Jerome 'Swift Boat' Corsi Taken to Task, Arrested in Kenya

Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake at 11:01 AM on October 7, 2008.

Jerome Corsi was arrested in Kenya yesterday (and will soon be deported) evidently in the midst of a publicity stunt regarding Obama's extended family.

But he and I did a bloggingheads session last week that is up today on the website.  Over the course of the discussion, we establish that:

a)  He was paid by Dick Cheney's henchwoman Mary Matalin to write a book on Obama
b)  The book was bulk-bought by Freedom's Defense Fund (the same outfit that launched the Kilpatrick/Wright ads against Obama) and that's how it earned its way onto the New York Times bestseller list
c)  Despite many inaccuracies in the book, Matalin never called Corsi and suggested he make any corrections
d)  Seven of the first nine footnotes in the supposedly heavily researched and documented book refer back to himself; others link back to Andy Martin, who called a judge a "dirty, slimy Jew" and doesn't necessarily think the Holocaust was a bad thing.

You can watch the whole thing here.  At one point I got to ask him how he felt about the fact that Swiftboating now referred to a malicious attack by a pack of liars.   It was very satisfying.

PS I think he drinks.

Jane Hamsher is the founder of FireDogLake. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect.