Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein wrote in a Jan. 18 WorldNetDaily article:
A top director at a venture-capital firm that finances a controversial new online voting system donated to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and also contributed the maximum allowable amount to Obama’s inauguration, WND has learned.
The foreign-headquartered company, SCYTL, previously faced questions about the security of its electronic voting technologies, which are now set to be deployed in 900 U.S. jurisdictions.[...]
The press release announcing the acquisition noted that SCYTL is a portfolio company of leading international venture capital funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.
Spinnaker Capital manages $5 billion in two funds specializing in emerging markets investments.
A top Spinnaker director, Bob McCarthy, is a prominent supporter of Obama.
In 2008, McCarthy made two contributions to Obama’s presidential campaign, for $1,740 and $2,500 respectively.
He donated the maximum, $25,000 to Obama’s inauguration fund.
McCarthy contributed to the campaigns of other Democrats.
In 2010, he gave a $2,400 donation to New York politician Charlie Melancon, who lost his congressional seat during the most recent midterm elections. In 2009, McCarthy contributed $2,400 to the campaign of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.In February 2010, McCarthy reportedly rubbed shoulders with Democrat senators at a “high-class” party in Miami Beach.
McCarthy was invited to the “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Winter Retreat” in Miami Beach in January 2010 at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Resort. Attendants were reportedly told that the “dress for the weekend is casual.”
Yes, Klein is making another desperate guilt-by-association attack. Klein is essentially claiming that because one board member of one of three venture capital funds investing in SCYTL has donated to Democrats, SCYTL-processed election results will thus be biased toward Obama and Democrats.
Not only does that not make logical sense, Klein got his basic facts wrong.
The current version of Klein's article at WND has been rewritten to remove any mention of McCarthy but, as is WND's ethically challenged custom, failed to notify readers about the change. However, the version of the article at the Klein Online website -- also operated by WND -- contains a note with an explanation:
NOTE: An earlier edition of this article identified the venture capital firm that invested in SCYTL as the emerging markets investment management firm, Spinnaker Capital Group. The actual SCYTL investor is another company with a similar name, the Spanish venture capital firm Spinnaker SCR. Neither Spinnaker Capital Group nor its director, Bob McCarthy, are associated with SCYTL.
That's a sloppy error. Will Klein admit whether it was he or his research assistant Brenda J. Elliott who was at fault? And what does this say about the veracity of his recent guilt-by-association-laden Obama attack book, "Red Army"?
In both versions, though, the headline remains false. Klein makes no allegation of "bias" -- even when he was suggesting that McCarthy's presence somehow result in election results being manipulated to the benefit of Obama and Democrats. Questions about security, which Klein does address, are not "bias" issues.
