Over the course of 14 posts, I have made it so far through the introductory material and on to page 61 of Robert F. Kennedy's book: The Real Anthony Fauci, etc. I have written approximately 100 pages commenting on the book to this point. It is only 100 pages because I greatly limited what I could comment on. There is so much bad faith material and outright lies crammed into the book, I could have written much more. The book is approximately 480 pages.
One dilemma I've considered is how to go forward. Do I really want to write twenty pages of commentary on every dishonest table he presents? I'm going to be more selective.
For this entry, I thought I'd sum up how poorly this book is presented in its published form. I read about fifty books a year. Not a huge amount, not a small amount. In all my years of reading, covering thousands of books, I have never encountered a book so lacking in proofreading and so poorly assembled as this one (and I've read a few self-published books). In regards to the assembly, I am not talking about the binding or inking.
I've mentioned some of the book's glaring faults at proofreading while others I've not brought up. I thought I would include photos. Some of the flaws are so egregious, I wonder whether people would believe me if I didn't include pictures.
The following includes a couple of items that I've already mentioned.
#1. The pages have no numbers. I can't ever recall running into that phenomenon. However, the Table of Contents and Index refer to page numbers. Perhaps with so many outrageous lies, he didn't want people to be able to pinpoint their location to avoid citations. When I've given page numbers to present specific problems, it is from self-numbering.
#2. It gets even worse than that. The books starts out with odd number pages on the left hand side. For example, in the Table of Contents, Chapter One is listed as page 1 and begins on the left hand side. According to the Table of Contents, Chapter Two begins on page 128 and is also on the left hand side. Page 127 doesn't exist. (I presume the misnumbering starts there, of course there are no numbers immediately before it.)
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| Page numbering switching. Hand-numbering is mine. |
#3. Sometimes references are numbered, sometimes they are not. Unlike every research paper and every other book with references that I've seen, what the reference is referring to is NEVER connected to the material in the text. Matching up a reference with material in the text through sheer determination can often be performed, for example if it is a quote and the quote can be found at the citation. Lots and lots of wild assertions have no reference to match them. Without numbering, how do I know this? In trying to link up claims to citations I found sometimes there are very few citations over several pages to support assertions. Some pages are crammed with citations.
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| Sometimes references are numbered. |
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| Sometimes not. The references are given <?>. |
#4. Beginning on page 151 (hand-numbered), the text on the right hand pages cuts off in the middle of the page. This is not due to a break in paragraphs or else due to a figure or large table taking up the beginning of the next page. It is sometimes takes place midsentence. This phenomenon recurs regularly through the final chapter.
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| The right hand page breaks off mid-sentence "The CDC shelved the Haverkos study and began parroting Dr. Fauci's hostility toward the . . .". This happens at least a hundred times. |
#5. The Index, to the best that I have so far determined, does refer to items I could connect to on my hand-numbered pages. This means that whoever assembled the Index must have seen the weird page breaks and there must have been some realization the pages had no numbers.
#6. There are a lot of errors a simple proofreading would have found. A single numbered citation lists the same information twice, for example.
#7. There may be more gross errors. I only discovered items 2 and 4 today.
Robert F. Kennedy has thrown together a book that doesn't even measure up to the most amateur of self-publishers. He seems to have paid equal inattention to his research, citations, and his garbled screeds. How are we are expected to trust the contents of the book, when the author is so sloppy? RFK Jr. is giving the same level of attention to making health decisions that affect the well-being of the country.
Continued with: Why RFK Jr. is Dangerous.
Martin Hill Ortiz is a professor of pharmacology and author of several novels.
My new novel, The Missing Floor, is now available from Oliver-Heber books. The first in the series, Floor 24, is newly available in audio book format. The audiobook has quite a complimentary review here.
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| The Missing Floor |
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