Headline on Dec. 15 Reuters article: "Lead in doubt, Clinton knocks on N.Hampshire doors."

Newsmax's headline on the same Reuters article: "Desperate Hillary Knocks on N. Hampshire Doors."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:30 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Dan Riehl writes in a Dec. 12 NewsBusters post: "That's the way the [liberal] Netroots play - fast, dirty and cheap, as in shot."

Riehl, of course, knows from fast and dirty cheap shots, having falsely accused S.R. Sidarth of racist behavior in order to get back at him for being called "macaca" by George Allen. (Has Riehl ever apologized to Sidarth for that? We don't think so.)

Riehl goes on to accuse the "netroots" of having "no regard for accuracy." Oh, the irony.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:17 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Maybe the question should not be whether Jesus and the devil are related, but Hillary and the devil.

I mean, let's face it, when you talk about the characteristics of Satan, they seem similar in a lot of ways to folks closely watching the actions of the Clintons.

[...]

There is no evidence that Satan and Jesus are brothers. Their words, actions and desires are completely opposite of each other. But, at the very least, one can build a strong circumstantial case that Hillary and Satan could well be siblings.

-- Craig R. Smith, Dec. 15 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:40 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Two WorldNetDaily articles, on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14, prominently feature a sex scandal involving Kansas attorney general Paul Morrison (who has since resigned because of it). Neither story mentions the investigation of improprieties -- including failure to live in the county where he works as mandated by law and allegations that he's not putting in all that many hours at work -- by Phill Kline, whom Morrison defeated for the attorney general post in 2006 and who succeeded Morrison as Johnson County, Kansas, district attorney after leaving office.

As we noted, WND columnist Jack Cashill mentioned the controversy around Kline but got the facts wrong and ignored key accusations. 

Posted by Terry K. at 12:52 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Dec. 14 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid continues to profess to be outraged that "being pressured to stop sponsoring" Michael Savage's radio show "because he dares to exercise his First Amendment right of free speech and to criticize Islam." Again, Kincaid fails to note his previous support of boycotts of people or causes he opposes, and he fails to note Savage's lawsuit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is spearheading the Savage boycott, or Savage's previous efforts to pursue litigation against his critics.

Kincaid goes on to smear gays, suggesting that all gays are like the ones who participate in San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair -- in which, Kincaid asserts, ther were "naked homosexuals masturbating and having sex in public as children walked down the streets near them. Some were dressed up as animals being led around by leashes. Others were dressed in leather and being whipped" -- and therefore undeserving of federal hate-crime protection. (Kincaid has a thing against gays.)

And apparently just to prove that he's a classy guy like Savage, Kincaid beats the dead horse of Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, calling waterboarding, which Kennedy opposes, is merely "a few seconds of discomfort," that Kennedy "let a young girl die in the bottom of his submerged car," which "was a fate much worse than waterboarding," and that Kennedy purportedly believes terrorists "should enjoy more rights than Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in that car struggling to breathe as the water enveloped her." Kincaid went on to insist that "In [Kennedy's] warped world view, real people and real victims such as Mary Jo Kopechne have no rights."

No wonder Kincaid is defending Savage so zealously -- he wants to be just like the guy. Does this mean that he believes, like Savage, that "90 percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation"?

Posted by Terry K. at 1:13 PM EST

Updated: Friday, December 14, 2007 1:26 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Remember when we predicted that WorldNetDaily, having finally conceded the fact that Colorado church shooter Matthew Murray was homeschooled, would endeavor to explain it away to protect homeschoolers? It has begun.

A Dec. 14 WND article plays up the claim that Murray "apparently boasted in an e-mail that he had discovered and practiced the teachings of controversial British occultist Aleister Crowley, called during his lifetime 'the wickedest man in the world.'" WND even tacitly admits its motive in doing this article:

Pastor Joe Schimmel told WND he recalled the October e-mail when he read the postings, included in WND stories, attributed to Murray. He said he thinks it's important for people to know what the attacker himself was feeling and thinking prior to his homicidal attack, especially since he's been described in the media as a homeschooled student from a religious family.

[...]

"What he really is, is a Satanist, subscribing to the teachings of Aleister Crowley," said Schimmel, who told WND other leaders in the Crowley image have included Timothy O'Leary and Alfred Kinsey.

Alfred Kinsey was a Satanist? Look for Judith Reisman to start reciting this as fact soon.

WND ties this story in with today's opt-in poll, which asks, "Who do you think is the 'wickedest man on Earth' today?" Leading the poll at this point are George Soros and Hillary Clinton, who are both far ahead of Osama bin Laden. Insert your own joke about WND's target audience here.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:04 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Dec. 13 WorldNetDaily column by Jack Cashill had a goal of whitewashing allegations against Phill Kline, the anti-abortion activist and former Kansas attorney general now working as district attorney in Johnson County, Kansas. If only it weren't for those meddling facts.

Cashill writes of the investigation of Kline done by Kansas City TV station KCTV:

The KCTV-5 staff spent nine months stalking the beleaguered Kline and waited for sweeps week in late November to share its much-anticipated findings.

Except that there was nothing to share. OK, although Kline did have a "residence" in Johnson County, where he spent several nights a week, he and his wife kept a home in Topeka, the state capital, so their daughter did not have to switch high schools. Kline freely admitted as much.

And that was about it. 

Um, no. From KCTV's report:

KCTV5 News caught up with Kline as he was leaving the Johnson County courthouse one afternoon and asked him about where he lived.

He pointed out that he owned a home in Topeka, but that he also had the apartment in Stilwell.

KCTV5 News frequently found his wife's car, which was also registered to the Stilwell address, at the home Phill Kline owns in Topeka.

KCTV5 spent weeks waiting and watching for him to show up there -- more than a dozen times early in the morning and late at night -- but not once did KCTV5 News see Kline in Stilwell.

Stilwell is a town in Johnson County; Topeka is not. Kansas law requires district attorneys to live in the county where they work. 

Cashill ignored completely the other main finding of the KCTV investigation: that Kline spent an average of only 29 hours a week in the office and found 24 weekdays during which Kline never clocked in or out at all. The station cites another district attorney who suggests the job can't be done "in less than roughly 50 to 60 hours a week."

As we've detailed, this is the kind of "reporting" we've come to expect from Cashill.

Cashill also noted in support of his attack that KCTV's investigation of Kline was "– in the words of the dependably anti-Kline alternative newspaper, the Pitch – even 'creepy.'" While the Pitch blog post from which Cashill pulled this word did indeed question the aggressiveness of the investigation and the reliability of the keycard info from which KCTV assembled Kline's at-work time, it also contains this interesting tidbit:

According to Web site Kansas Meadowlark, Kline spoke about the surveillance at a November 14 meeting of the Zenith Boosters Club. Kline complained about a camera crew tailing his daughter and the KCTV helicopter hovering over his property, according to this post. (Zenith head Jack Cashill declined to allow The Pitch to attend that meeting.)

Gee, Cashill didn't mention anything about this. Does the term "conflict of interest" mean anything to him? 

Posted by Terry K. at 10:30 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

So, Warner Todd Huston, you've just been the recipient of a highly coveted NewsBusted profile. What do you do now?

Why, more of the same, of course.

A Dec. 12 NewsBusters post accused the Chicago Sun-Times of endangering the life of the  son of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley by reporting that he is being deployed to Afghanistan: "Has this somewhat specific news endangered his life and/or that of his fellow soldiers now that the enemy has been told that the son of a famous politician is on his way to a specific theater of action as well as being told a targeted window of departure?" Huston does not mention whether he also thinks the son of Republican congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter (who is also named Duncan Hunter, and who is also running for his dad's congressional seat) endangered himself and his fellow soldiers by announcing on his campaign website that he's been deployed to Afghanistan, just like Daley's son.

A Dec. 13 post keeps up Huston's Fred Thompson sycophancy by lashing out at ABC for characterizing Thompson's refusal to raise his hand in answer to a question on whether he supported the idea of man-made global warming as a "tantrum", insisting that Thompson was trying "to improve the depth of debate held that day" and expressing a "sensible and adult desire to engage in real debate." Huston added: "These are substantive and serious points made by candidate Thompson and his principled refusal to play the moderator's empty headed game deserves applause in stead of derision."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:06 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Wow, that was quick.

We predicted that after WorldNetDaily finished its mostly deferential three-part interview with Rick Warren, the "Purpose Driven Liffe" guy whom WND has repeated attacked, WND would revert to Warren-bashing as soon as the opportunity arose. That opportunity, it turns out, turns out to the same day it published the final part of the Warren interview.

That part, in which Art Moore -- not exactly known for his fair reporting -- fairly depicts Warren's pragmatic approach to fighting AIDS in Africa (though he does try to sneak a couple of digs in, vaguely disapproving of Warren's participation in a United Nations program that hands out condoms and making sure to point out that President Bush's AIDS coordinator "has been public about his homosexuality"), was accompanied by a column in which Joseph Farah yet again lashes out at Warren for his visit to Syria, asserting that Warren "gave aid and comfort to a diabolical enemy of freedom and Christianity."

If Farah hates Warren so much, why did WND give so much positive copy to him? It's not a service WND normally provides to its enemies, so the idea that WND was merely trying to act like a real news source doesn't quite wash. As we said earlier, it was likely a sop to get Warren and his supporters off WND's back -- at least temporarily, since Farah seems to have mostly undid what good it did by not even waiting until the digital ink was dry on Moore's positive article before attacking Warren yet again.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:11 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Newsmax's Ken Timmerman is the latest beneficiary of a softball FrontPageMag interview. In it, Jamie Glazov permits him to peddle unchallenged his conspiracy theories about intelligence, demonstrate his sycophancy toward ex-CIA chief Porter Goss and rehash his Michael Sulick story (ignoring that fellow Newsmaxer Ronald Kessler has a different story to tell). Timmerman's declaration that "It’s always a pleasure to appear alongside other founding members of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy" and a reference to "the NY Times and in other leftist media" leaves no doubt that he has an agenda.

Timmerman also complains:

Google the name Ahmed Chalabi and “fraud,” and you get more than 55,000 hits. Google his name plus the word “crook” and you will get more than 12,000 hits. This gives a measure of how successful the effort to smear Ahmad Chalabi’s reputation has been.

Of course, this has nothing at all to do with the fact that Chalabi is more than a little bit of a fraud and a crook.

Timmerman further peddles the conservative canard that Valerie Plame is a liar:

Valerie Plame has got some explaining to do. In March, she testified under oath before Congress and swore she had “nothing” to do with sending her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium there.

In fact, Val sent an email to her bosses recommending that they send him on this mission because he “has good relationships with both the [Prime Minster] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.”

As we noted the last time Timmerman made this claim, the CIA approached Plame with the idea of sending Wilson to Niger, and the "recommendation" memo Timmerman touts is merely a listing of Wilson's qualifications to go to Niger, and Plame was tepid at best about the idea of actually sending Wilson, specifically saying that "I was somewhat embarrassed by the agency’s sloppy work last go-round, and I am hesitant to suggest anything again."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:35 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, December 13, 2007 12:36 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Dec. 12 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein focuses on the resignation of a mayor of an Israeli border town; Eli Moyal, the mayor of Sderot, claims that the Israeli government isn't doing enough to protect his town from rockets fired at it from Gaza.

Klein leaves out a couple pertinent pieces of information: the mayor of Sderot, Eli Moyal, is a member of the conservative Likud party -- Klein has a longtime aversion to describing Israeli conservatives as conservatives. One blogger called Moyal "Israel's Rudy Giuliani."

Klein also fails to mention that Moyal was a leader in Klein's beloved fight against Israel withdrawing from Gaza and the West Bank; Klein himself reported in August 2005 that Moyal spoke at an anti-disengagement rally in Sderot, which the UK Guardian described as "the nearest town in Israel to the Gaza Strip." Curiously, the dateline on the article reads "Sderot, Gaza" even though Sderot is in Israel proper.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:42 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Brent Bozell relives the glory days of Clinton-hating in his Dec. 12 column by reciting yet again a laundry list of alleged scandals from the '90s. Since Bozell is merely regurgitating here, things like, oh, the facts aren't involved, as evidenced by the first thing on Bozell's list:

1. Hillary ordering around the White House staff to fire seven workers in the White House Travel Office for financial mismanagement, with Billy Dale accused of embezzlement. Hillary then lied to a grand jury about how she was not really involved in the firing scheme, even though staffers were writing there would be “hell to pay” if they didn’t do Hillary’s bidding. Billy Dale’s life was ruined. Two years later, it took a jury two hours to acquit him of all charges. Why did she do that? What would voters think, Mr. President? 

As we previously noted, President Clinton had the legal right to dismiss the travel office employees for any reason since they serve at the pleasure of the president, and independent counsel Robert Ray's report on the firings found that there was indeed "improper fiscal conduct" in the travel office -- two little facts that people like Bozell who trash Clinton over the travel office firings tend to ignore.

Further, Ray did not conclude that Hillary "lied" about her role in "Travelgate," as Bozell asserts. Rather, Ray states that Hillary made a statement that was "factually false" but "there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Clinton's statements to this Office or to Congress were  knowingly false." There is more evidence to support the claim that Bozell is a liar on this issue than Hillary -- after all, Bozell has repeatedly demonstrated his malicious intent to perpetuate falsehoods despite awareness of the truth.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Dec. 10 Accuracy in Media article by Bethany Stotts promotes a article by Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist claiming that "American political nepotism extends not just through the executive branch, but throughout Congress." While Stotts leads off with the example of George W. Bush following in the presidential footsteps of his father and notes that "The ATR report identified 15 members, 13 from the House and 2 from the Senate, who gained their seats immediately following their relatives’ resignation, retirement, or death. Of these 'legacy' Congressional seats," the seven members of Congress she then cites as participating in nepotism are all Democrats.

This ignores a particularly egregious example of nepotism currently under way on the GOP side of things: California Republican congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter is retiring from Congress at the end of his term, and running for election to his seat is his son, also named Duncan Hunter.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:10 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

MRC director of communications Seton Motley continues his campaign for a highly coveted ConWebWatch profile by drooling all over Newsmax's Phil Brennan for penning an unsurprisingly positive review of Brent Bozell's anti-Hillary book, "Whitewash" -- as if Brennan would have dared to say anything negative about a conservative book.

In the headline of his Dec. 11 NewsBusters post, Motley wrote that the book was "reviewed expertly by Newsmax"; he reiterated the point in the first paragraph, stating that the book "was reviewed most excellently by Phil Brennan of and for the most excellent publication NewsMax." Motley copied-and-pasted a long excerpt of Brennan's review -- introduced as "some of the many extraordinary excerpts therefrom" -- then concluded: "It is always nice to have eminence acknowledged by and with eminence."

One has to wonder: Was Motley's shameless slobbering a condition of getting a positive review from Brennan? It's difficult to imagine a purported communications professional publicly embarassing himself in such a fashion except under coercion.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:43 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:44 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink