Obama says new book on him is full of "rehashed" lies

Melbourne, Aug.16 : Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama has criticized a new book that claims that he is the son of an "alcoholic polygamist" and dealt with his abandonment issues and "black rage" by experimenting with drugs.

He described Jerome Corsi, the author of the book he Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, as "a fringe bigot peddling rehashed lies."

According to news.com.au, the book is a compilation of all the allegations and innuendo against Senator Obama.

The Obama campaign picked the book apart through a rebuttal titled "Unfit For Publication", to be posted on the Obama campaign's rumour-fighting website, FightTheSmears.com.

The title is a play on the book Corsi co-wrote against 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military service called Unfit For Command, The Australian reports.

"Jerome Corsi is a discredited liar who is peddling another piece of garbage to continue the Bush-Cheney politics he helped perpetuate four years ago," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Corsi's book is off to a swift start and will debut at No 1 on The New York Times's hardcover non-fiction bestseller list tomorrow.

The book's prominence gave the Obama campaign reason to fight back aggressively.

Senator Obama's campaign says the book is full of factual errors, and it even got straightforward matters wrong, such as the date of the Obamas' marriage.

Corsi claims Senator Obama left much of his family background out of his autobiographies - his father's polygamy and alcoholism, his sister's birth in Indonesia and the fact his then-fiancee Michelle accompanied him on a visit to Kenya - but the campaign points out the pages in Dreams From My Father where Senator Obama discussed all those things.

ANI