Apparently publishing the slimiest attack book of the year against Barack Obama wasn’t enough for the man behind the Swift Boating of John Kerry, Jerome Corsi (see our full entry on Corsi and his despicable book).
He recently took a trip to Kenya to publicize some of the more bizarre and easily disproven lies in his book, but he got himself in some trouble with the local authorities and was deported. As soon as he got back, he was out peddling a completely fake, manufactured email allegedly from Barack to Raila Odinga. The email is so obviously made up, it’s been openly mocked.
There’s more to the smears behind Corsi’s latest stunt. He apparently started with an email attack that earned a “pants on fire” rating from PolitiFact for truthfulness. The email claimed familial, financial, and political ties between Barack Obama and Kenyan politician, Raila Odinga, so all Corsi had to do when he “wrote” his book was commit it to paper. Everything in the email was debunked months before the book came out, but Corsi went with his illegitimate smears anyway.
The truth is Raila Odinga claimed to be related to Barack during a politically dangerous moment for himself, and no Kenya experts believe his claim. Having made that unsupported boast, even Odinga himself says he never received money from Obama, as the original smear email and Corsi’s pathetic rehash would have us believe.
This latest ridiculous Corsi smear is turning up in email boxes all across the country. Fight back with the truth: make sure anyone who has seen this smear, also sees this page.
*Learn more about Jerome Corsi and his long history of smear peddling: Corsi: Unfit for Publication.
Gration responds to Odinga smear in Washington Times
MAJ. GEN. J. SCOTT: Mark Hyman’s “Obama’s Kenya ghosts,” (Commentary, Sunday), was a disgraceful smear on Sen. Barack Obama. Because I accompanied Mr. Obama on his trip to Kenya, I can say unequivocally that Mr. Hyman’s piece was filled with lies and innuendo.
OBAMA NEVER CONTRIBUTED MONEY TO ODINGA
Politifact: The Claims That Obama Contributed $1 Million To Odinga “Are As Baseless As Anything You’ve Read From An Anonymous Blogger” And Earned A Rating Of “Pants On Fire” Wrong. “A chain e-mail that originates with a letter from American missionaries working in Kenya warns about Sen. Barack Obama’s ties to Kenya and its opposition party, encouraging readers ‘not to be taken in by those that are promoting him.’ Among the many allegations is one about Obama’s ties to Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga: ‘Obama under ‘friends of Obama’ gave almost a million dollars to the (Kenya) opposition campaign who just happened to be his cousin, Raila Odinga, who is a socialist trained in East Germany.’ The e-mail reads like a bad game of ‘telephone,’ its claims drawn from assorted people and sources that have been stitched together. And yet, because it is signed by real people, who have a life in Africa, it somehow carries more credence than your average blog posting — and it’s spreading rapidly. But even with the credibility of a real author, the claims in this e-mail are as baseless as anything you’ve read from an anonymous blogger.” [Politifact, 4/18/08]
Obama Never Gave Money To Prime Minister Odinga. “Not to mention, the Obama campaign says the senator never gave money to Kenyan Prime Minister Odinga. And Salim Lone, spokesman for Odinga whom we spoke with in Kenya, confirms that. ‘That is absolutely ridiculous,’ Lone said in an interview with PolitiFact. ‘Mr. Obama did not donate a single cent to Mr. Odinga’s campaign.’ Just to be certain, we did an analysis of Federal Election Commission reports of disbursements from Obama’s principal presidential campaign committee, Obama for America, during the 2008 election cycle. We searched for ‘Kenya,’ ‘Odinga’ and ‘ODM,’ (the Orange Democratic Movement) the latter being Odinga’s political party, and came up with no matches.” [Politifact, 4/18/08]
There Is No “Friends Of Senator BO” PAC. “On the legible version, you can see the underlined entry says, ‘Friends of Senator BO,’ presumably Barack Obama. Only, there is no political action committee named Friends of Senator BO or Friends of Barack Obama. So says Obama’s campaign. And a search of the Federal Election Commission Web site and Opensecrets.org, the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, pulls up neither. In fact, there’s no PAC name even close.” [Politifact, 4/18/08]
ODINGA IS NOT OBAMA’S FIRST COUSIN
Barkan: Odinga And Obama Are Not First Cousins And “To My Knowledge, There’s Absolutely No Relationship At All.” “‘It’s stretched to the point of ridiculousness,’ said Joel D. Barkan, political science professor emeritus at the University of Iowa and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. ‘To my knowledge, they are not first cousins in the normal sense. To my knowledge, there’s absolutely no relationship at all.’” [Politifact, 4/18/08]
Awiti: Raila Odinga Was Using Obama To Add Some Political Points And It Should Be Totally Disregarded. “Alex Awiti, a Kenyan postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, says you have to consider the context of when Odinga was speaking, that being in the middle of a political crisis. ‘Raila Odinga was groping all over the place, trying to find some political legitimacy to get on a high pedestal to claim leadership and using Obama was basically going to add some political points,’ said Awiti, who lived in Kenya until three years ago. ‘This is very opportunistic and it should be totally disregarded.’” [Politifact, 4/18/08]