Jerome Corsi is a Liar

This web page is about an article that Jerome Corsi wrote on Oct. 9, 2007, for WorldNetDaily.com, attacking President George W. Bush. It begins like this:

But it is all lies. Vicente Fox actually said nothing whatsoever suggesting that President Bush ever expressed support for "merger," or for combining the dollar with any other currency, or for replacing it with an "amero." Not a word.

(Note: the "amero" is a fixture of a hoax perpetrated by the nutty John Birch Society [JBS], which claims that "The Conspiracy," which they believe is secretly running the world, is plotting to combine the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a new "North American Union" [NAU], with a new flag, and a new combined currency to be called the "amero." JBS members are sometimes called "Birchers.")

Here's a letter that I wrote to WorldNetDaily President Joseph Farah on Oct. 11, 2007, detailing the lies in Corsi's article. I resent it several times, by both email and fax, but Mr. Farah never replied.

Criticizing a Corsi article is like shooting at a moving target. When confronted with particularly obvious misstatements in one of his articles, Corsi does not admit them, as an honest man would. Instead, he tries to hide the fact that the flaws were ever there, by editing his article on the WorldNetDaily web site, without any indication that he has done so.

This is the earliest version I have of his article:
http://www.burtonsys.com/corsi/10-9-2007_58052_v1.html

Here's a later version, which he artfully edited to obscure some of the more obvious misstatements (but the thesis is still a lie):
http://www.burtonsys.com/corsi/10-9-2007_58052_v2.html

This is the current version, on the WorldNetDaily web site (perhaps the same as the "later version," above):
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58052 https://www.wnd.com/2007/10/43932/

This is CNN's transcript of Larry King's interview of Vicente Fox:
http://www.burtonsys.com/corsi/CNN_transcript.html  (or on cnn.com and here)

Here's the relevant part of that transcript, not sliced and diced into pieces to change the meaning, as Corsi did, but with the entire section intact:

   KING: E-mail from Mrs. Gonzalez in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
   "Mr. Fox, I would like to know how you feel about the
   possibility of having a Latin America united with one
   currency?"

   FOX: Long term, very long term.  What we propose together,
   President Bush and myself, it's ALCA, which is a trade
   union for all of the Americas.  And everything was running
   fluently until Hugo Chavez came.  He decided to isolate
   himself.  He decided to combat the idea and destroy the
   idea...

   KING: It's going to be like the euro dollar, you mean?

   FOX: Well, that would be long, long term. I think the
   processes to go, first step into is trading agreement.
   And then further on, a new vision, like we are trying to
   do with NAFTA.

   KING: How is NAFTA doing?

   FOX: Excellent. Mexico's seventh largest trading economy in
   the world.  Mexico trades more products and services than
   all of Latin America together, including Brazil, Argentina
   and all of them.  And Mexico buys -- and this people don't
   know -- Mexico buys from the United States more products and
   services than what Italy, France, Germany and Britain do
   together.  So we account for hundreds of thousands of jobs
   in this economy in the U.S.

   KING: An honor seeing you again. We'll make the next visit
   not so long.

   FOX: Thank you very much...

As you can see, Fox did not say anything resembling what Corsi claims he said. Fox never suggested that Bush supports unifying the American dollar with any other currencies, or replacing it with a new currency.

Let's look at the transcript line-by-line, and compare what it says to what Corsi claimed:

   KING: E-mail from Mrs. Gonzalez in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
   "Mr. Fox, I would like to know how you feel about the
   possibility of having a Latin America united with one
   currency?"

Note that the question asked of Fox was what would he think of a common currency for Latin America. But here's what Corsi wrote:

Surely Corsi knows that the USA is not part of Latin America! Nowhere in their conversation did either Fox or King say anything about a common North American currency. So why did Corsi change "Latin America" to the USA, Canada and Mexico?

Because a common currency for Latin America would be inconsistent with the Bircher "Amero" / "North American Union" hoax, which is an imagined secret plan to merge Canada, Mexico and the USA.

The two ideas are incompatible: Latin America is Mexico and points south. North America is Mexico and points north. Mexico is in both Latin America and North America, but the USA and Canada are not part of Latin America.

This was Fox's reply to Larry King's question, and King's interruption:

   FOX: Long term, very long term.  What we propose together,
   President Bush and myself, it's ALCA, which is a trade
   union for all of the Americas.  And everything was running
   fluently until Hugo Chavez came.  He decided to isolate
   himself.  He decided to combat the idea and destroy the
   idea...
   KING: It's going to be like the euro dollar, you mean?

As you can see, Fox replied that there's no common currency in prospect for Latin America for a long, long time to come. Note that he neatly avoided answering the question he was asked, which was what he thinks of the idea of a common currency for Latin America. Fox's English isn't very good, but he is an experienced politician, who knows how to dodge a question! Then he changed the subject, to talk about something less pie-in-the-sky: trade reform (one of his favorite topics). That could have been accomplished, he said, if Chavez hadn't thrown a monkey wrench in the works.

But look what Corsi said about it:

Corsi managed to cram three lies into just one partial sentence!

• Fox made no "revelation" about a currency. Just the opposite, in fact: he dismissed the idea as not being possible for a long, long time to come, and changed the subject.
• King wasn't startled. Rather, he knew that Fox had changed the subject from currency to trade without answering his question, and interrupted Fox to try again to get him to talk about a possible common currency for Latin America.
• Corsi's use of the phrase "the currency" is his sly way of obscuring the fact that they were talking about a Latin American currency instead of a North American currency.

King, impatient with Fox's digression into trade policy, interrupted, returning to his original question about a possible common currency for Latin America:

   KING: It's going to be like the euro dollar, you mean?

But it was no use. Fox is a skilled dodger:

   FOX: Well, that would be long, long term.  I think the
   processes to go, first step into is trading agreement.
   And then further on, a new vision, like we are trying to
   do with NAFTA.

As you can see, Fox again avoided saying what he thought of the idea of a common currency for Latin America, and just repeated his opinion that a common currency for Latin America couldn't happen for a long, long time. Then he again changed the subject to trade. What Latin America really needs, he said, is a trade agreement (which, as he'd just mentioned, Chavez is blocking). Then, he said, they need to work on finding a "new vision" in the region, which was an apparent reference to the need for much greater frendliness and cooperation between the Latin American countries than is possible with scoundrels like Hugo Chavez in power.

Then Fox turned the conversation to NAFTA, which, he said, is part of an attempt to find a new vision of cooperation in North America. This time King gave in to Fox's change of topic:

   KING: How is NAFTA doing?

   FOX: Excellent. Mexico's seventh largest trading economy in
   the world.  Mexico trades more products and services than
   all of Latin America together, including Brazil, Argentina
   and all of them.  And Mexico buys -- and this people don't
   know -- Mexico buys from the United States more products and
   services than what Italy, France, Germany and Britain do
   together.  So we account for hundreds of thousands of jobs
   in this economy in the U.S.

That's what Fox actually said. But look at what Corsi wrote:

That's a complete fabrication. Fox said nothing at all about any plan to create an amero-type currency, and nothing at all about doing so for NAFTA, either.

NAFTA, said Fox, is doing "excellent," increasing trade and creating jobs in both the USA and Mexico. He never suggested that there was any plan or need for a common currency. Corsi just made that up.

Corsi also wrote:

But Fox said nothing at all like that. Corsi just made it up. It is a total fabrication.

So are Corsi's headlines:

Corsi wrote three headlines, with not one word of truth in any of them! Contrary to Corsi's headlines, Vicente Fox said nothing suggesting that President Bush entered into any secret "long-term deal," or that he ever expressed support for "merger," or for the mythical "amero," or for combining the dollar with any other currency. Corsi's headlines, like his article, are just a series of lies.

Corsi is a dishonest journalist, who discredits the WorldNetDaily news service. Joseph Farah should fire him, and apologize to his readers.

 
Dave Burton
Cary, NC
H.Tel: 1-919-481-0098

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