Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media is apparently not done beating up Ronald Kessler for daring to criticize Joe McCarthy.
From a July 2 article by Accuracy in Academia's Malcolm Kline:
More recently, the Wall Street Journal tapped former Washington Post reporter Ron Kessler to write a piece on the McCarthy era. The choice of Kessler was a curious one for a newspaper whose editorial page has historically prided itself on its high standards.
For instance, he is about the only reporter in the country to mangle the story of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Kessler did so by claiming, without evidence, that Obama was in the church when Wright delivered one of his most incendiary sermons.
In like fashion, Kessler’s take on McCarthy was also journalistically challenged. He reproduces factoids from questionable stated sources that Evans has already proven wrong in his book with primary information.
Then Kessler backs up this data-base with unnamed sources not necessarily alive. It would be comforting to crib from the title of a book from a bygone era and aver that, “None dare call it journalism.” Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal does.
But Kessler hasn't worked for the Washington Post in years -- not since 1985, according to his personal bio -- so it's highly misleading to for Kline to identify him only as a "former Washington Post reporter." Like Wes Vernon and M. Stanton Evans before him, Kline fails to note that Kessler is a fellow conservative who works for conservative website Newsmax.
It's also curious that Kline also bashes Kessler for his botching the Jeremiah Wright story (while not noting that Newsmax, rightly or wrongly, still stands by the claim that Obama attended the Wright service in question) -- or that he's even attacking Kessler at all. After all, Kessler is among the most obsequious writers in the ConWeb toward all things conservative, with a long track record of fluffing the Bush administration and, in a most creepy manner, Mitt Romney. Plus, Kessler has sold out what principles he has to the greater Repubican cause by flip-flopping from McCain basher to McCain fluffer.
You'd think that such an utterly compliant writer who unquestioningly fluffs conservatives and bashes liberals would be the kind of guy Kline would want to keep in his good graces. But apparently, nothing -- not even an otherwise loyal conservative -- is allowed to stand in the way of McCarthy revisionism.
