Topic: Accuracy in Media
On July 3, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid published a column in which he ascribed the views of someone who portrayed himself as a communist-sympathetic blogger at Barack Obama's community blog site. Now, one person is fighting back against both the blogger and Kincaid: the son of the man whom Kincaid has been bashing over his connection to Obama.
Kincaid has ginned up right-wing press in recent months by touting poet and activist Frank Marshall Davis as a "Stalinist" and card-carrying communist (even though there's doubt to the accuracy of that claim) who was allegedly "mentoring Obama during his formative high school years in Hawaii." Kincaid's July 3 column touted the writing of Alan Maki, the self-proclaimed communist who's writing a community blog on Obama's website, as offering "deadly confirmation that a hard-core CPUSA member played a key role in helping raise Obama."
Meanwhile, running to the defense of Davis has been his son, Mark Davis, who has appeared in the comment threads of numerous AIM articles to speak out. In a July 29 AIM column by Andrew Walden (who has previously tried to push the false meme that Obama is a "secular Muslim") purporting to expose "the Frank Marshall Davis network in Hawaii," Davis responds to statements made by Kincaid to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Bill Steigerwald:
My objection to the Steigerwald interview, cited by the Honolulu Community Media Council, is primarily based on two unsubstantiated claims:
1. Steigerwald’s unfounded statement that my father was a “lifelong member of the Communist Party USA.”
2. Your unfounded statement that my father was a “Stalinist,” because “He stayed with the Communist Party even after the Hitler-Stalin pact. That’s why I refer to him as `a Stalinist agent’.” You compounded the accusation further by claiming “His values, passed on to Obama, were those of a communist agent who pledged allegiance to Stalin.”
I believe that James Edgar Tidwell, whom you may consider an authority on my father, refutes your statement[.]
Davis also went after Maki in a July 15 post on his own Obama website blog:
In a blatant misappropriation of Obama campaign resources, "communist" blogger Alan Maki is colluding with "conservative" blogger Cliff Kincaid in a disinformation campaign designed to portray Barack Obama as communist-influenced [1]. Accuracy In Media's Kincaid has been running this redbaiting campaign since he published "Obama's Communist Mentor" [2] in February 2008, in which Kincaid exaggerated the influence of "communist" Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987) on teenage Obama.
[...]
As of July 15, Kincaid's "Communist Party Backs Obama" article, partially based on the fraudulent Alan Maki blog, has over 58,000 Yahoo Search hits.
I have found no indication that Davis ever taught radical political or economic theory to Obama. Instead, Obama tells of Davis's attitude towards higher education and race relations. I believe that Maki's motivation is clear: He considers capitalism to be a "thoroughly rotten system," and is exploiting Obama’s good will towards Frank Marshall Davis for his own convoluted purposes.
Through his "Roundtable For Change" proposal, I believe that Maki is attempting to parlay Obama's respect for Davis's social insight into Obama's support for Maki's war on capitalism. Through his "Obama's Communist Mentor" disinformation, I believe that Cliff Kincaid is attempting to parlay Obama's respect for Davis's social insight into Obama's respect for Davis's "communist" inclinations. They both use disinformation. They talk to each other, which suggests mutual interests. Perhaps the left and right wings have met in the depths of hell and forged a compact against Frank Marshall Davis and Barack Obama. Their common interests include:
1. Opposition to Obama.
2. Using Maki’s blog for their own political agendas.
3. Communication with each other.
4. Use of Maki quotes in Kincaid’s reports..
5. Exaggeration of Davis’s influence over Obama.
6. Using conservative blogosphere terms like “mentor” in this context, and falsely attributing it to others.
7. Misrepresenting reality to support their positions.Their mutual use of “mentor” is especially curious, because I can find no use of it (in this context) that predates the conservative blogosphere.
[...]
If Maki reads the conservative blogosphere enough to have known about conservative claims regarding Obama’s “mentor,” then he should have known that Kincaid was strongly anti-communist BEFORE he spoke with him. Holding multiple conversations with him becomes even MORE suspicious. This suggests that Alan Maki willingly entered into this relationship with his putative ideological enemy. He knew (or should have known) that Kincaid would exploit his “Roundtable for Change” blog as ammunition against Barack Obama BEFORE his reported conversations with Kincaid, yet he willingly cooperated with Kincaid. This cooperation suggests a serious conflict of interests for Alan Maki.
I challenged Maki's characterization of my father, Frank Marshall Davis, in the comments of his post [4]. I also challenged his association with Cliff Kincaid, and especially his use of the term "mentor" because it has been used extensively by Kincaid's redbaiting campaign.
Unable to answer my questions, Alan Maki suddenly accused me of engaging in a "racist, anti-Semitic hate campaign," and deleted my (and other) critical comments. He fraudulently attributed their removal as being "Deleted by admin," but contradicted himself in his July 14 post by declaring "I am deleting all of your entries."
Kincaid has yet to publicly respond to Davis' accusations of false reporting about Frank Marshall Davis or discuss -- his history of being a rabid anti-communist notwithstanding -- his apparent collusion with a self-proclaimed communist who censors his critics.
