Sheppard Silent on Real Reason 'Skeptical Environmentalist' Is Treated Skeptically Topic: NewsBusters
In an Aug. 11 NewsBusters post touting author Michael Crichton's glowing Amazon review of global warming denier Bjorn Lomborg's book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming," Noel Sheppard writes of Lomborg: "It is plain to see why Lomborg is such a controversial figure, as he is not afraid to call a spade a spade regardless of who might find such straight talk inconvenient."
Actually, the real reason -- which Sheppard fails to mention -- is that Lomborg is a lousy researcher. An earlier book he wrote concluded that the concerns of scientists regarding the world's environmental problems -- including global warming -- were overblown. But Scientific American magazine ran a series of articles from four well-known environmental specialists that lambasted Lomborg's book for "egregious distortions," "elementary blunders of quantitative manipulation and presentation that no self-respecting statistician ought to commit," and sections that were "poorly researched and ... rife with careless mistakes."
By ignoring any criticism of Lomborg, it seems that Sheppard is the one who finds "straight talk" inconvenient.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Clinton Derangement Syndrome still runs rampant in the ConWeb (as we've detailed), and the latest to exhibit its symptoms is WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah, who spent his Aug. 10 column bashing her for something she did nearly 40 years ago -- and, of course, getting the details wrong in the process.
Farah claims to have read Hillary Clinton's Wellesley College senior thesis on activist Saul Alinsky: "It's sheer torture, believe me. I did the heavy lifting for you. If there was anything in here worth your time, I would tell you." Well, unless Farah has been to the archive room on the Wellesley campus, the only place one can read the thesis -- a trip he has not mentioned in his columns -- he has not read it.
Another sign Farah has not actually read the thesis: he misportrays it. Farah asserted that Clinton wrote "in a most reverential way" about Alinsky, asserting that she and Alinsky share a similar lust for power:
Power, power, power, power, power. That is the essence of Hillary's thesis. And it is still what she is chasing today.
She's in love with power – and so was her mentor, Alinsky.
In fact, Clinton concluded her thesis by rejecting Alinsky's model. As MSNBC -- who, unlike Farah, did read her thesis -- reported:
In the end, she judged that Alinsky's “power/conflict model is rendered inapplicable by existing social conflicts” — overriding national issues such as racial tension and segregation. Alinsky had no success in forming an effective national movement, she said, referring dismissively to “the anachronistic nature of small autonomous conflict.”
[...]
“I agreed with some of Alinsky's ideas,” she explained in “Living History,” her 2003 biography, “particularly the value of empowering people to help themselves. But we had a fundamental disagreement. He believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn't.”
Farah also weirdly fixates on on Clinton's thesis statement that "I have no 'loving wife' to thank for keeping the children away while I wrote": "What an odd comment, I thought. How many undergraduate students have a "loving wife" to help them write their thesis?"
Well, it could be argued that a not-insignificant number of college students were married at the time Clinton wrote her thesis in in the late 1960s. Perhaps Clinton was making a snarky feminist joke that Farah was too frothingly angry at her to find the humor in.
Farah also gratuitously slams Clinton's writing style as "uniquely laborious"; perhaps he should offer evidence that his own writing style as a college senior wasn't.
Farah is a CDS carrier, and his strain is particularly virulent, so look for a lot more of this in the future.
Will Buchanan Admit Racist-Eugenicist Origin of 1920s Immigration Law? Topic: WorldNetDaily
Pat Buchanan, in his Aug. 10 column (printed at WorldNetDaily), joins the chorus of conservatives who long for a return to restrictive 1920s-era immigration law:
[Aughor Robert] Putnam is an optimist about the long-term, but his optimism seems rooted less in his findings than in his hopes and America's experience with the Great Wave of immigration from 1890 to 1920.
But that Great Wave was followed by the Great Lull – little or no immigration from Coolidge through JFK to 1965, when LBJ opened the floodgates, though he probably had no idea what he was doing with the Immigration Act of 1965, which goes unmentioned in his memoirs.
[...]
Between 1924 and 1965, the Melting Pot worked. It converted the children of 15 million European immigrants into American citizens with shared traditions, values and culture.
Will Buchanan admit that the "Great Lull" was largely brought about by racists and eugenicists?
Gore Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Or maybe it's a Godwin's Law watch. From Henry Lamb's Aug. 11 WorldNetDaily column:
[Al] Gore's global warming religion is reminiscent of the eugenics phenomenon in the 20th century. The elite of the scientific community, and well-to-do of the social set, embraced eugenics as the enlightened way to the perfect society. Skeptics were ridiculed, denounced and pointed to as the kind of scum that would be eliminated if eugenics became the official policy of government.
[...]
Gore's army of in-crowd zealots are in precisely the same position the pro-eugenics in-crowd occupied when they convinced Hitler's government to implement the policies necessary to advance their point of view.
Should Gore's army prevail, the consequences will take longer than Hitler's violence but the end result will be quite similar: The destruction of a significant portion of society.
[...]
Danger to the current generation lies with the hundreds, if not thousands, of misguided policy makers who have fallen under the spell of Gore's charismatic religion. The folks who hold positions in state legislatures and in Congress can inflict major damage on the economy and the lifestyle of America, all the while thinking they are doing something good.
Hitler – and his eugenics advocates – were absolutely convinced that they were doing something good.
In an Aug. 10 NewsBusters post, Dan Gainor criticized "anti-coal liberal Jeff Goodell" for, well, being an anti-coal liberal in Goodell's examination of Robert Murray, owner of the Utah mine where several miners were trapped:
Goodell also doubted Murray's claim that the collapse was caused by an earthquake.
"[T]hey're saying, look, this has all the indications of a mine collapse and we don't have much doubt about that," Goodell said. "I mean, they're reserving final word until they really look at this stuff. And, you know, Murray is going around saying that this was caused by an earthquake but really offering no evidence or there is no - he is not telling us why he believes that. He is just asserting that."
But Murray has indeed explained why he thought the mine collapse was caused by earthquake. Murray defended the earthquake claims on the August 9 CNN "American Morning."
But Gainor doesn't mention that there is evidence supporting Goodell and contradicting Murray's assertion that the mine collapse was caused by an earthquake. As we've noted, both the U.S. Geological Survey and seismologists at the University of Utah have stated that there was no earthquake in the area, and that the collapse itself caused the recorded seismic event. Seismologists at the University of California-Berkeley have made the same determination.
Klein Does More PR Work for Right-Wing Rabbis Topic: WorldNetDaily
How much does the Rabbinical Congress for Peace pay Aaron Klein to serve as its press agent?
A significant sum, apparently, because Klein has written yet another article for WorldNetDaily detailing the group's latest pronouncement (read: attack on Ehud Olmert). Klein has written numerousarticles (we counted 13 in the WND archive) on whatever the group says -- which, coincicentally, mostly happen to attack non-conservative Israeli politicians and political views -- all of which neglect to detail the group's conservative views.
As an extra added bonus, Klein keeps up his whitewash of goings-on in Hebron, repeating once again his revisionist history of the Hebron market while curiously omitting right-wing extremist Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of 29 Arabs at Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs.
MRC-Fox News Appearance Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center employees garnered two appearances on Fox News in recent days -- one by CNSNews.com's Nathan Burchfiel discussing his Aug. 7 CNS article on firefighters who were allegedly taunted while appearing in a gay-pride parade, and the other an appearance by the Business & Media Institute's Dan Gainor on the Aug. 10 "Fox & Friends" to attack the New York Times for a blog post by "Freakonomics" co-author Steven Levitt asking, "If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?"
As is Fox News' standard practice, Gainor and Burchfiel appeared alone without other panelists, and their conservative political affiliations were not mentioned. Further, while Gainor repeatedly attacked the Times -- e.g., "It's another example of irresponsible activity by the New York Times," "this from the New York Times, that last year wasn't taking terrorism seriously when they revealed secret banking tracking for terrorist organizations," "The New York Times doesn't give a darn about ordinary Americans" -- and made unsubstantiated claims, such as that Levitt wrote the post "to get as much possible press, and The New York Times is loving it," nowhere did Gainor or any of his "Fox & Friends" interviewers note Levitt's reasoning behind his post:
Consider that posting them could be a form of public service: I presume that a lot more folks who oppose and fight terror read this blog than actual terrorists. So by getting these ideas out in the open, it gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur.
Patterson's Dubious Clinton Attack Gets a Pass Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 9 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard repeated an exchange on MSNBC's "Hardball" between "anti-war activist Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org" and "Move America Forward Vice Chairman, and two-time New York Times bestselling author Buzz Patterson," in which Patterson asserted that Hillary Clinton "wanted to outlaw uniforms, military uniforms in the White House" during Bill Clinton's presidency. Sheppard did not mention, as Media Matters has detailed, that Patterson has never offered any evidence to support his assertion and has repeatedly changed his story on the background of the purported directive. One possible reason: Sheppard credited Move America Forward chief Melanie Morgan for his post.
And lookie here -- Morgan's Aug. 10 WorldNetDaily column similarly referenced the Patterson-Soltz dustup, also without referencing the factually dubious Clinton attack.
Huston Ignores That Giuliani, Romney Share Obama's Pakistan Position Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 10 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston complains that a Los Angeles Times article's statement regarding "official and unofficial suggestions by U.S. politicians that American forces unilaterally strike Al Qaeda figures believed to be taking shelter in Pakistan's tribal lands if Musharraf's government fails to do so" doesn't single out Barack Obama by name:
Why no mention of Barack Obama and the scolding he has taken for his over-the-top rhetoric?
Does anyone doubt that if a Republican candidate had said something on the campaign trail that caused a foreign ally to react in such a visceral way that the L.A.Times would waste no time in linking that candidate's name to such a story, regardless if his rhetoric was "official" or not?
In fact, as we've noted, Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney do, in fact, endorse the substance of Obama's view on Pakistan. Why didn't Huston mention that, hmmm?
Huston goes on to assert: "But the L.A.Times knows better. They know that Obama does not represent at any time the official policy of either the Bush Administration or the United States. They know better than to classify Obama's comments as 'official and unofficial suggestions.'" How does Huston know that this is not "the official policy of either the Bush Administration or the United States"? As we've seen with Iraq, the Bush administration clearly has no problem invading a country when it serves U.S. interests.
CNS Smears Researchers to Defend Lott Topic: CNSNews.com
An Aug. 9 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas highlights a claim in a new book by John R. Lott that -- contrary to claims forwarded in the best-selling book "Freakonomics" -- abortion has led to increased crime. But in recounting Lott's checkered research history, Lucas takes an unsupported swipe at all researchers:
In a written statement, [John] Donohue [co-author of the abortion-reduces-crime study in "Freakonomics"] did not comment on either study. He instead raised questions concerning Lott's research methods and said, "I am a social scientist, however, so Lott's behavior has in my mind, put him outside the bounds of scientific discourse."
Donohue was referring to Lott's 1998 book, "More Guns Less Crime," which was roundly criticized in some academic circles and on blogs for allegedly being founded on faulty research. Lott also admitted to going on to one of the blogs under a different name to defend his work, a practice that many academics engage in.
Huh? According to who? Lucas offers no evidence that "many academics" write under assumed names to defend their work. This appears to be a cheap shot against all researchers in order to make Lott look less dishonest and more "mainstream."
The above paragraphs are Lucas' only reference to the controversies surrounding Lott -- of which there are many. Lucas goes on to add: "Despite those controversies, Lott's commentaries continue to be reviewed and published in such places as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as other establishment media." That's no testimony to the veracity of Lott's research, though, since he has been getting stuffwrong in those publications as well.
Blumer Wants Us To Believe Anonymous, Unsubstantiated Claims Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 9 NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer claims that an Associated Press article on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy "make[s] it appear that this is a "he said, she said" dispute, instead of a situation where Beauchamp and TNR have been thoroughly discredited." Citing the anonymously sourced Weekly Standard article by Michael Goldfarb asserting that Beauchamp's articles have been discredited, Blumer claims "Goldfarb had, and has, at least two sources." But those sources are anonymous, which we thought was a bad thing as far as conservatives are concerned. Indeed, fellow NewsBuster Robin Boyd wrote not too long ago: "The use of 'anonymous' sources is nothing more than a journalistic ploy to prevent others from verifying the information presented."
Further, as Eric Boehlert points out, the Army has said that neither the results of its investigation of Beauchamp's claims nor his alleged recantation of said claims will be made public -- as Boehlert put it, "we just have to take their word for it."
This means Blumer is asking us to believe anonymous claims that lack verifiable proof -- a different standard than the one to which he held the Associated Press in the Jamil Hussein (non-)controversy.
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein continues to hide relevant information about conflicts in the West Bank town of Hebron from his readers.
In his Aug. 9 WND article, Klein again details the eviction by Israeli Defense Forces of two families in a Hebron market without noting their right-wing extremist sympathies, and repeated his assertion that the Hebron market was closed "after a series of clashes broke out in the mid-1990s" without noting that one of those "clashes" was right-wing extremist Jew Baruch Goldstein's massacre of 29 Arabs in Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994.
New Article: Freshly Brewed Smears Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist and Faith2Action chief Janet Folger is all too willing to mislead and lie -- and even quote a neo-Nazi racist -- in order to promote her anti-gay agenda. Read more.
Hillary Too Polarizing, Says Hillary-Hater LeBoutillier Topic: Newsmax
In his Aug. 8 NewsMax column, John LeBoutillier writes of the 2008 presidential election and Hillary Clinton:
Out of it all, the country wants to find someone who makes at least an effort to re-unite us all as Americans first and partisans second.
Hillary cannot do this and will never be able to. The very minute she takes office many will oppose her. And that will never change. She is a polarizing figure, just the way G.W. Bush has become polarizing. Can a nation of 300 million people only elect presidents now from two families? Are the two main political parties the wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bushes and the Clintons? Until this changes, we, as a nation, are in for more years of division and disgust.
LeBoutillier doesn't mention that one of the reasons Hillary Clinton is a "polarizing figure" is that he himself has a personal, vested interest in keeping it that way. As we've detailed, LeBoutillier regularly attacks Hillary in his column, operates the Stop Hillary PAC, and was the chief spokesman for the now-abandoned Counter Clinton Library.
If Hillary cannot "re-unite us all as Americans" if elected, it's because of people like LeBoutillier (and several other NewsMax writers) who don't want that to happen if Hillary is involved.
Waters Ignores That Giuliani, Romney Share Obama's 'Extreme' Pakistan Position Topic: Media Research Center
In an Aug. 7 TimesWatch item, Clay Waters claimed that a New York Times blog post "takes a rather hostile anti-Republican tone that portrays second-tier candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo as an extremist who has gone too far even for a party that likes to posture as tough," based on Tancredo's assertion that "the United States should reserve the right to bomb Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, in retaliation for a major terrorist attack on American soil." Waters responded: "By contrast, when Democratic candidate Barack Obama suggested the United States invade an ally, Pakistan, to go after Al Qaeda, possibly destablizing a nuclear power, Jeff Zeleny's August 2 report didn't find anything controversial or gaffe-like."
First, Waters didn't give the full context of Obama's statement -- that when he "suggested the United States invade an ally, Pakistan, to go after Al Qaeda," he also said he would do so only if "we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act."
Second, perhaps Zeleny "didn't find anything controversial or gaffe-like" because major Republican presidential candidates hold the same position as Obama. As Media Matters notes, even though Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney attacked Obama for his statement regarding Pakistan, they agreed with its substance. Romney said, "Of course America always maintains our options to do whatever we think is in the best interests of America," while Giuliani said, "I would take that option if I thought there was no other way to crush Al Qaeda, no other way to crush the Taliban, and no other way to be able to capture bin Laden."
