How to Fight a Bully

Following up on what I wrote earlier, the Politico has an article discussing the advice veterans of the Kerry campaign have for Obama in dealing with Jerome Corsi’s new book, The Obama Nation. Most of it boils down to, “hit them hard and hit them now.” That’s good advice, I think, and it’s the advice I wish the Kerry camp had followed in 2004. The book is full of lies sourced from blog posts, lacking any verification at all. It’s pretty breathtaking that this book found a publisher, even if Mary Matalin is the editor. Media Matters has a rundown of the problems in the book, if you’re interested in the grizzly details.

One thing I wanted to mention, though, was that I don’t think we can be too harsh on the Kerry campaign – at least in this instance. They saw that they had two strategies, to fight it as hard as they could, or to ignore it and just let it blow away. I can sympathize with their dilemma. The issue was nonsense and a lie, after all. But it obviously turned out to be a major miscalculation. As anyone who was ever picked on knows, the strategy your mom will tell you is, “Just don’t respond to them. All they're looking for is attention.” I don’t know how many of you have tried this particular tack, but in my experience, it’s not a winning solution. The Kerry campaign was trying to stay above the fray, and they stayed so far above it that they didn’t notice it was costing them an election.

The Obama camp seems to be taking advice from dad this time, and instead of just walking away, hitting Corsi right in the nose. If something that’s nothing more than a stitched together tissue of false blog posts and misleading information can debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, it’s really the only solution that makes much sense. I hope it works out for Obama a bit better than it did for Kerry.

The Mud Merchants

Via Matt Yglesias, I really like what Joe Klein has to say in this post. Klein is discussing the new book by Unfit for Command author Jerome Corsi on Barack Obama, The Obama Nation.  I’ve often wondered about the disparity between the relative level of crazy in the Republican and Democratic Parties. Klein says, “But we're not seeing those sorts of claims being made about McCain this year...because Democrats tend not to do that sort of thing.” This is true: by and large, those in the progressive movement do not write books trying explicitly to derail the campaign of one candidate or another. To the endless list of conservative activists who spend their time smearing progressive candidates and causes – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Jerome Corsi, Bill O’Reilly, Pat Robertson. These guys command major media attention, and work well within the mainstream of the Republican Party and conservative politics.

Which makes me wonder. Can you name anyone working for progressive causes whose views are as toxic and as obviously falsifiable as those of Sean Hannity and Jerome Corsi? Anyone who commands the kind of audience that these folks get? Or is taken as seriously? Michael Moore is the closest person I can think of. I’m not a fan of his work for any number of reasons, but mostly because I do think he often operates on the level of these people. Anybody else out there? Is there anyone else that you agree with, in large part, but wish would shut up, because they’re making everybody else look bad?