UPI reported that discredited Unfit for Command co-author Jerome Corsi is pondering Senate run against Kerry, but left out key facts

United Press International (UPI) reported on January 25 that Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery, 2004), “plans to move to Massachusetts later this year as the first step in his 2008 campaign for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kerry.” But the UPI report failed to mention Corsi's history of posting racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-Catholic, and anti-Muslim comments on the right-wing online forum FreeRepublic.com, which Media Matters for America revealed on August 6, 2004, and which was widely reported (by The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Associated Press, among others).

Corsi apologized for the postings in August 10, 2004, interviews with the Associated Press and radio host Sean Hannity, classifying his comments (which included calling Pope John Paul II “senile”; asking if Senator “HELLary” Clinton is “a lesbo or anything”; and calling Muslims “RAGHEADS” and “Boy-Bumpers”) as “silly,” saying he “thought they were jokes,” and complaining that they were taken “completely out of context.” Still, on the August 10, 2004, edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, Corsi's co-author, co-founder of the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) John E. O'Neill, distanced himself from Corsi, claiming that "[t]he co-author of my book, who is simply an editor and not really any sort of co-author -- there are stories in circulation about his e-mails where he made stupid statements in his e-mails." Media Matters discredited O'Neill's assertion that Corsi was “simply an editor and not really any sort of co-author” on August 12, 2004, and extensively refuted erroneous claims made in Unfit for Command.

Several newspapers, including the Boston Herald and The Washington Times, picked up the story on their websites. Unlike the UPI report, the Herald added that Corsi “had to apologize for inflammatory comments he made about Islam, the pope and Judaism,” and that Corsi said criticizing him for his online comments is “like saying Shakespeare is responsible for something one of his characters said.'” Though The Washington Times article noted that “Kerry spokesman David Wade declined to comment, the Boston Herald said Tuesday,” the Times failed to also note Corsi's controversial comments as reported by the Herald.

On October 1, 2004, Corsi became a columnist for conservative news website WorldNetDaily.com, where his columns have had such titles as "John Kerry and the politics of betrayal," "Iran -- John Kerry's next Vietnam?," and "Soros supports mullahs: The left embraces yet another enemy." Corsi is also the author of the upcoming book Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians, to be published in March by WND Books, the publishing division of WorldNetDaily.com.