the deeply offensive things Corsi has said that will give readers of any political affiliation pause and ample reason to question the lies he's written," Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesperson, said in a statement.

"This book is nothing but a series of lies that were long ago discredited, written by an individual who was discredited after he wrote a similar book to help George Bush and Dick Cheney get re-elected four years ago. This is his attempt to perpetuate those politics for four more years. The reality is that there are many lie-filled books like this in the works, cobbled together from the internet to make money off of a presidential campaign. We will respond to these smears forcefully with all means necessary."

The campaign is quietly shopping around research to anyone who wants it and is encouraging allies to look into Corsi's background.  Yesterday, perhaps independently, the New Republic published a list of some of the allegedly bat-dung crazy things Corsi has said or done, and the National Review's Byron York notices a pattern of such stories in mainstream publications.

Outside allies of the campaign are getting involved. Yesterday, the center-left group Catholics United  called Corsi out for his comments about the papacy.

The goal is to discredit the man ... with the theory being that if no one thinks the man is or reasonable, no one will pay attention to, or transmit, his messages. Obama aides Vietor, Hari Sevugan, and rapid response chief Christina Reynolds are heading the effort from campaign headquarters in Chicago.

For the most part, the campaign has an ally in the press, which considers the 2004 Swift Boat charges to be thoroughly rebutted and has little reason to believe that Corsi is a credible messenger in 2008. Producers are twinning Corsi's scheduled appearances with Obama defenders. On last night's Larry King Live, liberal media watcher Steven Paul Waldman was recruited to rebut Corsi during Corsi's guest turn, and even King himself was equipped with arrows and video pointing out factual errors.

In 2004, rejecting the advice of some of his advisers, Kerry hesitated to respond to the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, believing that doing so would give the charges credence.  The charges were aimed directly at Kerry's war record. Then, Kerry based his convention on his war record and heroism, having  and afterwards, never rebutted the negative impressions that the early Swift Boat ads made because, he later said, was hamstrung by public financing.

The Obama campaign has a more sophisticated understanding of the media than Kerry's campaign did, learned from Kerry's experience, of which their back-channel campaign against Mr. Corsi is evidence.

"The idea that you can sit on something and hope it doesn't break through simply no longer applies," an Obama aide said.