It’s increasingly clear that John F. Kerry lied repeatedly about at least one detail of his service history—that he spent Christmas in Cambodia in 1968 (it was “seared” in his mind). We still see no official word from the Kerry campaign on this serious charge.

But when you can’t deal with the facts in a down and dirty political brouhaha, you attack the messenger.

And now we see the smear campaign firing up against Jerome R. Corsi, one of the authors of Unfit for Command : Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, for some offensive comments he wrote at the Free Republic web site: Anti-Kerry Book Scribe Sorry for Slurs. Corsi has apologized:

But as he prepared to launch the book, “Unfit for Command,” Jerry Corsi apologized for the remarks in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, saying they were meant as a joke and he never intended to offend anyone.

In chat room entry last year on freerepublic.com, Corsi writes: “Islam is a peaceful religion — just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed.”

In another entry, he says: “So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that’s probably about it.”

Corsi, who described himself as a “devout Catholic,” said the comments are being taken out of context. “I considered them a joke,” said Corsi, who owns a financial services company and has written extensively on the anti-war movement.

In a March posting, Corsi discussed Kerry’s faith, writing: “After he married TerRAHsa, didn’t John Kerry begin practicing Judaism? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?”

Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, are Catholic.

“I don’t stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody,” Corsi said.