Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has a long history of whitewashing the extremist aspects of anti-immigration border patrol groups like the Minutemen. It does so again in a March 23 article by Drew Zahn on the dissolution of one of those groups, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps .
Zahn regurgitated the group's line that it was dissolving because it was "concerned that Americans have grown so angry over illegal immigration and border drug wars that violence may soon erupt." Zahn uncritically quotes group leader Carmen Mercer as saying, "This organization has grown too big for its own good; or rather, the problem has grown too big and serious for us to manage. I predict soon the violence will spill over the border (it already is) and I predict Americans, on their own, will lock, load and do what the feckless cowards in Washington refuse to do."
Zahn doesn't mention the fact that Mercer herself is responsible for encouraging some of that -- or that the backlash from it was a prime motivator for dissolving the MCDC.
As TPM Muckraker reported, Mercer sent out an email to MCDC members on March 16 -- a week before Zahn's article appeared -- in which she urged group members to come to the border "locked, loaded and ready." She added: "You are strongly encouraged to exercise your rights and duty as an American citizen to carry a long arm and if challenged use it to defend the United States of America." Acording to the Arizona Daily Star, Mercer "received a more feverish response than she expected and decided the group couldn't shoulder the responsibility and liability of what could occur.
Zahn should have known about Mercer's remarks in writing his story. If he didn't he's a bad reporter. If he did and he chose not to report them, he's a dishonest one. Either way, he's a perfect WND employee.
