The Trail

BURNING BOOK

Obama Campaign Angered by McCain's 'Sense of Humor' Comment

With the rest of the political universe buzzing about a controversial new book on Sen. Barack Obama, one person is staying quiet: Sen. John McCain.

McCain and his advisers have said nothing about "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," an innuendo-filled, mistake-riddled biography written by Jerome R. Corsi that will debut at the top of the New York Times bestseller list this weekend.

Asked about the book Friday, McCain replied: "Gotta keep your sense of humor." A McCain aide later said he had misheard the question and thought it was about a television ad.

The Obama campaign was having none of it.

"While the smears piled up and the lies were exposed, John McCain spent six days in silence and on the seventh day said we should have a sense of humor," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said. "John McCain's response to this discredited book speaks volumes -- he is a George Bush candidate running a Karl Rove campaign with a Dick Cheney sense of humor."

Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, declined to comment on the book. Aides said the Republican campaign has no intention of coming to Obama's defense on every attack they have no control over -- even though, in the past, McCain has ruled out certain kinds of attacks as inappropriate. In 2004, McCain denounced another Corsi book attacking Sen. John F. Kerry's service on a Swift boat in Vietnam.

In the new book, Corsi describes Obama as a left-wing radical driven by a black-power agenda who has "extensive connections with Islam." Obama is a practicing Christian. His campaign has put out a 40-page rebuttal to the 304-page work, which the author said he wrote in the hopes of defeating Obama.

-- Anne E. Kornblut

VACATION RETALIATION