Corsi attempted to defend Unfit for Command after Kerry called book “a pack of lies”

After Senator John Kerry called Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry "a pack of lies" on September 15, one of the book's co-authors, Jerome R. Corsi, PhD, disputed Kerry's judgment of the book, saying: "There is no assertion in the book that has been refuted."

Yet Media Matters for America has repeatedly refuted assertions made in Unfit for Command. MMFA has also exposed Corsi's extreme anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim public comments, and debunked Corsi's co-author, John E. O'Neill's, lies about the book, about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (the anti-Kerry group O'Neill co-founded), and about himself.

Kerry addressed Unfit for Command (Regnery, 2004) as a guest on MSNBC's Imus in the Morning: “Look, it's a pack of lies. It's an absolute pack of lies. It's been proven to be a pack of lies, and I have no interest in reading it,” Kerry said.

Corsi challenged Kerry's criticisms and attested to the book's accuracy in a Cybercast News Service (CNS) article by staff writer Scott Wheeler. The founder and president of Cybercast News Service is L. Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the right-wing Media Research Center (MRC).

Interestingly, the CNS article accurately described Corsi as “the book's co-author.” Perhaps Wheeler was unaware that O'Neill now claims Corsi merely edited the book: After Media Matters for America exposed the extreme statements Corsi made on the conservative website Free Republic's online forums -- including describing Muslims as "[r]agheads" and "[b]oy-bumpers" and saying, "[b]oy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press" -- O'Neill attempted to distance himself from Corsi, claiming that he was “simply an editor and not really any sort of co-author.” As Media Matters for America documented, Wheeler is right: Corsi did in fact co-author the book.