Topic: Accuracy in Media
Jerome Corsi isn't the only one who has an old case of Obama Derangement Syndrome flaring up again.
In a May 17 Accuracy in Media column, Jim Kouri ("currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance") fights an old battle by repeatedly mischaracterizing the relationship between Barack Obama and "former terrorist and Marxist university professor William Ayers." Kouri asserts that Obama and Ayers have a "friendship and business relationship," and that "When given the opportunity to serve on boards and appear at press conferences with Ayers, an up-and-coming politician named Barack Obama jumped at the chance."
Kouri is making statements and attributing motives he can't prove. He has no evidence to back up his claim that Obama joined the Chicago Annenberg Challenge or the Woods Fund specifically to have the "chance" to work with Ayers. Indeed, contrary to Kouri's claim that Obama and Ayers have a "friendship and business relationship," FactCheck.org points out that "so far as is known, their relationship was never very close. An Obama spokesman says they last saw each other in a chance encounter on the street more than a year ago."
Kouri also cites Ayers' "reputation as a cop-killer" despite offering no evidence that Ayers killed any cops. Kouri also can't get basic facts right: He writes that "In his 2001 memoir, Ayers wrote, 'I don't regret setting the bombs. I feel we didn't do enough'" ; in fact, he was quoted saying that in a 2001 New York Times article.
Further, Kouri baselessly claims a "suspected quid pro quo arrangement similar to those with Ayers and [Tony] Rezko" between Obama and Rashid Khalidi involving a Woods Fund grant to a Khalidi-operated group and Khalidi holding "a fundraising event in his home for Barack Obama." Kouri fails to mention that, as we've noted, a Khalidi-headed group also received funding from a group headed by Obama's 2008 presidential election opponent, John McCain.
Kouri's article is a muddled mess -- what were the supposed quid pro quos between Obama and Ayers and Rezko? Kouri never says. Further, it carries the headline "Demand President Obama honor fallen cops killed by his friends" without explaining the demand, let alone proving that the people he writes about are either cop-killers or Obama's friends. Kouri's Examiner.com blog sheds a little more light on the headline; its version of the column begins with an introduction noting National Police Memorial Day on May 15.
Another reason it's a muddled mess is that it's a rehash of a column Kouri wrote last October. At no point in the Examiner or AIM versions of his column is it noted that the column is several months old.
We've previously noted Kouri repeating dubious claims about the efficacy of torture and a bizarre defense of the Branch Davidians.
