Jim Rutenberg and Julie Bosman, The New York Times

Jerome R. Corsi, author of “The Obama Nation” and co-author of ”Unfit for Command” (2004).

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the best-seller lists as co-author of “Unfit for Command,” the book attacking Senator John Kerry’s record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry’s war credentials as he sought the presidency.

Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up “extensive connections to Islam” — Mr. Obama is Christian — and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased.

Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is “Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday (aug 17) — at No. 1.

The book is being pushed along by a large volume of bulk sales, intense voter interest in Mr. Obama and a broad marketing campaign that has already included 100 author interviews with talk radio hosts across the country, like Sean Hannity and G. Gordon Liddy, Mr. Corsi said on Tuesday (August 12).

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Related:

Unfit for Publication: Corsi's The Obama Nation filled with falsehoods, Media Matters for America

Media Matters vs. Smear Merchant Corsi on Larry King Live, Eric Burns, Media Matters for America

Willie Horton 2.0: Political ad man Floyd Brown aims to sink Obama campaign, Robert Faturechi, Seattle Times
Two decades after putting out the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped derail Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential run, Floyd Brown has set up a temporary office in University Place, Pierce County, where he's running a campaign aimed at pushing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential hopes down a similar path.