Newsmax Rewrites Pro-Ryan Debate Article, For Some Reason Topic: Newsmax
As befits its current Romney-shilling mode, Newsmax was eager to portray Paul Ryan as the winner of his debate with Joe Biden. Shortly after the debate, Newsmax went with this rah-rah story by Martin Gould, under the headline "Grinning Biden Fails to Throw Ryan Off Course":
A grinning Joe Biden became the overwhelming image of Thursday’s vice presidential debate as he made a conscious effort to undermine virtually every point his rival Paul Ryan made.
“Malarky,” “bunch of stuff,” “loose talk,” “not true,” “let me translate that” “not mathematically possible,” “this is amazing,” he said of various points Ryan made during the 90-minute debate.
But Ryan refused to be bowed by the older man’s attempts to talk down to him and belittle his points, hitting Biden with a torrent of detailed figures.
Newsmax promoted this article with a large top-of-the-front-page graphic:
Strangely, though, this article no longer exists on the Newsmax website. The link where the article originally resided now contains what appears to be a heavily rewritten version of the story credited to "Newsmax Wires," which claims that Biden's "grinning, laughing and disrespectful performance was panned by commentators and pollsters." The article's original lead now appears several paragraphs down.
The original article was reposted at TeaParty.org, if you want to see the first rah-rah draft.
Why did Newsmax go through all the effort to rewrite the article and not simply post a different one? It's not like Gould's original is more embarrassing than, say, Ronald Kessler's creepy fawning over Ann Romney. Seems like a lot of work for not very much payoff.
Then again, we're not partisan shills, so what do we know?
WND's Corsi Relies On Ethically Challeged Shoebat To Attack Obama Family Foundation Topic: WorldNetDaily
In an Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily article, Jerome Corsi claims that a foundation created by Barack Obama's relatives in Kenya is "on a mission to use the Obama name to transform Kenya from the nation’s current Christian majority to an Islamic majority that will spread Islamic law, or Shariah, through the country." His sole source for this claim: Walid and Theodore Shoebat.
Yes, that would be the same Walid Shoebat whose background as a former self-proclaimed "Islamic terrorist" who converted to Christianity has been credibly challenged. The same Walid Shoebat whose own foundation has had questions raised about its funding.
That's who Corsi is using to smear President Obama (today, anyway). That's how desperate Corsi is to destroy Obama at all costs -- including, it seems, to his own credibility.
Tim Graham has apparently decided to emulate his Media Research Center boss, Brent Bozell, when it comes to acting like a jerk in public.
Graham spent his time before the vice presidential debate issuing personal attacks against the debate moderator, Martha Raddatz. First, Graham tweeted, "Questions lib media never asks: 'Will woman who won't take husband's surname have a feminist tilt?'"
That was followed by another tweet: "Or: will woman who marries three times have a hard time deciding which debate questions to ask?"
Graham's boss has a notable history of issuing personal attacks, from off-air yelling at fellow panelists when he loses an on-air argument to caling President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead."
Is it really a good thing that Graham is aspiring to become just as much of a jerkwad as Bozell? So much for the MRC's calls for civility.
In the first, Flaherty has decided he knows better than police in a town far from where Flaherty lives about the nature of a series of local crimes. Because black people are involved, Flaherty insists, it can only be "black mob violence," and the police chief who says that race has nothing to do with it is wrong.
In the second, Flaherty again portrays a "knockout game" as solely a "black mob" thing, despite the fact that we've caught him falsely doing so in the past.
MRC's Double Standard on Debate Moderator Conflicts of Interest Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center joined the right-wing intimidation campaign against ABC reporter and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz with an Oct. 10 NewsBusters post by Matthew Sheffield highlighting that Raddatz invited Obama to her 1991 wedding along with other then-staffers of the Harvard Law Review, to a man (now-FCC director Julius Genachowski) she divorced six years later.
Sheffield wrote: "Of course, if a Fox News employee hosting a presidential debate were to exposed as having such a relationship with a Republican president, the story would be plastered all over the media and left-leaning journalists would be calling for him/her to be immediately replaced. Clearly this would be a good idea in this case as well."
Sheffield doesn't mention that the last time a debate moderator had a personal relationship with one of the debate participants -- which, it turns out, was even closer than the one Raddatz has with Obama -- the MRC said nothing about it.
CBS' Bob Schieffer -- moderator of a 2004 debate between President Bush and John Kerry -- played golf with Bush in the 1990s, and Schieffer's brother Tom, who Bush appointed as U.S. ambassador to Australia, was president of the Texas Rangers baseball team at the same time Bush was a partner in the team.
Yet we could find no evidence in the MRC's archives that this was ever brought up. Instead, the MRC tried to paint him as anti-Bush; for instance, Tim Graham insisted that Schieffer "tilted left against Bush in 2004" and failed to mention Schieffer's personal relationship with Bush.
Meanwhile, Graham rehashed an earlier hit job on Raddatz, which as we've previously noted consists largely of Graham whining that Raddatz failing to put an anti-Obama spin on the death of Osama bin Laden and falsely suggesting that Raddatz was reporting her personal opinion when, in fact, she was reporting what "one officer's wife" said following Nidal Hasan's massacre at Fort Hood.
WND's Klein Still Unable to Handle Criticism, Just Like His Boss Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah has long been unable to handle criticism of himself or his baby, WorldNetDaily, even when that criticism is wholly justified and factually accurate. That thin-skinned attitude is rubbing off on his protege, Aaron Klein -- we've encountered a coupleexamples of Klein-related defensiveness to his own shoddy reporting, as well as a dishonest response to criticism of a previous anti-Obama tome, "The Manchurian Candidate."
Well, Klein has a new Obama-bashing book out, and Klein and WND appear similarly unable to handle criticism.
An Oct. 8 WND article complains that "A syndicated news service attacked the New York Times best-selling book 'Fool Me Twice' as espousing 'conspiracy theories,' yet did not cite a single example of a conspiracy in the book, which unveils President Obama’s specific, second-term agenda."
As we've noted, "Fool Me Twice" appears to be nothing more than Klein's usual blend of biased speculation, guilt by association and conspiracy theories -- you know, just like "The Manchurian President." It's hard to "cite a single example of a conspiracy in the book" when the entire book is one big conspiracy theory.
WND uncritically repeats this Klein quote from the article:
“I don’t have an agenda beyond documenting for the American public what Barack Obama’s specific plans are or at least the recommendations that have been given to Obama that will most likely form the blueprint for a second term,” Klein said in the interview with Troy. “I was simply trying to do what the president will not, and that is spell out his actual plans if he gets elected.”
Klein is simply lying when he says he has no anti-Obama agenda. Bashing Obama is pretty much all he has been doing for the past four years. If he's so fair and balanced, where's his book on the "specific plans" of Mitt Romney?
Newsmax Spins for Romney on Abortion Remarks Topic: Newsmax
After Mitt Romney declared in an interview that “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda," right-wing activists have been in spin mode trying to reconcile that statement with their support of him. And Newsmax -- now in full pro-Romney, anti-Obama mode -- is only too happy to be part of the spin machine.
An Oct. 10 article by Patrick Hobin and John Bachman let Newsmax reputation rehabilitation project subject Ralph Reed spin as hard as he could, insisting the issue was just "an issue of semantics":
Mitt Romney’s comments that abortion legislation would play no part in his White House agenda is consistent with his previously-stated positions, Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told Newsmax.TV.
In the past Romney has said he would support a reversal of Roe vs. Wade, but Reed said he does not see his most recent comment, made in an interview with the Des Moines Register, as a deviation.
“He made it abundantly clear in the Des Moines Register interview that he would on day one, by executive order, reinstate the Mexico City policy which was originally instituted by Ronald Reagan and carried out by both Bush presidents that prohibits taxpayer funds from being used to promote or perform abortions overseas through the United Nations and other international agencies,” Reed said.
“Further, Mitt has made it abundantly clear that he favors repealing Obamacare, which we believe rations healthcare to the elderly and is therefore not pro-life and which also, through various means, promotes abortion,” he said.
Reed said the other issue that would affect abortion would be the make-up of the Supreme Court, where Romney has said he will appoint “strict constructionists."
"That was just an issue of semantics," sai Reed. "They asked him what his legislative agenda is. A judicial appointment is not legislation."
Another Oct. 10 article by Paul Scicchitano and Kathleen Walter featured Mike Huckabee insisting that right-wingers are "comfortable that he really is going to be a pro-life president."
Newsmax portrays itself as a reasonable, semi-balanced news organization, but it completely abandons that balance every time there's an election featuring a candidate it likes. It played that game in a Florida governor's race, it played it again earlier this year when it decided to push Newt Gingrich's candidacy, and it's doing that now.
Vox Day Laments That Marriage No Longer Means 'Expectation Of Regular Sex' For Men Topic: WorldNetDaily
Vox Day's issues with women are fairly legendary, so it's no surprise he'd go there again, which he does in his Oct. 7 WorldNetDaily column.
Day begins his column by declaring, "When gasoline prices are rapidly approaching $5 per gallon, it is no secret that U.S. money does not buy what it used to." He seems not to have noticed the fact that this is happening only in California and is due to supply disruptions, not regular inflation; elsewhere in the country, prices are slowly declining.
This led to a complaint about the Federal Reserve, which led to Day likening "monetary debasement" to supposed debasement of marriage. Day quotes somebody named "Dalrock," whom he calls "an influential Christian writer on intersexual relations" even though he appears to be just a blogger hiding behind a pseudonym, lamenting about what "marriage for men no longer means":
being the legally and socially recognized head of the household
an expectation of regular sex
legal rights to children
lifetime commitment
Day doesn't quote the rest of "Dalrock's" post, but he goes on to complain that a woman who becomes a "career gal" becomes "older and less attractive" and also "omes with even more feminist attitude," adding, "She also now has a legal incentive to divorce in the form of cash and prizes and nearly guaranteed child custody. Oh, and we also have some new laws which assume you are an abuser if your wife decides she needs some drama or extra leverage against you."
"Dalrock" also grumbles about being unable to find a virgin to marry:
There’s just one more small thing. It took her so long to find you that you can’t reasonably expect her chastity to be perfectly in tact. I mean, it’s mostly there, but it suffered a ding or two. Her virginity was gone to her first boyfriend, but don’t worry it was very romantic and she still has fond memories of that special time. Not too long after that those jerks at the frat house did a number on her pride, but you can’t hold that against her. She’s a bright gal, and after that she learned how to hook up smart. There were, I think, a few other clips along the way. Nothing too serious, but after all remember it did take her forever to find you. Your little bird may not be quite as young and innocent as she would have been had she found you sooner, but there is always hope.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Day devoted a column last year to warning men not to marry "career women" because they have a bad habit of thinking for themselves. Earlier this year, Day complained: "In college, we were told that women were just as interested in sex as men, but that having sex with them while they were drunk was rape, having sex with them when they regretted it the next day was rape and not having sex with them was also rape if they felt sufficiently spurned."
Day spends the rest of his column grumbling about "government recognition of homosexual relationships," adding: "The government overvaluation of homosexuality is why 4.4 percent of the characters on U.S. television are now sexually abnormal, more than double their actual percentage of the general population."
AIM's Kincaid Suggests Biden Is Going Senile Topic: Accuracy in Media
In the midst of whining that the "major media" will purportedly crown Joe Biden the winner of Thursday's debate with Joe Biden and dredging up ancient allegations of plagiarism, Cliff Kincaid turns his Oct. 9 Accuracy in Media column to the subject of whether Biden is going senile:
But don’t expect the major media to remind voters of Biden’s history of plagiarism. They are gearing up to declare him the winner of Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, no matter what happens.
But another taboo subject remains: Does the so-called “Gaffe-O-Matic” Vice President suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia?
Henry I. Miller has written in Forbes that Biden’s utterances “suggest some sort of dementia.” Biden, who will be 70 in November, “frequently has fumbled and bumbled in his public remarks,” says Miller.
Conservative writer Ben Hart says, “Biden raised eyebrows most recently when he insisted in a speech to a predominantly black audience that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are ‘gonna put y’all back in chains.’ But this is just the latest in an endless catalogue of bizarre statements by Joe Biden, who often doesn’t seem to know where he is or even what century he’s living in. Much of the time, he appears to be confused, addled.”
He adds, “One or two crazy statements here and there would not be so alarming. But Biden is now saying crazy things every time he speaks, every time he opens his mouth. I actually listened to Biden’s entire ‘y’all in chains’ speech, and very little of it made any sense at all.”
Little of what Kincaid makes sense, beyond being an expression of hatred of anything not as far-right as he is. But have we accused him of being senile? No.
WND's Farah Can't Figure Out Why Nobody Believes His Website Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah whines in his Oct. 6 WorldNetDaily column:
Last Thursday, WND broke the stunning news that Barack Obama’s administration offered a secret election-eve deal to Iran that would result in reduced sanctions in exchange for a phony diplomatic coup designed to bolster his vote Nov. 6.
The report is based on hard intelligence gathered by Reza Kahlili, the highly esteemed former CIA spy inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and counterterrorism expert.
It was a big story – one the major media, and even most of the so-called alternative media, ignored.
As we pointed out the last time Farah bemoaned that WND was being ignored, there's a good reason for that -- WND has so beclowned itself by obsessing over anti-Obama conspiracy theories that it simply can't be trusted, even if what is being reported turns out to be true.
By being associated with WND -- where he has been writing since July -- Kahlili (a pseudonym) can't be trusted. The source for his big supposed scoop comes from "a source affiliated with high Iranian officials ... who remains anonymous for security reasons." What does that mean? Why trust his anonymous sources, a common tactic used by WND writers (i.e. Aaron Klein) to forward smears against the website's enemies, like President Obama? Farah asserts that Kahlili's report has "credible sourcing," but where's the proof?
As we've also noted, Kahlili's fearmongering claims are treated with skepticism by actual Middle East analysts, and he's best known for his discredited claim that Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with "a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S."
Kahlili appears to be nothing more than another rabid Obama-hater who found his way to Obama Hate Central at WND.
WND's stable of Obama-hating obsessives have so dedicated themselves to bringing down Obama at any cost that they've made complete fools of themselves in the process and are too ethically challenged to admit it.
Jerome Corsi's birther conspiracy has completely collapsed -- so much that Corsi is pursuing a separate conspiracy theory that completely undermines it -- but WND has forbidden any mention of its collapse or of any of the writers who proved birthers wrong.
A news organization that cared about the truth would have reported all the birther facts, not just the ones that confirm its utterly discredited conspiracy theory. WND is not that organization.
And more Obama derangement pops up on WND every day. The latest example is an Oct. 9 article in which Corsi blows up blurry photos to make the purported claim that a ring Obama has worn reads "There is no god except Allah."
The fact that no sane person trusts WND is the fault of Farah and his stable of writers. Nobody else. It's too bad fpr Farah that he's so far down his rabbit hole of hate he can't recognize that.
Starr proved her bias once again in a Oct. 8 tweet in which she declared, "Obama basically hates Columbus."
Starr was promoting her CNS article in which she notes that President Obama's Columbus Day declaration stated that Americans should "“reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore" since Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World.
How does acknowledging the indisuputable facts of history equal "basically hating Columbus"? Starr doesn't explain.
Starr's tweet does, however, expose that she wrote her article with malicious intent, not an attempt to inform.
Funny that the bias-hunters at CNS's parent, the Media Research Center, just can't seem to find the bias in its own "news" organization, let alone remedy it.
WorldNetDaily doesn't believe in telling the other side of the story when that side involves something it disagrees with, which explains WND's Oct. 6 article on a Planned Parenthood-taught program in an Oregon school district.
WND publishes only attacks Planned Parenthood -- quoting only an anti-Planned Parenthood website and a "Christian news" website, and making no effort to actually talk to any Planned Parenthood official -- even repeating falsehoods about the organization. Here's how the unbylined article begins:
The Obama administration has a program that distributes funding to Planned Parenthood to indoctrinate children with the abortion industry’s perspective of sexuality, and the industry giant’s workers routinely are given students in public schools for their work.
At no point does WND offer evidence that any of those assertions are true.
WND goes on to repeat a claim that Planned Parenthood "derive[s] most of their income from the killing of unborn children." That's completely false -- only about 15 percent of the organization's income comes from abortion.
Curiously, though the article is about a class in the Salem, Oregon, school district taht Planned Parenthood is involved in, at no point does WND describe the contents of the class. Apparently, it was so busy fearmongering and slanting the story it forgot. Of course, it could also nbe that the opponents of the class don't care what it's about since they too are too busy trying to fearmonger.
What is being taught is the Teen Outreach Program, which has the goal of reducing teen pregnancy. According to the Salem Statesman Journal (via Nexis), a major component of TOP is after-school community service projects that each student takes part in.
Apparently, WND and the Oregon opponents don't believe that to be a worthy goal. Nor, it seems, do they believe in telling facts that contradict their worldviews and agendas.
NEW ARTICLE: Noel Sheppard vs. The Truth Topic: NewsBusters
The NewsBusters associate editor just can't stand it when people report the facts about conservatives. As a bonus, Sheppard really doesn't critics of conservatives to say anything at all. Read more >>
Jon Dougherty's Love Letter to Romney Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've noted the return of Jon Dougherty to WorldNetDaily. And how is Dougherty using this platform in his Oct. 6 column? Penning a slobbering love letter to Mitt Romney. Behold:
Mitt Romney doesn’t need to be president of the United States.
A wealthy guy with a stable home, a great family and the world as his oyster, he doesn’t need the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone the endless, trying hours and the plethora of pressing issues that await him should he win in November.
He doesn’t need the constant scrutiny of his personal life and finances or the carping of a hostile press wholly in the bag for his opponent. He doesn’t deserve to be harangued by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
So why is Romney even running? Why did he leave the comfort and security of Bain Capital, a highly successful firm he helped build and which provided him a rare opportunity to become a billionaire?
Why did he instead choose to run the Winter Olympics and then the state of Massachusetts?
Why does such a rich guy, whom we’ve been told is so affluent he couldn’t possibly care about the rest of us, let alone relate to our needs and concerns, want to put himself and his family through what is arguably the most rigorous, stressful and soul-sucking process that is a presidential campaign?
[...]
I think it’s because Mitt Romney is a noble man. And his bid for the presidency is perhaps the most noble gesture of our time.
[...]
Mitt Romney is a rich guy. He doesn’t need to be president. The fact that he still wants to be, given all that he has endured, is genuinely noble.
Instead of trying to tear him apart we should be thanking him for offering up his experience and service. It’s not like he needs the money.
Too bad WND is so far out of the mainstream that Dougherty's love letter doesn't matter, but nice try, Jon.
MRC's Graham Seethes Over ABC Weatherman's Gay Marriage Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham doens't seem to think that gays deserve any sort of happiness.
One doesn't have to read too far between the lines to pick up on the underlying hostility behind Graham's Oct. 6 NewsBusters post on ABC weatherman Sam Champion announcing that he plans to marry his same-sex partner. The headline alone deliberately splits "weatherman" into two words -- "ABC Weather Man To 'Marry' A Man" -- in order to drive his hostile point home.
Graham also puts "gay marriage" in scare quotes. Twice. He also seems very unhappy that Champion's co-workers and friends would dare to tweet their wishes for wedding bliss.
The entire tone of Graham's post is of someone trying really hard to keep things as bland as possible and not to spew his anti-gay hostility all over the page. But his employer is rabidly anti-gay, so that's to be expected.
