Bozell's 'War on Christmas' Double Standard Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell's Nov. 26 column takes offense at Stephen Colbert's Christmas special, in which he and country singer Toby Keith take the whole "war on Christmas" thing a little too seriously:
The real agenda emerges when Colbert’s Christmas-cabin set is visited by country singer Toby Keith. There’s a war on Christmas, Keith proclaims, and liberals are going to be dead when it’s over. He sings “Separate church and state, that’s what some lawyer said / I say we separate him from his head.”
Keith also sings, “You can call me un-Christian, but that’s not true. Buddy, I’ve got a present for you.”
Then, the audience sees a house exploding, and Santa and two little kids laughing at the violence implied. After another verse, in which church-state separation is “what some liberal said,” the “present” is getting shot by Keith, who then jokes “Hope it’s the right size.”
He sings about Santa dropping bombs: “Saint Toby’s got one, too, for the ACLU.” The footage turns to mushroom clouds.
The lyrics (written by “Daily Show” executive producer David Javerbaum) are not what you would call subtle (or intelligent) about those bullying Christians. The song jokes that idiotic Colbert-clone conservatives think Santa Claus and Uncle Sam are one and the same, “so boys, take aim.”
But that's just the logical destination of a metaphor Bozell once endorsed. From Bozell's Dec. 22, 2005, column:
The "war on Christmas” centers primarily on the way in which so many schools and businesses are scrubbing the word and the concept of Christmas from the public square to avoid ACLU lawsuits or complaining non-Christians, not a one of them, I might add, I’ve ever met.
Some say it’s not a “war,” that it’s only an outbreak of multicultural sensitivity. No, it’s a war, and it’s being waged by those deliberately attempting to undermine our Judeo-Christian heritage.
So, if "it's a war," as Bozell claims, why wouldn't it ultimately be a shooting war? And why shouldn't Colbert and Keith have a little fun pointing out the absurdity of it?
WND Promotes Blogger's Baseless Claims About Google Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling uncritically promotes a claim by right-wing blogger Pamela Geller that the posts at her Atlas Shrugs blog are being censored by Google -- that is, they are not showing up in searches. Schilling does not make any apparent effort to contact Google officials for their side of the story; rather, she merely echoes Geller's claims that "her exclusive stories about Obama's birth certificate" are being "intentionally suppressed" by Google, and Geller's baseless claim that " the censorship could have something to do with Google CEO Eric Schmidt's relationship with the president-elect."
Schilling cites a Geller post about "a board-certified forensic expert who declared Obama's online birth certificate a 'forgery' and an 'obvious fake.'" As she has before, Schilling fails to mention that her employer conducted its own investigation of the birth certificate and found it not only to be "authentic" but that "methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there." Is Geller among those bloggers who added text and images to Obama's birth certificate? Don't count on Schilling for the answer.
Schilling also fails to mention Geller's most notorious claim regarding Obama's parentage: that he is the illegitimate son of Malcolm X. Certainly that counts as an "exclusive story" worth noting, does it not?
But no -- Schilling wants you to think Geller is a credible spokesperson for WND's side of the Obama-birth-certificate case. And if Schilling -- and, by extension, Joseph Farah and David Kupelian -- believe that, doesn't that further demonstrate the quicksand-based foundation and the factual and moral bankruptcy of WND's anti-Obama jihad over the birth certificate?
WND Rehashes Bogus Matthew Shepard Revisionism Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily article complains that the Matthew Shepard case "has been used by 'gay' activists ever since as a reason to demand enhanced 'hate' crimes for anyone who perpetrates criminal activity against a homosexual. It goes on to repeat claims made in an Oct. 11 WND column by Coral Ridge Ministries' John Aman purporting to tell "the truth" about Shepard's death -- that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson killed Shepard over drugs, not "homophobia," as they claimed in an ABC interview.
As we noted at the time Aman's column appeared -- and as we previously reported when right-wingers like WND latched onto the ABC interview -- relying on the ever-shifting stories by convicted killers ignore the actual record of the case: McKinney and Henderson have a long record of lying about Shepard's murder, and that the hate-crime aspect of Shepard's death was corroborated during their trials. As a Wyoming police detective who worked on the Shepard case said: "Only three people know what really happened that night. ... One of them is dead and the other two are known liars and convicted felons -- murderers."
The dubious ABC interview is referenced in an American Family Association of Pennsylvania press release, on which WND based its article. It similarly claims that "interviews with the two murderers revealed that Shepherd’s murder resulted from a botched robbery." As with Aman, there is no mention of the court record; as with the WND article, there is no mention of the fact that McKinney mounted a "gay panic" defense during his murder trial, which undercuts the robbery argument.
Newsmax Touts Simcox and Minutemen, Silent on Their Controversies Topic: Newsmax
A Nov. 24 Newsmax article by Dave Eberhart promotes criticism of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's reported nomination to be homeland security secretary by Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. But Eberhart fails to mention recent controversies surrounding Simcox.
As we've noted, Simcox's Minuteman faction has split with another faction headed by Jim Gilchrist. Questions have been raised over where the money raised by the Minutemen has gone, and CNN has reported that the border fence the Minutemen are attempting to build in Arizona -- promised to be 14 feet high and topped with razor wire -- is instead a mere 5-foot-high barbed-wire cattle fence.The Simcox faction splintered further in 2007 when a group of state chapter officers were fired by Simcox after they demanded more financial accountability from him.
Eberhart also quotes Brett Farley, executive director of the Minuteman PAC, but similarly fails to note controversies regarding that organization as well. Right Wing Watch reports that little of the Minuteman PAC's money makes it to candidates, with the vast majority tagged for "operating expenses," including ties with groups linked to gadfly Alan Keyes.
Yet Eberhart treats Simcox and Farley as if they are heading legitimate organizations and uncritically passes along their opinions.
We know that WorldNetDaily's writers apparently don't read their own website, as evidenced by theirinsistence that the birth certificate released by Barack Obama's campaign is forged, despite WND's own reporting to the contrary. It seems that WND's readers don't actually read it either.
WND's Nov. 28 "Letter of the Week" is by one Jesse Smith, who begins by claiming, "It really is amazing how many people don't think Barack Obama could've forged his online Certification of Live Birth. Digital forgery is nothing new and has been around for years."
Smith joins those WND employees in failing to acknowledge WND's report on the subject in August:
A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.
WND further reported that, as a result, a lawsuit filed against the Obama campaign by Philip J. Berg claiming that Obama is a non-citizen of the U.S. and thus ineligible to run for president "relies on discredited claims."
Smith (not to mention the rest of WND) might want to give that report a look before further buying into their little conspiracy theory.
Feder Still Dishonestly Attacking NYT Topic: Accuracy in Media
We've detailed how Don Feder has offered shoddy and misleading evidence to forward Accuracy in Media's campaign to boycott the New York Times. That continues in a Nov. 24 column Feder wrote for WorldNetDaily.
In portraying the Times' coverage of the presidential campaign as "biased, brutish and business as usual," Feder offers numerous misleading claims and unsupported or hypocritical assertions.
Feder claims "the Times tried to soft-peddle Obama's ties to unrepentant terrorist William Ayers" adding:
An Oct. 17 editorial charged that by bringing up Ayers, McCain and his running mate had moved beyond mere "distortions," driving deep "into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia." Since Ayers is white and native-born, this left many Times-watchers scratching their heads.
In fact, the editorial in question was published on Oct. 8, not Oct. 17, and the remarks about "race-baiting and xenophobia" were not in reference to Ayers. The editorial also stated:
Ms. Palin, in particular, revels in the attack. Her campaign rallies have become spectacles of anger and insult. “This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America,” Ms. Palin has taken to saying.
[...]
Her demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.
Of course, Feder made of AIM's relationship with another "unrepentant terrorist," G. Gordon Liddy. Indeed, Feder and Liddy served together as judges for the Media Research Center's annual awards in 1997.
Feder also wrote:
In an Oct. 3 story on the vice-presidential debate, the Times characteristically reported that the governor "used a steady grin, folksy manner and carefully scripted talking points." In other words, Palin is a hick, a rube – a political Stepford wife who would have been lost without her script (doubtless written by the RNC). In a companion editorial, the paper charged that Palin "never got beyond talking points in 90 minutes, mostly repeating clichés and tired attack lines and energetically refusing to answer far too many questions."
Feder offers no evidence that Palin did, in fact, venture beyond Republican talking points during the debate or that she did not refuse to answer all the questions she was asked.
Feder referred to the Times "coverage of Palin's daughter's unwed pregnancy" as "sleaze." In fact, the Times did not first report this; the McCain campaign announced it.
Feder claimed that the Times "studiously ignored" alleged statements in support of Obama by terrorists and dictators, including Fidel Castro's statement that Obama is "the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency." As we noted the last time he did this, Feder took Castro's words out of context; Castro was giving Obama a compliment that was backhanded at best and that Castro also called the U.S. embargo against Cuba that Obama pledged to maintain "an act of genocide." As PolitiFact also noted, Castro did not actually endorse either Obama or John McCain.
Feder also noted that "Ahmed Yousef (a top Hamas adviser) compared Obama to John F. Kennedy," which came from an interview Yousef did with WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein and right-wing radio host John Batchelor. As we've detailed, there are numerous questions about the interview regarding the nature of Yousef's participation in it that Klein has yet to answer.
Matching Feder's dishonesty in attacking the Times is AIM's promotion of Feder's column. A Nov. 25 AIM press release states:
Boycott The New York Times editor Don Feder said today that “palpable bias” at the paper has contributed to steep declines in The Times’ readership, advertising revenue, and stock value. The New York Times Company dramatically slashed its quarterly dividend last week, and its shares have lost 66.8% of their value this year.
But Feder did not mention the Times Company stock price in his column. And like the MRC, Feder and AIM ignore other more logical and plausible reasons for the decline, such as the paradigm shift from print to online and the growing commoditization of news.
As we foundout, Joseph Farah is desperate to disparage and discredit any and all criticism of WorldNetDaily.
Farah's latest target, as detailed in his Nov. 25 column: Kevin Hulten, a blogger for a weekly newspaper in Wisconsin. Writing about someone who forwarded a Nov. 11 WND article by Bob Unruh about how "members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization" interrupted a church service in Michigan, Hulten stated: "The mere fact that you reference a 'story' from a site that purports to be 'A free press for a free people' and then in the next breath complains that no news outlets have covered the purported attack should tell you that upon deeper examination that even you know that the old WorldNetDaily is not an acceptable source of information."
Of course, as we've repeatedlydetailed, Hulten's basic premise is correct. But that didn't stop Farah from going off the handle. Farah called Hulten's paper (as he did with the Huffington Post, where our article on WND that incured Farah's wrath appeared) "insignificant," a "pathetic journalistic institution" and "that rag," and denigrated Hulten (as he did with us) by calling him a "simpleton" and someone "who pontificates on things he doesn't understand in between blogging about high school football games." He engaged in his usual manhood-measuring game (as he did with us), complaining that the paper's website "provides no place on its website where readers can evaluate the relative experience of its top management and staff." And he engages in his usual disingenuous defense of WND.
Farah wrote that "WND based its Nov. 11 story, written by a 30-year veteran of the Associated Press, by the way, on five separate sources and has yet to be questioned by anyone with any knowledge of the report." In fact, Unruh's account of the church protest is based solely on one person, a right-wing blogger, Nick DeLeeuw. The other sources Unruh cites -- a press release from the church, and right-wing activsts Randy Thomasson, Gary Glenn, and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue (the church in question is not Catholic) -- are commenting on the incident, not corroborating DeLeeuw's acount. Further, as we've detailed, Unruh's work for WND has produced articles so deficient in journalistic balance and ethics that they would never pass muster at his old employer, the AP.
Nowhere, however, did Farah respond to this statement by Hulten:
This is another important sign to note when evaluating your potential media gathering sites: if investigative articles are followed by attempts to propagandize the conclusions reached in said article with the profits headed directly towards the authors, then this is not a good sign. Not good at all.
The beauty of today’s electronic age is that we all have the ability to evaluate the worth of any given form of media, and to discard it if it doesn’t live up to certain standards.
It has become extremely popular in some circles to blame the media for all the ills that society faces, especially in the political realm. I often wonder if this media spite is a backlash from partisans who are just a little pissed that certain media members uncovered a little too much dirt about their party favorites.
That said, in today’s media world, if you don’t like the point of view provided by the source you’re evaluating, then you are free to navigate your way to a provider that lines up with the way that you see the world.
But therein lies the rub: if we all surrender the middle ground in attempt to find “media” sources that line up with a certain ideology, how will we ever know what is true anymore?
That, dear reader, is why you get the Lake Stevens Journal in your mailbox every Wednesday.
Further, contrary to Farah's claim that "I still care about truth – and fighting for it everywhere," WND has a long history of lying to and misleading its readers.
We, by the way, are linked to in Farah's column as an example of the "medium-size venues" that have criticized WND. Though WND graciously published our response to Farah at WND, he has yet to comment further on it or actually substantively rebut any specific claim we've made about WND.
Instead, Farah has apparently decided that all criticism of him and WND is not legitimate; he laments in this column that "it seems like everyone wants to take a shot at me and my news agency." Of course, Farah is not shy about passing judgment on other news organizations -- usually for daring to express an opinion about WND that is insufficiently praiseworthy.
If you dish it out, shouldn't you be able to take it? Farah demonstrates that he can't.
A Nov. 25 Newsmax article is a repeat of a press release on "an exclusive post-election poll conducted by ATI-News and Zogby International" claiming that "A majority of American voters say they would have been less likely to vote for President-elect Barack Obama if they had known he supported controversial legislation that would eliminate workers’ right to a secret ballot in union elections." But that poll is based on a misleading question.
According to the press release, the question asked by pollsters was whether they had known "about Barack Obama’s support for a congressional bill to outlaw workers' rights to a secret ballot in union elections." But that's a false portrayal of the Employee Free Choice Act, which the press release called "misleadingly dubbed."
In fact, the law would not "outlaw workers' rights to a secret ballot in union elections." According to the House Education and Labor Committee:
The Employee Free Choice Act does not abolish the National Labor Relations Board election process. That process would still be available under the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation simply enables workers to also form a union through majority sign-up if a majority prefers that method to the NLRB election process. Under current law, workers may only use the majority sign-up process if their employer agrees. The Employee Free Choice Act would make that choice – whether to use the NLRB election process or majority sign-up – a majority choice of the employees, not the employer.
Since the poll question is based on a false premise, the poll is meaningless -- and Zogby's poll partner has no credibility.
What is ATI News, the organization that paid for the Zogby poll? Its website shows it to be merely an aggregator of other news websites; it generates no original reporting. It is operated by Brad O'Leary, who wrote the WorldNetDaily-published anti-Obama book "The Audacity of Deceit" earlier this fall. As we've noted, the book -- which is a bit of speculative scaremongering about "what can be surmised from his record about Obama's domestic policy prescriptions as president" -- contains numerous misleading or false claims about Obama.
As a promotion for his book during the presidential campaign, O'Leary enlisted Zogby to do a series of polls purporting to show that Obama is out of the mainstream, using similarly skewed questions.
So, it appears that not only is the bankroller of the poll discredited, Zogby is as well for accepting O'Leary's money to regurgitate his skewed, inaccurate questions and give O'Leary false legitimacy.
Shapiro Falsely Claims Autoworkers Make $75 an Hour Topic: CNSNews.com
In his Nov. 26 syndicated column, published by CNSNews.com and WorldNetDaily, Ben Shapiro falsely asserted, "The average UAW worker makes $75 per hour in salary and benefits, as compared to $42-$48 per hour for workers in Japanese plants in the United States."
In fact, that figure includes not only future retirement benefits for current workers, but also benefits paid to current retirees; actual hourly pay and benefits. Further, in the contract the UAW negotiated with General Motors in 2007, new hires make as little as $14 an hour.
WND's Favorite (Alleged Ex-)Nazi Obama Smearer Strikes Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 22 WorldNetDaily article promotes how Hilmar von Campe's WND-published rantings likening Obama to Nazis "has drawn angry reactions from both the American political left and the political right." But the article merely promotes the controversy, and it doesn't treat the criticism as legitimate, stating that, as a former Hitler Youth, "von Campe believes he carries a sober responsibility to warn Americans how quickly free society can be destroyed through socialist ideology." Nor does WND address the false and misleading claims von Campe has made about Obama, a tactic he presumably picked up in his Hitler Youth days.
With such a display of shameless dishonesty by WND, you know what's next. That's right -- another von Campe smear job.
In a Nov. 25 WND column, von Campe purported to detail "The real objectives of Barack Obama," which involves more likening to you-know-who:
There was another Nazi organization that had the same task as all other institutions, namely to keep people under control and influence their thinking. It was the Service to Work (Arbeitsdienst). Young men had to serve half a year before entering into military service. It seems that Obama likes this Nazi feature because he has proposed, in addition to the idea of a civilian national security force, a plan to create a national community service program. Obama's motives for this cannot be different from the Nazi motives – to bring as many youth as possible under their socialist umbrella and influence. Obama has 3.1 million e-mail addresses from young people who are waiting to do something.
President-elect Obama says that America is no more a Christian nation. He is not a Christian himself because you can't be a Christian and promote the killing of unborn human beings, which he does. He also wants to neutralize our Constitution by adding class-warfare concepts. His plans point to where he wants to lead the American nation: onto the same road Germany took in 1933. Americans, do you want to go in that direction? It is still time to take the opposite direction – a nation under God.
As he has before, von Campe repeats the "civilian national security force" falsehood. And Obama never said that "America is no more a Christian nation"; he said:
Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. We should acknowledge this and realize that when we're formulating policies from the state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we've got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community.
Telling lies and pulling quotes out of context? Looks like von Campe is using a version of the very Nazi-esque Big Lie technique.
Is CNS Blaming Bill Clinton for Bank Problems? Topic: CNSNews.com
A Nov. 25 CNSNews.com article by Matthew Hadro claims that "Four major banks, including one that collapsed, two that received federal bailout money and one that filed for bankruptcy this past September, paid former President Clinton $2.1 million for 13 speeches he delivered on their behalf between 2004-2007." This follows a Nov. 21 article by Matt Cover headlined, "Bailed-Out Citigroup Paid Bill Clinton $700,000 -- For Words, Just Words."
Is CNS blaming Clinton for the banks' financial problems because they paid him to speak? It appears so.
Another Nov. 25 article by Cover noted that "Robert Rubin, a key economic advisor to President-elect Barack Obama who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration, has been one of the highest paid executives at the now twice bailed-out financial giant Citigroup."
But no original CNS article notes that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is administering the financial bailout of entities like Citigroup, is a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, which has received billions in bailout money -- and made $38 million in his final year as CEO before joining the Bush administration.
Another WND Writer Who Doesn't Read WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
Add Janet Folger Porter to the list of WorldNetDaily writers who don't read the website they work for.
Porter's Nov. 25 WND column calls the birth certificate released by Barack Obama's campaign "Rathergate all over again with more amiss than a 1970s Selectric typewriter," asserting that the "Certificate of Live Birth documents posted on Mr. Obama's website www.fightthesmears.com, Daily Kos (a pro-Obama blog) and factcheck.org, (a pro-Obama political research group), were found to be altered and forged."
So how does Porter (or any other WND employee, for that matter) explain what WND wrote in August about this very same certificate:
A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.
Porter's not exactly known for her careful research; she once uncritically quoted a neo-Nazi racist to advance her anti-gay agenda. Indeed, in this column she falsely called Factcheck.org "a pro-Obama political research group"; in fact, it has criticized the Obama campaign for straying from the facts onnumerousoccasions.
If Porter wants a real Rathergate-like scandal, how about checking into Jerome Corsi's use of bogus documents to attack Obama?
And if WND's own writers and columnists don't read the website, why should anyone else?
It never really went away, of course, but the presidential campaign allowed its biased and misleading ways to return to prominence in attacking Barack Obama. Read more >>
Part 2: Denying the Mandate
The false and misleading claims didn't work, and Obama won the presidency. So Newsmax tried to downplay the magnitude of his victory. Read more >>
Cliff Kincaid is still peddling his financial crisis conspiracytheory in a Nov. 24 Accuracy in Media column:
This is America today―a country that is losing its ability to manufacture things but has to continue to pander to rich Arabs and the Chinese Communists for money just to survive. In addition to our jobs, savings and investments, it looks like our sovereignty and national pride are being sacrificed as part of this process.
Whether the financial meltdown has been engineered or not―and there are major questions about its timing, just six weeks before the national elections―it will be up to President Obama to manage America’s transition into this New Global Order. With his background in Marxism and extensive Wall Street contacts and associations, he seems perfectly suited for the task.
Media Matters details how Dick Morris' shilling for the National Republican Trust PAC -- which includes his columns at Newsmax -- failed to mention that the PAC has advertised on Morris' blog and emails, paying Morris thousands of dollars in the process.
Also, a Morris column in which he describes Barack Obama's reported nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state as "the blonde leading the blind" also appears at Newsmax.
