Mainstream Media Go Nuts for Attack Book on Obama, Ignore The Real McCain

Posted by David Neiwert, Firedoglake at 8:07 AM on August 14, 2008.

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.

Today's New York Times piece about Obama Nation sort of alludes to this when discussing how readily the right-wing media chamber picks up on books like Corsi's:

"There's just no doubt that in terms of longer-term infrastructure, there's more out there on the right than there is on the left," said Cliff Schecter, author of a liberal attack book on Mr. McCain, "The Real McCain," which, with 35,000 copies in print, did not make the Times bestseller list.

Gee, I wonder if maybe the fact that the New York Times did not even bother to review the book -- let alone treat its release as a news event worthy of thousand-word news piece -- might have had something to do with the book's relatively paltry sales.

Or maybe it was the fact that no one has yet come forward with anything even vaguely refuting the information in Schecter's book. In fact, unlike Corsi's entire body of work, The Real McCain is built out of well-established fact and thoroughly vetted information.

The Times piece, to its credit, does list the multiple falsehoods and distortions in Corsi's book (Media Matters has a whole bunch more). So perhaps there will be at least a reasonable chance that this book will be treated more skeptically than Corsi's Swift Boat book.

But you have to wonder why so much more ink and broadband will be devoted to this book than a similar book about McCain. Makes you wonder if those rumors about McCain's people threatening the networks with retaliation for any airtime for Schecter are true.

Your librul media at work again.

Tagged as: obama, mccain, the real mccain, jerome corsi, obama nation, cliff schecter

David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle, and the assistant editor of Crosscut.