'Unfit for Command' author: Obama favors killing living babies
Jerome Corsi, co-author of the book Unfit for Command which swiftboated John Kerry in 2004, has now leaped into the 2008 campaign with Obama Nation, a book which Media Matters finds "contains numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama."
"I wrote the book because of Obama's far-left politics," Corsi told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Tuesday. "I mean, the idea that we're going to have windfall profits and take from the oil companies and distribute thousand-dollar checks to poor people is radical redistribution of wealth."
"This book is full of innuendos, misstatements, lies," former Walter Mondale campaign manager Bob Beckel retorted, challenging Corsi's accusations that Obama has never proved he stopped using drugs in college and that he regarded Malcolm X as his "mentor."
"You say whatever is necessary to get you power," Corsi insisted, charging that Obama is a diehard left-wing radical who is concealing his true beliefs by pretending to be a moderate. "Take this black liberation theology, which is a revolutionary theology that blacks need to organize around a figure to get rid of us, the capital imperialists."
Beckel later asked, "You say that Barack Obama supported a bill to allow mothers to kill their babies even after they were born. ... Do you actually believe that to be true?"
Corsi insisted that after an incident in Illinois where an infant had survived for 45 minutes following a late-term abortion, Obama had "said that woman had an absolute right to abortion, to kill the baby even if it survived that abortion."
"That is patently untrue," Beckel countered, to which Corsi replied, "You haven't looked at the case."
According to Seth Colter Walls, the "infanticide" charge against Obama stems from his "present" vote on a bill debated in Illinois in 2001 that "would have required that any 'viable' fetus surviving a late-term abortion receive sustaining medical care (something which opponents of that bill said was already required by a 1975 bill in the state)."
Media Matters further explains that Obama's "present" vote was the result of a deliberate strategy worked out in concern with Planned Parenthood:
"We at Planned Parenthood view those as leadership votes," Pam Sutherland, the president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, told ABC News. "We worked with him specifically on his strategy. The Republicans were in control of the Illinois Senate at the time. They loved to hold votes on 'partial birth' and 'born alive'. They put these bills out all the time ... because they wanted to pigeonhole Democrats. ... He came to me and said: 'My members are being attacked. We need to figure out a way to protect members and to protect women.'"
Beckel then offered to "give you a couple of other Corsi comments, just so people can understand the person writing this book." He cited three examples, seemingly taken directly from a 2004 Media Matters article, where they appear as follows:
Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together" Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?" Corsi on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"
"They're old comments, long ago apologized for," Corsi insisted with a trace of embarrassment. "You're going back to things that are ancient."
"You say you have 600 sources," Beckel concluded. "Most of those sources are people who have right-wing agendas. ... If you're holding out here to be an expert on Barack Obama ... you have to understand why some of us question ... not only your book but also your history."
This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast August 5, 2008.
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Partial transcript
BECKEL: Let me make a couple other points you make in this book. You said that Barack Obama supported a bill to allow mothers to kill their babies even after they were born. Now, are they going to use knives, guns or how are going to do that? Do you actually believe that to be true?
CORSI: It's true.
BECKEL: Oh, come on.
CORSI: Bob, I quoted him from the Illinois Senate floor. This was a case of a baby that survived an abortion attempt -- late term, forced labor abortion -- and the nurse who is very famous out in Illinois held this baby for 45 minutes, took it from the linen closet. The baby had down syndrome until the baby died.
BECKLE: The baby died.
CORSI: And Obama, on the floor of the Illinois State Senate, said that woman had an absolute right to abortion, to kill the baby even if it survived that abortion.
BECKEL: That is patently untrue.
CORSI: Well, you haven't looked at the case. I'm sorry.
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