Jerome Corsi, 9/11 Truth Nutjob

[Bolo Boffin]

The second version of my latest YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_00O3rC0Y

Nobody should take anything this nut says seriously.

[salvorhardin]

1. Ah, Jerome Corsi

The nut who believes in abiotic oil.

Nice video, although the slides run a bit fast to read them.

[Bolo Boffin]

2. Yes, I figure that people can stop the vid if they want to read closer.

I do that myself all the time.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[number6]

4. who's Jerome Corsi ?

what's abiotic oil ?

that where them little underground oil fairys make oil in their magic oil stil

and btw 911 -- is an inside job :smoke: :hippie: ;)

[whatchamacallit]

5. What's the point of this ? So a bigoted kook believes 911 was an inside job

How many bigoted kooks believe it wasn't?

[Bolo Boffin]

6. The point of this

Jerome Corsi is trying to stop Barack Obama from being President.

This is a site trying to get Barack Obama elected.

Things that discredit Jerome Corsi need to get out there in the public eye.

This is something that discredits Jerome Corsi.

So I posted it here.

That's the point of this.

[whatchamacallit]

7. What discredits him?

A particular theory, or just that he believes it was an inside job?

[Bolo Boffin]

8. Both.

I am aware that you may not share this opinion, but most people would.

[seemslikeadream]

9. That's not the point that jumped out at me

Maybe because you did not mention ANYTHING about Obama in the OP

[Bolo Boffin]

10. Awww.

Tissue?

[seemslikeadream]

11. No I don't weep when I am right.

[dailykoff]

12. Yes, Corsi is a tool, but so IMHO is Dr. Steven Jones.

Pied Piper Jones split the 911 Scholars group and spirited a good chunk of its membership including Richard Gage off to his thermate cave, never to be seen in prime time again, leaving Fetzer, Wood, and Griffin to tell their sad tale of space weapons and/or nukes, which America definitely doesn't want to hear.

However, COINTELPRO interference or not, Fetzer and company deserve major chops for getting out their message even without Jones's NSA/CIA/DOD financing.

[SidDithers]

14. What a difference a couple of years makes...

Jones is no longer "a true American hero"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=114064&mesg_id=114599

Sid

[dailykoff]

17. In some ways, but not in others.

It's true I originally thought Jones was sincere, and was disgusted by the attacks organized against him. However, I never thought he made a very good case for demolition. At the time I thought it was because he was a physicist and not an engineer, but I now believe that he's involved in the counterintelligence effort to keep the public confused, which would explain the general mushiness of his explanations, and to divert attention from the evidence that nuclear devices were used in the demolitions, which would explain his insistence on that point.

In any case, I still think the campaign against him was disgusting.

[seemslikeadream]

13. bolo you've hit the trifecta

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x34387


a Swift Boat Vet needed to be saved by Larry King tonight
Posted by Kire on Wed Aug-13-08 11:02 PM

Jerome Corsi, who was a co-author of "Unfit for Command" about John Kerry in 2004, and Paul Waldman, of Media Matters, were on Larry King Live tonight.

It was priceless.

There is a ton of stuff to analyze in the transcript, like Corsi's thoughts on the definition of an ad hominem attack.

But, I just thought this part was priceless, and I wish I didn't have to wonder what would happen if Larry (if I can call him Larry) didn't go to commercial when he did.


KING: But he says he's Christian.

Paul, why do you think this closet Muslim thing hangs around?

WALDMAN: Well, Larry, partly because what Mr. Corsi is doing is of a piece with this kind of innuendo that's floating around in e- mails and on right-wing Web sites, all meant to convince people that Barack Obama isn't really one of you.

But I do want to respond to some -- to a couple of things he said before. He said that the people who criticize him for getting the facts wrong are nitpicking. Well, knit -- the truth is not nitpicking. Either it's true or it's false. And much of what Mr. Corsi has written is just plain false.

There's something else that's important, too. He talks about how many footnotes he has and how many sources he has. Well, if you actually look at them, there are dozens and dozens of citations to right-wing Web sites and blogs. One of the people that he cites as a quote/unquote source is a man named Andy Martin, who is an anti- Semitic right-wing blogger who once called a judge a dirty Jew and filed so many frivolous lawsuits that he's now no longer allowed to file lawsuits.

So my question to Mr. Corsi is, since you cite Andy Martin multiple times as a source, are there any other anti-Semitic right- wing bloggers that you also use as sources or is he the only one?

CORSI: All right. This is what Media Matters does. They frame questions that you...

WALDMAN: This is what we do. We look at what you wrote.

CORSI: Sir, if you'd like me to answer your question, I would.

WALDMAN: Go ahead.

CORSI: If you'd like to talk, I can just sit here. The book has close to 700 footnotes in it. The footnotes are of primary sources. There must be 100 books cited in that. I did interviews. The interviews are cited. There's newspapers included...

KING: Well, respond to the question about Mr. Martin.

CORSI: Well, I quote -- I can remember one quip I quote from him -- and it's just a quip, which is -- where he basically is saying if Obama will lie about his background and his family, he'll lie about anything. And this was in reference to the way Obama presents his father in the autobiography, which I write about extension extensively.

KING: All right, let me -- I've got to get a break.

Next, more on the sensational accusations, including some about Michelle Obama.

Don't go away.


So, I guess the media forum is the right place for this?

[Bolo Boffin]

15. bump

The effort to protect Jerome Corsi here is just amazing to me.

[Bolo Boffin]

16. oh my

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/anti-obama-author-on-911-conspiracy/

Seems like the New York Times politic blogger understood the video pretty well.

[SidDithers]

18. bump...

nice exposure on the vid, bolo.

Sid

[jberryhill]

30. Thank you for posting that, Sid

IBSdude...

[SDuderstadt]

31. Thank you for thanking Sid for whatever you thanked him for...n/t

iajberryhill.

[Bolo Boffin]

19. Paul Watson, you silly

The Times cites Corsi’s appearance “On Alex Jones’s radio show, a forum for those who take a deeply skeptical view of government claims about the attacks” and says that the video is “making the rounds, especially among Obama supporters”.

Well it mustn’t be making it very far because as of writing the You Tube clip has little over 5,000 views which in terms of “viral” status is a drop in the ocean.

Can't link, but you guys will be able to find it.

Yes, the video itself isn't going very viral, but the information it contains is. And that's all I care about. The video could sink like a stone as long as Corsi's extremely stupid 9/1l beliefs (and far more heinous ones) are exposed.

http://www.memeorandum.com/080814/p94#a080814p94

Hey, Watson. Hate it for you.

[whatchamacallit]

20. Okay Corsi is an asshole, there are assholes on both sides of the issue *boloboffin*

:evilgrin:

[Bolo Boffin]

21. Don't I know it. n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

22. Excuse moi...

"*(illogical person)*" in your post... seems like you meant it vise versa, to me.

At any rate, the object of his posts are constant.

[Redstone]

23. Shouldn't "9/11 truth" be in quotation marks?

Redstone

[noise]

24. One would hope

citizens would not be intimidated from questioning 9/11 simply because a rightwing a-hole has done so.

[Bolo Boffin]

25. Intimidated? No. Reconsider? Yes. n/t

[tridim]

26. So you still believe the official BushCo version of what happened on 9/11?

[Bolo Boffin]

27. I believe the Barack Obama version of what happened on 9/11. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

28. My goodness

Media Matters: http://mediamatters.org/items/200808150003?f=h_latest?f=h_top

The Daily Show: http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/08/15/shocking-development-jerome-corsi-author-of-factually-challenged-anti-obama-screed-also-racist-piece-of-shit/

[Laurier]

Wow!

Fabulous exposure of your video, boloboffin. Nice job!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[seemslikeadream]

32. Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments

http://www.markfiore.com/guiltbyassociation_0





Exposition:
Guilt by Association is the attempt to discredit an idea based upon disfavored people or groups associated with it. This is the reverse of an Appeal to Misleading Authority, and might be justly called "Appeal to Anti-Authority". An argument to authority argues in favor of an idea based upon associating an authority figure with the idea, whereas Guilt by Association argues against an idea based upon associating it with disreputable people or groups.

Exposure:
McCarthyism was a specific version of Guilt by Association in which an individual, organization, or idea was associated in some way with communism. An association was made between the target of McCarthyism and communism by linking both through some shared idea. For instance, in the 1960s some anti-communists attacked support for civil rights by pointing out that the Communist Party of the United States also supported the civil rights movement. It was then argued that anyone who supported civil rights was thereby supporting communism, whether they intended to or not. Here is the form of the argument: Target Link Bad Thing
Martin Luther King, Jr. Support for civil rights Communism


This can be reformulated as a categorical syllogism as follows:

All communists are civil rights supporters.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a civil rights supporter.
Therefore, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a communist.

This argument commits a syllogistic fallacy, and many other instances of Guilt by Association commit the same fallacy.

Subfallacy: Hitler Card

Analysis of the Example:
That Osama bin Laden might approve of the expiration of provisions of the Patriot Act does not show that American critics are wrong to also approve, since the reasons for their approval are different. Some Americans oppose parts of the Patriot Act because they believe that it infringes upon the rights of Americans without significantly helping to prevent terrorism. They may be wrong, but that doesn't make them an al Qaeda cheering squad.

Reader Response:
Reader Dale Liop writes in response to the above analysis:

It seems to me the author's point is not that the critics are wrong just because Osama bin Laden might be applauding with them. Rather, I think his implicit point is that by removing the Patriot Act, terrorists like Osama bin Laden will be able to commit crimes of terrorism more easily. For this reason, the author is saying, Osama bin laden would be clapping too, and so that's why the critics are mistaken in their position. I think calling the critics the al Qaeda Cheering Squad and mentioning bin Laden would applaud with them was for rhetorical effect only, to make his point come across more effectively. So, I do not think the author commits a fallacy because the association between bin Laden and the critics is not his real point.
Dale, in logically analyzing an example, it is important to focus upon the argument itself and not the arguer. It is not a good idea to try to read the arguer's mind, or guess his intentions. There are many reasons why an arguer may commit a fallacy: he may be mistaken, he may intend to deceive his audience, or he may be making a joke.

Another reason is a type of rhetorical overstatement: for instance, a person who is hungry may say "I'm starving!" What the person says is literally false, and they know that it's false, but they're not lying because they're not trying to deceive. Rather, they are emphasizing that they are very hungry. Similarly, people may fallaciously draw extreme conclusions that are not supported by the evidence as a way of emphasizing a point.

So, evaluating an argument as fallacious is not a judgment pronounced upon its author, but simply a judgment of the argument itself. In the example, Taranto may well have been joking or using rhetorical overstatement when he called the applauders an al Qaeda cheering squad, but that doesn't make the implicit argument―that because the applauders and bin Laden are both against the Patriot Act, then the applauders must be for al Qaeda―any less fallacious.



T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (Third Edition) (Wadsworth, 1995), pp. 54-56.