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John McCain’s campaign and Republicans can no longer reasonably deny they are running a race-based campaign.  If that were true, you wouldn’t expect one of the top Republican advisors of the last 20 years to be pitching Jerome Corsi to a white supremacy radio show.  

Mary Matalin is the publisher of Jerome Corsi’s book of lies.

Mr. Corsi has dismissed criticisms of his book as “nit-picking,” an odd defense coming from an author happy to inflate any possible omission into a full-blown evasion. Mary Matalin, the Republican political strategist who heads Threshold Editions, the Simon & Schuster division that published “The Obama Nation,” described the book to the New York Times as “a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that.” That would not be our description.

Yes, scholarship!  The preferred refuge of the right winger - claim intelligence!  Error-free intelligence!

Ordinarily, when an author or an editor discovers errors in a book’s text, he or she arranges to correct them in the next printing. I’ve done this myself. But neither Corsi nor Matalin responded to e-mails from me asking whether they intended to correct any errors in The Obama Nation—it would be a miracle if there were none. 

It’s bad enough Mary Matalin’s imprint at Simon & Schuster is publishing a book of utter faleshoods and lies so racially hateful it belongs in the realm of hate speech.  But it’s just the beginning. Mary Matalin booked her new “author” on James Edwards white supremacy radio show.  

UPDATE: Sam Stein reports that he has received an email from Winston Smith, confirming Corsi’s appearance on the show. Smith’s email reads as follows: “Dr. Corsi’s first appearance on our broadcast was very well received. On Sunday’s show he’ll be talking about his new book about Barak [sic] Hussein Obama. It’ll be a fascinating converstaion [sic], and we hope you’ll listen in.”

Always love it when white supremacists can’t even spell.  Edwards’s show is even on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch.  For a little taste, visit James Edwards’ cornucopia of bigotry (i.e. his blog).  Media Matters compiles some of Edwards greatest hits.

As Corsi himself has said, his goal is to destroy Barack Obama, and if Mary Matalin is the publisher who decided to put into a print a book so foul and full of factual errors, she’s the campaign manager for Corsi’s campaign.  That is clear.

But it simply beggars belief that Mary Matalin hasn’t coordinated the publishing of this book, and the book tour, with John McCain’s campaign.  Mary Matalin has been at the side of Dick Cheney, the Bushes, and every national Republican for the last 20 years.  It’s how she got this book pre-purchased to the point it debuts at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.  

Not to mention, this book’s subject, Barack Obama, wasn’t even decided upon until the end of the Democratic primary.  Does anyone think that Jerome Corsi wouldn’t have written this book about Hillary Clinton had she managed to win?  Does anyone think that Jerome Corsi wasn’t all lined up to do this to Hillary a year ago?  That means Corsi and Matalin threw this piece of crap together in a matter of months.  It shows.

But what also shows is that Corsi’s book is not just Corsi’s book.  It is either Mary Matalin’s racist campaign against Barack Obama, or John McCain’s racist campaign against Barack Obama, or both.  

Republicans have lost plausible deniability on the use of racism in their campaign.  Thanks to Mary Matalin.

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