We’ve previously noted that Jerome Corsi’s reporting on alleged connections between Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and Barack Obama’s campaign ignores the fact that John McCain’s campaign also has Fannie/Freddie connections. It looks like Corsi may have gotten something else wrong as well.
Corsi’s Sept. 17 WorldNetDaily article asserted that former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines has “close ties to Obama” and “currently advises Obama on housing policy.” Well, not so much, it appears: According to Politico’s Ben Smith in a Sept. 18 post, Raines issued a statement saying, “I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters.” Obama’s campaign also denied a link.
Still, Corsi wrote a Sept. 20 WND article portraying Raines as having “perpetrated an Enron-like accounting scandal as chief executive officer of Fannie Mae.” Corsi repeated his claim that Raines is a “current Obama housing adviser,” citing as apparent evidence a Washington Post article claiming that Raines takes “calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”
But as Smith pointed out, that claim is not specifically attributed to anyone, “the kind of blind sourcing that suggests the source was Raines.” And nowhere does Corsi note the denials of Raines and the Obama campaign that Raines is a “current Obama housing adviser,” even though they appeared two days before Corsi’s article was published.
Remember WND editor Joseph Farah was whining that a small newspaper in Kansas wouldn’t print a full retraction of an incorrect claim about WND in a letter to the editor? Here’s a chance to demonstrate that he and WND take all false claims seriously, and that he’s a better and more responsive editor than that guy in Kansas, by fully retracting and apologizing for Corsi’s article.