David Corn

{{Infobox person

| name = David Corn

| image = Politics panel (11377)a (cropped, portrait).jpg

| caption = Corn at BookExpo America 2018

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1959|2|20}}

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| alma_mater = Brown University

| occupation = {{hlist|Journalist|author}}

| employer = Mother Jones (since 2007)

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| notable_works = {{plainlist|

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| awards = George Polk Award (2012)

| website = {{URL|davidcorn.com}}

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David Corn (born February 20, 1959) is an American political journalist and author. He is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Mother Jones and is best known as a cable television commentator.{{cite web|url=http://www.observer.com/2007/mother-jones-lures-david-corn-nation|title=Observer|website=The New York Observer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006185727/http://www.observer.com/2007/mother-jones-lures-david-corn-nation|archive-date=October 6, 2008}} Corn worked at The Nation from 1987 to 2007, where he served as Washington editor.{{Cite web|last=Jacobson|first=Louis|date=1999-10-22|title=Leftist to His Own Devices|url=http://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/270808/leftist-to-his-own-devices/|access-date=2021-12-29|website=Washington City Paper|language=en-US}}

Early life and education

Corn was raised in a Jewish family{{cite web |last1=Bloom |first1=Nate |author-link=Nate Bloom|title=Politically Correct |url=http://www.interfaithfamily.com/arts_and_entertainment/popular_culture/Interfaith_Celebrities_Nate_Silver_Another_Bond_and_Happy_Endings.shtml.upl |website=Interfaith Family |date=November 13, 2012 |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202011045/http://www.interfaithfamily.com/arts_and_entertainment/popular_culture/Interfaith_Celebrities_Nate_Silver_Another_Bond_and_Happy_Endings.shtml.upl |archive-date=February 2, 2017 }} in White Plains, New York.[http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/3447/32/ Brown Alumni Magazine: "You Don't Have to Trust Me" by Stephanie Grace] May/June 2013 He graduated from White Plains High School in 1977. He attended Brown University, where he majored in history and worked for The Brown Daily Herald. After his junior year, he interned at The Nation where he accepted a job as editorial assistant instead of returning to finish his degree. He earned his remaining credits at Columbia University and received a B.A. from Brown in 1982.

File:Bipartisan_Policy_Conference_(5162918228)_(cropped).jpg

Career

He was the Washington editor for The Nation{{cite news |title=David Corn |url=https://www.thenation.com/authors/david-corn/ |access-date=14 September 2022 |work=The Nation |date=2 April 2010}} and has appeared regularly on FOX News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BloggingHeads.tv. He joined Mother Jones in 2007. Corn appeared on FOX News more than sixty times, according to a tally by Politifact.com, before becoming a commentator on MSNBC.Jon Greenberg. [https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/feb/26/david-corn/mother-jones-reporter-oreilly-often-praised-wor/ "Mother Jones reporter at center of Bill O'Reilly story: O'Reilly 'often' praised me"]. Politifact, Feb. 26, 2015.

In February 2013, Corn was given the 2012 George Polk Award in journalism in the category of political reporting for his posting of a video and reporting of the "47 percent story", Republican nominee Mitt Romney's videoed meeting with donors during the 2012 presidential campaign.Monica Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, "Mother Jones' David Corn Wins George Polk Award", Mother Jones, [https://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/mother-jones-david-corn-george-polk-award February 17, 2013].

=Books=

Corn's first book was Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades, a 1994 biography of longtime Central Intelligence Agency official Theodore Shackley, which received mixed reviews. The book used Shackley's climb through the CIA bureaucracy to illustrate how the Agency worked and to follow some of its Cold War-era covert operations. In The Washington Post, Roger Warner called it "an impressive feat of research". In The New York Times, however, Joseph Finder asserted that Corn seriously distorted history to blame Shackley for a series of institutional CIA failings and pointed out a series of serious errors in the book. Among them, Finder said, was that Corn "recycled a long-discredited canard, much beloved by conspiracy theorists, that on the day of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the agency's chief of covert operations, Desmond Fitzgerald, met in Paris with one of the CIA's Cuban agents and gave him a 'ball-point pen' that could be used to inject Castro with a deadly toxin called Black Leaf 40. FitzGerald was actually the host of a lunch in Washington at the time, at the City Tavern Club in Georgetown."Warner, Roger. "The Spy as Bureaucrat". The Washington Post, October 23, 1994, p. WBK1.{{Cite news |last=Finder |first=Joseph |date=October 23, 1994 |title=The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit |pages=22 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/23/books/the-spy-in-the-gray-flannel-suit.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240101000856/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/23/books/the-spy-in-the-gray-flannel-suit.html |archive-date=January 1, 2024}}

Corn contributed a short story to Unusual Suspects (1996), a paperback collection of original crime stories.Weeks, Linton. "They Wrote the Book on Fund-Raising". The Washington Post, May 15, 1996, p. B1. The story was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

His novel, Deep Background (1999), is a conspiracy thriller about the assassination of a U.S. president at a White House press conference and the ensuing investigation. Reviews praised Corn's mastery of the political atmosphere and characters, although they split on whether this was a virtue or, coming towards the conclusion of Bill Clinton's term in office, already all-too-familiar territory. Reviewing the book in The New York Times, James Polk opined that although the book included dramatic scenes such as a "seedy nightspot catering to homosexual marines, an interagency hit squad, a high-class look, but don't touch escort service", the novel could not deliver "enough shocks left to sustain the genre". The Washington Post, though, called it a "top-notch conspiracy thriller," with reviewer Les Whitten observing, "This pot-au-feu of a thriller is brimming with gusto in spite of its familiar ingredients: Watergate, Chappaquiddick, the Kennedy assassinations, CIA scandals, congressional corruption and White House aide angst. Every old carrot and potato has been warmed over. Yet when you finish it, the palate wants more. How can this be? Maybe it tastes so good because it's deepened with subtle tangs of Dante, the Apostle John, Robert Penn Warren and some heartbreaker '60s ballads."{{citation|last=Whitten|first=Leslie H. Jr.|author-link=Les Whitten|title=Let the Secret Out: A Top-Notch Conspiracy Thriller|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=September 20, 1999|page=C2|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-603304.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329110048/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-603304.html|archive-date=March 29, 2015|url-access=subscription }}.Polk, James. "The West Wing". New York Times Book Review, October 10, 1999, p. 25.

Corn was a critic of Clinton's successor, President George W. Bush. Corn's next book, 2003's The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, said that Bush had systematically "mugged the truth" as a political strategy, and he found fault with the media for failing to report this effectively. The book also broke with journalistic practice for its charge of lying, a word usually avoided as editorializing.Geoffrey Hodgson. "Trust Buster". The Washington Post, December 18, 2003, p. C3.Hertsgaard, Mark. "Chapter and verse on the need for regime change". Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2004, p. R3. In particular, Corn criticized many of the arguments offered to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and he challenged The New York Times columnist William Safire for claiming links between Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.Okrent, Daniel. "The Privileges of Opinion, the Obligations of Fact". The New York Times, March 28, 2004, p. 4.2. In Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, co-written by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek and Corn, they analyzed the Bush administration's drive toward the invasion.{{Cite web|url=https://inthesetimes.com/article/hubris-by-david-corn-and-michael-isikoff|title=Hubris, by David Corn and Michael Isikoff|website=In These Times|date=27 August 2006 }}

Corn with journalist Michael Isikoff co-wrote a book about the Donald Trump campaign and administration's ties with Russia and Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential campaign, including a history of similar Russian tactics during earlier administrations.{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2018/03/13/593122414/russian-roulette-authors-seek-to-connect-the-dots-between-trump-and-putin|title='Russian Roulette' Authors Seek To Connect The Dots Between Trump And Putin|website=NPR.org}} Their book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, was released by Twelve in March 2018.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/books/review/russian-roulette-michael-isikoff-david-corn.html|title=Was the 2016 Election a Game of 'Russian Roulette'?|first=Steven Lee|last=Myers|work=The New York Times |date=March 14, 2018|via=NYTimes.com}}

=Plame affair=

Corn was personally involved in the early coverage of the controversy over leaks to the media of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame. After Robert Novak revealed Plame's identity in his July 14, 2003, column, Corn was among the first to report, several days later, that Plame had been working covertly.Corn, David. "[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030804/corn Nigergate Thuggery.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090808032418/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030804/corn |date=2009-08-08 }}" The Nation, August 4, 2003.Toensing, Victoria. "What a Load of Armitage!" The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2006, p. A12. He also raised the possibility that the leak of her identity violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA); however, prosecutors found no evidence that those government officials who leaked her name knew she was a covert agent, and no official was ultimately charged with violating the IIPA.Howard Kurtz. "A Hot-Water Leak". The Washington Post, October 1, 2003, p. C1.

Novak, for his part, disputed that Plame had been a covert operative at the time her identity was revealed. He also objected to the negative portrayal of himself in Hubris, the book in part about the matter by Corn and Isikoff. Novak said of Corn, "Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode". Novak felt that Corn was too close with former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband and a key figure in criticism of the administration's arguments for invasion.Novak, Robert, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070930204626/http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12785&R=EE501DF13 Who Said What When: The rise and fall of the Valerie Plame 'scandal.']" The Weekly Standard, October 16, 2006. However, in early 2007, an unclassified summary of Valerie Plame's employment history at the CIA was disclosed for the first time in a court filing which confirmed that Plame was indeed a covert operative at the time Novak made her name public.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18924679|title=Plame was 'covert' agent at time of name leak|last=Seidman|first=Joel|date=2007-05-29|work=NBC News|access-date=2017-06-08|language=en}}

=Mitt Romney "47 Percent" video and George Polk Award=

In announcing Corn's being awarded the George Polk Award for 2012, the sponsors wrote:

David Corn of Mother Jones will receive the George Polk Award for Political Reporting ... Through persistent digging and careful negotiation with a source, Corn secured a full recording of Romney at a $50,000-a-plate Florida fundraiser declaring that 47 percent of Americans — those who back President Obama — are "victims" who are "dependent upon government" and "pay no income tax". Corn worked for weeks to obtain the recording ... Furthermore, it was Corn's extensive previous reporting on Romney that convinced the source to trust him with its release.

"LIU Announces 2012 George Polk Awards in Journalism" (press release), [http://www.liu.edu/About/News/Univ-Ctr-PR/2013/February/UC_PR-Feb18 February 18, 2013].

Corn's article that introduced the secret tape was published online on the Mother Jones on September 17, 2012.{{Cite web|url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser/|title=SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters|first=David|last=Corn}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser/|title=WATCH: Full Secret Video of Private Romney Fundraiser|first=David|last=Corn}}[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-a-mother-jones-reporter-pursued-the-romney-47-percent-story/2012/09/18/c6dc17e8-01d1-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html How Mother Jones got the Romney '47 percent' story]

Works

{{cite book |title=Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades |date=1994 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-69525-5 |language=en}}
{{cite book |editor1-last=Grady |editor1-first=James |title=Unusual Suspects: An Anthology of Crime Stories |date=1996 |publisher=Black Lizard |isbn=978-0-679-76788-6 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception |date=25 May 2004 |publisher=Crown |isbn=978-1-4000-8151-6 |language=en}}
{{cite book |last1=Isikoff |first1=Michael |last2=Corn |first2=David |title=Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War |title-link=Hubris (Isikoff and Corn book) |date=2007 |publisher=Three Rivers Press |isbn=978-0-307-34682-7 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Deep Background |date=1 April 2010 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4299-7248-2 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party |date=20 March 2012 |publisher=Harper Collins |isbn=978-0-06-210801-2 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=47 Percent: Uncovering the Romney Video That Rocked the 2012 Election |date=9 October 2012 |publisher=Harper Collins |isbn=978-0-06-226681-1 |language=en}}
{{cite book |last1=Isikoff |first1=Michael |last2=Corn |first2=David |title=Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump |title-link=Russian Roulette (Isikoff and Corn book) |date=13 March 2018 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |isbn=978-1-5387-2874-1 |language=en}}
{{cite book |title=American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy |date=13 September 2022 |oclc=1314286806 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |isbn=978-1-5387-2307-4 |language=en}}

Personal life

David has two children and lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.{{cite web |title=A-6499 |url=https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/BOA/Resources/Files/pdf/opinions/2016/A-6499_201611021508.pdf |website=Montgomery County, MD |access-date=14 September 2022}}{{cite web |title=The 2012 Social List – Page 2 |url=https://washingtonlife.com/2012/02/07/wl-lists-the-2012-social-list/2/ |website=Washington Life Magazine |date=7 February 2012 |access-date=14 September 2022}}