Corsi Baselessly Suggests Obama Still Using Drugs Topic: WorldNetDaily
The first tidbit from Jerome Corsi's new anti-Obama book is out, and it's ... not much.
A July 30 WorldNetDaily article goes the baseless speculation route by highlighting a suggestion by Corsi -- a WorldNetDaily employee, though the book itself is published under Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions -- that Barack Obama is still using drugs:
Corsi points out Obama has yet to explain whether he ever sold drugs or when he stopped using them.
"Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois?" Corsi asks. "How about in the U.S. Senate? If Obama quit using drugs, the public inquiry certain to occur in a general election campaign for the presidency will most certainly aim at the when, how and why questions George W. Bush successfully avoided."
[...]
Despite the seriousness of the revelation by Obama about his college drug use as late as the 1980s, there has been little attention given the issue by the political reporters who cover the candidate. In fact, none have asked the questions Corsi asks in his book – or, at least they have not published or broadcast answers if the questions were asked.
In other words, Corsi has no actual evidence that Obama still uses drugs -- he's just operating on the false-logic supposition that because Obama purportedly never declared that he stopped using drugs, he must still be.
The WND article also takes a stab at reviving Larry Sinclair:
Last year, when a Minnesota man, Larry Sinclair, made startling allegations that he used cocaine and had homosexual sex with Obama nine years earlier, the candidate was able to ignore the charges. Subsequently, Sinclair reportedly failed polygraphs.
WND seems to be suggesting that Sinclair still has some credibility; in fact, Sinclair is a career criminal who has been utterly discredited. As we've noted, WND never bothered to verify Sinclair's claims before repeating them -- the same offense WND and Corsi are accusing "the political reporters who cover the candidate" are doing with Obama.
If this is the most earth-shattering revelation Corsi's book has to offer -- and given that it's the lead claim from it, it must be -- it appears that Simon & Schuster wasted its (presumably not inconsiderable) money on a factually dubious smear piece.
Indeed, Corsi's previous anti-Obama work for WND has been similarly desperate and dubious -- for instance, swallowing Cliff Kincaid's communist obsession, rehashing irrelevant stories about Obama's father, and buying into the talking point that a large crowd that saw Obama speak actually came out to see the marginally popular indie-rock band that opened for him.
P.S. It appears to be baseless-Obama-smear day at WND; Jack Cashill (who has his own problems with factual reporting) is using his WND column to suggest -- again, without actual evidence to back him up -- that Obama didn't write his books. (Coincidentially, Cashill's most recent book was also published by Threshold Editions.)
UPDATE: Corsi's not just desperate -- he's wrong. Media Matters points out that Corsi did, in fact, say in his book that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University.
New Article: Ron Kessler Sells Out Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's chief Washington correspondent completes the transition from bitter McCain basher to full-on McCain fluffer. Read more >>
Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein's 46th anti-Obama article is nothing new -- it's little more than a rewritten version of an article he and John Batchelor wrote for Human Events way back in March, with an eye toward pumping a hint of scandal that Obama apparently has no actual direct evidence of.
The article carries the leading headline, "Obama tied to Iraqi government fraud?" But Klein offers little beyond implication; given that the "$50 million contact [sic] to train Iraqi security personnel at a site in Chicago" that Obama's Senate office purportedly helped to negotiate with an Iraqi official later accused of corruption was, in Klein's words, "nixed," the answer to the headline's question is "no."
While Klein is grasping at whatever he can find -- even rewriting five-month-old articles -- to make Obama look bad, he's utterly silent on analogous situations involving John McCain. For instance, Klein (nor anone else at WND, for that matter) has reported on the background of Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, who is a longtime ally of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi official who fed bogus intelligence to the U.S. prior to the Iraq war and has since been accused of being a spy for Iran.
Then again, WND readers probably don't know that about Chalabi; he hasn't been mentioned in a WND news article for nearly three years.
Huston Takes Obama Quote Out of Context Topic: NewsBusters
In a July 30 NewsBusters post, Warner Todd Huston asserted that "Jonathan Weisman is reporting on his "The Trail" blog that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama told House Democrats that he believes himself to be the symbol of all that is good in America. It appears that he is beginning to believe the over-the-top hype that he really is the Obamessiah for America." Huston goes on to rant: "Wow, the arrogance in that. The hubris, the astounding hubris of it all is overwhelming to anyone that knows even a tiny bit of human history. ... Why Obama gets a pass for this sort of messianic rhetoric is amazing to me."
But Huston didn't note the rest of Weisman's post, which puts the quote in its proper context:
But one leadership aide said the full quote put it into a different context. According to that aide, Obama said, "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign -- that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol."
Why did Huston refuse to tell his readers about the full context of Obama's statement? Was he just in the mood to rant -- he is prone to those, after all -- and needed a out-of-context claim to set him off?
This, combined with Tim Graham's repeating of another apparently false claim that Obama himself released his prayer at the Western Wall -- which Graham has yet to update or correct as of this writing other than to add "Report:" to the beginning of the headline to make it slightly less declarative of a false claim -- tells us that NewsBusters and the rest of the MRC are descending quickly into Obama Derangement Syndrome territory. The truth, it seems, no longer matters to them.
A July 28 FrontPageMag article is a Q-and-A conducted by Dave Gordon with Meir Weinstein, the the head of the recently reconstituted Canadian branch of the Jewish Defense League. In it, Gordon serves up a softball question that allows Weinstein to whitewash evidence of the JDL's past extremism:
DG: The JDL is thought by many to be a controversial, even extremist group.
MW: I was involved with the Jewish Defense League when the main issue was Soviet Jews. The Soviet policy towards Jews was genocide, through cultural genocide. Jews were sent to Siberia for wanting to go to Israel. When we protested we were told to stay on the other side of the street. But Meir Kahane (JDL founder) would cross over the police barricade and marched right in front. Those activities got front-page news… [however] people would do things in the name of JDL and claim credit for it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we did it…
This ignores the JDL's history, as even FrontPageMag has reported it. From an August 2005 article by Ben Johnson:
The elder [Meir] Kahane was most notorious in this country for founding the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a group an FBI report classified as a "right-wing terrorist group" that was widely suspected to have bombed the Los Angeles headquarters of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee 20 years ago, a bombing that killed ADC director Alex Odeh. According to the Anti-Defamation league of B'nai B'rith -- hardly an anti-Semitic organizaiton -- the JDL has admitted, been convicted of, or been tied to attempted bombings of multiple foreign embassies, bombing an Iranian bank, attepmting to hijack an Arab airplane, the severe beating and hospitalization of enemies, and the firebombing of a vehicle belonging to the Christian missionaries "Jews for Jesus." Former Kahane Chai leader Binjamin Zev Kahane justified the bombing of the Syrian Embassy to the UN, forwhich a Kahane Chai member initially claimed responsibility. Kahane Chai member Baruch Goldstein committed the last (and deadliest) act of Israeli terrorism, murdering 29 Muslims at prayer in a mosque in 1994.
Have David Horowitz and FrontPageMag changed their position on Kahane and the JDL? If so, that would explain why FrontPageMag would publish JDL/Kahane sympathizer (and, thus, terrorist sympathizer) Cinnamon Stillwell.
In a July 29 WorldNetDaily column, Janet Folger repeats several discredited claims about Barack Obama.
Folger asserted that Obama has "plans for an $845 billion to a taxpayer-supported poverty program" [sic] and a "$439 billion 'civilian national security force.'" But as we've detailed, the poverty bill commits no actual money to it, and the "civilian national security force" is just a false scare tactic peddled by Joseph Farah.
Folger really should know better than to trust WND as a credible news source.
Folger also complained that "every network news anchor – NBC's Brian Williams, CBS' Katie Couric and ABC's Charlie Gibson – followed Obama like lemmings of the left." This ignores the fact that news coverage of Obama is more negative than that of John McCain.
Folger then repeats a claim that Obama canceled a visit to wounded troops in Germany "after it became clear that campaign staff and the traveling press corps would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama." In fact, there is no evidence that Obama ever planned to bring the press with him on the visit or that he canceled the visit because he couldn't.
And because this is an anti-Obama screed, Folger serves up a big helping of Obama Derangement Syndrome:
But in Berlin, instead of pretending to be president or even a presidential candidate, Obama sounded more like Nicolae Carpathia, of the "Left Behind" series.
He spoke of a "global partnership," "global citizenship" and "global commitment," "global development" and "those left behind in a globalized world." "Left Behind" in a globalized world? Interesting wording.
Someone who portrayed a neo-Nazi racist as a credible source should not be complaining about the "interesting wording" of others.
The publication of Barack Obama’s supposedly secret prayer at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem was a scandal in Israel. James Taranto noted the newspaper Ha’aretz reported calls for police investigations into the removal and publication of the Obama note, published by the newspaper Maariv. But Maariv said it was Obama who authorized the unveiling of his temporarily private message to God.
Maariv's response: "Obama's note was published in Maariv and other international publications following his authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since he is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the wall."
Stop right there. First, Taranto also cites as part of his evidence a report from Israel Insider -- as we've detailed, a right-wing, anti-Obama website that is, for all practical purposes, the Israeli WorldNetDaily -- so it really can't be trusted at face value.
Second, The New Republic has been chasing the story as well, and Zvika Krieger has a critical update that undermines Graham's attack on Obama:
Yesterday, I posted an item about an accusation from Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv that the Obama campaign had leaked a copy of his Western Wall note to the foreign press (rather than Ma'ariv having bought it from some yeshiva kid who stole it out of the wall). After some additional reporting last night, I noted that the story sounded a bit fishy--not only has Ma'ariv not offered any tangible evidence to support this claim, but they also have only made the claim via a spokesman to various Israeli papers rather than printing the accusation in their own paper.
I just got off the phone with a Ma'ariv spokesman who says that the accusation is "completely false," and that he has no idea who these papers were quoting from Ma'ariv. "No official spokesman for Ma'ariv told this to any of the papers." I've got some calls in to these papers to find out where they got the quote. (I'll update here when I hear back.) He told me definitively that "the Obama campaign did not give us a copy of the letter or approve it for printing."
UPDATE 1: I just spoke with an editor at one of the four publications who quoted the alleged "Ma'ariv spokesman." This editor broached the possibility that Ma'ariv was trying to deflect criticims of it by releasing these spurious rumors about the Obama campaign, but upon realizing that they'll have to back up those accusations, is now disavowing them. This editor is going to look into this alleged "Ma'ariv spokesman" they quoted in his publication so we can try to ascertain if this is a Ma'ariv cover-up. I'll update here when I hear back from him and if I get anything interesting from the other publications who also quoted this alleged spokesman.
Looks like this Israeli newspaper can't even get its own story straight. Graham should have looked into this further before being so eager to smear Obama that he made assertions that may turn out to be false.
Return of the ConWeb's Tabloid Double Standard Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb loves to denounce salacious news about Republicans as worthy of only the supermarket tabloids, if that, while salaccious news about Democrats is always considered to be front-page news in real newspapers.
For instance, earlier this year, the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell denounced New York Times article suggesting that John McCain might have been involved in an extramarital affair as "rumor and gossip, fit to print only for the likes of the National Enquirer." Yet posters at the MRC's NewsBusters blog want the mainstream media to print rumors about an affair involving Democrat John Edwards that surfaced in, yes, the National Enquirer.
Tim Graham, who huffed back in February that "The 'news' alleging adultery against McCain is not 'fit to print,'" now finds in a July 24 post that news alleging adultery against Edwards is quite fit to print:
The double-standard here clearly looks partisan -- Edwards vs [Larry] Craig, or Mark Foley. There's also another standard that strangely kicks in. Trivial sexual matters like toe-tapping and scuzzy Internet messaging are more likely to get coverage than charges that raise more serious questions like cheating on a dying wife (or charges of raping a political supporter, as in the Juanita Broaddrick charges). Reporters laughed and joked about Craig and Foley. They're not laughing when the shoe is on the foot of their favorites.
There is a double standard all right, and it's Graham's. In portraying Edwards and Craig as equivalent scandals, we have rumors that everyone involved is denying vs. an actual guilty plea in court to an actual criminal charge.
Elsewhere at NewsBusters, Dave Pierre howled that "the Los Angeles Times has banned its bloggers from writing about the reported affair between Sen. John Edwards and a blonde named Rielle Hunter. And P.J. Gladnick is concerned that Wikipedia refuses "to allow their John Edwards entry to be updated with mention of the alleged scandal which was reported in the National Enquirer with many of the details confirmed by Fox News." In fact, Fox News confirmed nothing beyond one person making the affair allegations was a hotel guard -- not the purported affair itself.
So far the only cracks in the MSM wall of silence on this matter have come only in the form of opinion columns. However, it will be increasingly difficult in the days to come for the MSM to refrain from reporting on this. Unlike the days before the Web, such a story cannot remain permanently on ice. There are just too many sources already covering it and for the MSM to refrain from reporting on this scandal just makes them look even more foolish than they already are.
Never mind, of course, that there's no actual verification that any of this actually took place.
Meanwhile, over at Newsmax -- with its own history of double standards regarding tabloid-sourced material -- James Hirsen goes into concern-troll mode:
This is a man who ran as a serious candidate for leader of the free world and whose wife is bravely battling cancer. Still, the mainstream media for the most part have remained mum.
[...]
Is this the two Americas Edwards was talking about — one whose residents recklessly play around but don’t get busted, another whose residents get pummeled in the media for the same activities but whose reputations are left at death’s door?
Again, there's no actual evidence that Edwards did what he's accused of doing. Hirsen is the one who wants to make sure Edwards' reputation is "left at death’s door."
This is the same Newsmax, by the way, that used to claim that the Enquirer was targeting Republicans because the head of an investment group that owns the tabloid was once an official in the Clinton administration.
It's the same old double standard -- the ConWeb is disturbed by tabloid sleaze only when it's about Republicans.
A surprising poll released Monday confirms Sen. Barack Obama's worst nightmare: he actually lost ground to Sen. John McCain after a global trip meant to buck up his sagging credentials in foreign and military policy.
The USA Today/Gallup poll has McCain leading Obama by four points, 49 percent to Obama's 45 percent, among likely voters.
But the article makes no mention of another Gallup poll that Newsmax was complaining about just the day before -- a tracking poll showing Obama with a 9-point lead and a trend line of increasing support during Obama's foreign trip.
The article also baselessly claims regarding Obama's "callous" canceled visit to wounded soldiers in Germany: "When the Pentagon informed Obama's campaign that the hospital would be closed to the press and campaign staff -- only the senator and his official staff would be allowed in -- Obama decided to cancel the event." In fact, there is no evidence that Obama ever planned to bring the press with him on the visit or that he canceled the visit because he couldn't.
CNS Ignores Group's Political Agenda Topic: CNSNews.com
A July 28 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr reported on a demand from a group called In God We Trust that Barack Obama "condemn the message on a billboard in Denver, the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention," that reads "Imagine No Religion" -- even though, as Starr goes on to write, "the billboard will only stand through July and will not be present during the time of the Democratic convention." Starr describes In God We Trust only as "a national political inter-faith advocacy group" and "a non-profit organization."
But Starr does not note the conservative political agenda of the group's leader, Council Nedd II. Nedd is a member of the National Center for Public Policy Research's black-conservative group Project 21, chaired by none other than liberal-basher and big-word user Mychal Massie. In God We Trust also has a political agenda, targeting "left-wing God-hating atheists" who are purportedly "imposing their radical agenda on America."
CNS has had a pretty good record of late in identifying the the political affiliations of the groups it covers. Why not for In God We Trust, especially when it's doing a clearly political thing in demanding an apology from a politician for something he didn't do?
WND Bothered More By Fictional Christian Terrorist Than Real One Topic: WorldNetDaily
A July 28 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling offers up the best possible free publicity an unknown band could ask for -- denouncing one of its songs:
A punk band has released a music video featuring a "Christian" teenage suicide bomber and criticizing believers and homeschoolers for imposing their values on the nation.
Kill the Hippies, a rock group from Kent, Ohio, made a video called "Teenage Suicide Bomber" that features a mentally disturbed teenager who straps a bomb to his chest and slaughters children on a public school bus, dancers in a nightclub and a crowd of abortion protesters – all in the name of Christianity.
WND asked lead vocalist Matt Trahan why the band decided to portray the suicide bomber as a Christian.
"The reason I used Christians, really, is because everyone around me that I know pretty much comes from a Christian background," he said. "When I look at Muslims, I see pretty much a minority in this country, and I don't really like picking on the little guy."
Trahan said the video is a satire about people who want the U.S. to be a theocracy.
Schilling notes that "While Trahan said the film is a parody, he insisted there is some truth to the idea that Christians can be terrorists," but she makes no mention of just how true that became two days ago, when Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in a Unitarian church in Ohio, killing two.
WND's article on the shooting spins Adkisson as someone who "apparently resented Christianity, disliked the Bible and even got angry over the fact a neighbor's daughter graduated from a Bible college." It's not until the 16th and final paragraph that WND alludes to Adkisson's main motive: that he had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement."
In fact, Adkisson's hatred of liberals goes much deeper than WND bothers to report:
An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire at a Unitarian church, killing two people, left behind a note suggesting that he targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal policies, including its acceptance of gays, authorities said Monday.
A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson's small SUV indicated he intentionally targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because, the police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" and was upset with "liberals in general as well as gays."
[...]
Adkisson "stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of the major media outlets," Investigator Steve Still wrote.
Sounds a bit like the kind of person who reads WND, no?
Indeed, WND has endeavored to portray Unitarians negatively over the years:
A July 26 article attacked an upcoming appearance by both Barack Obama and John McCain at the megachurch operated by frequent WND target Rick Warren as being "co-sponsored by a left-leaning group led by a Unitarian-Universalist minister who once headed her denomination's homosexual advocacy office."
A July 21 column by Michael Ackley highlights an article describing Berkeley, California, as a place "where residents might head for a screening of a film on urban organic farming in Cuba at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation."
A May 6 column by John Lofton bashing the idea of a "Pluralism Sunday" cited the example of "Epiphany Community Unitarian Universalist Church of Fenton, Mich., has invited a Zen Buddhist 'with a Christian background' to be the preacher that day."
An October 2007 article cited Unitarians among the "Religious Left" who were planning a day of fasting to call for an end to the war in Iraq, along "with the support of an organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas terror case and another lobbying for multiple sexual partners."
A July 2007 article decried a flyer promoting a "Pagan Christmas ritual" at "a Unitarian Universalist congregation that also teaches 'Exploring Islam,' 'Women Weaving Wisdom,' 'Discovering the Healing Power of Dreams' and other religious subjects" that was being distributed at a school -- allowed, ironically, because the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel sued over a vacation Bible school flyer that was not distributed.
Noting that Rep. Pete Stark is ""a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being," Joseph Farah accused him in a March 2007 column of having "perverted beliefs."
A November 2006 article noted that a woman "shared Unitarian Universalist church theologies with" a "Democrat community leader" who pleaded"guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six."
A January 2005 article quoted a message purportedly sent by an "enemy" of anti-gay activist (and WND fave) Michael Marcavage: "As a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a Unitarian-Universalist, I am committed to your suffering the maximum penalty the law will give you. And I will take particular delight knowing your families and loved ones will suffer, too."
One has to wonder if such negative spin on beliefs with which it disagrees (they're not fond of Catholics either, by the way) has an influence on people like Adkisson, especially when a steady diet of intolerance spews forth from websites like WND. We don't know if Adkisson read WND, but his actions would seem to be the logical extention of WND's ultra-orthodox reconstructionist Christianity.
Yet WND is trying to hide this -- while getting all worked up over an obscure punk band singing about the same subject.
UPDATE: The Knoxville News-Sentinel notes that inside Adkisson's house, "officers found 'Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder' [sic] by radio talk show host Michael Savage, 'Let Freedom Ring' by talk show host Sean Hannity, and 'The O'Reilly Factor,' by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly." Savage, of course, is a longtime WND fave, having published two of his books and hosting Savage's website.
MRC Silent on Study Documenting Negative Obama Media Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
A study on media bias issued by the Center for Media and Public Affairs should be a big deal for the Media Research Center. After all, as we've noted, the CMPA is a conservative-leaning group whose work is the foundation of the MRC. It touts a book by CMPA founder Robert Lichter, "The Media Elite" -- which "demonstrated that journalists and broadcasters hold liberal positions on a wide range of social and political issues" -- at the top of one "Bias Basics" page. But a new CMPA study has drawn nothing but crickets so from from the MRC.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, the new CMPA study found that evening news shows on ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign:
During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.
Why has the MRC been so quiet about this? Because it can't spin those results away since the CMPA is a trusted source to it. And also because it contradicts the MRC's cherished claim that, in the words of MRC chief Brent Bozell, the "liberal media" are "neck-deep in the tank for Sen. Obama."
Indeed, even after the Times published its story on July 27, posters at the MRC's NewsBusters blog are still clinging to the old meme in July 28 posts:
Mark Finkelstein asserted that there is "plenty of MSM sycophancy for Barack Obama."
Jeff Poor bashed NBC's Brian Williams for suggesting there wasn't "a pro-Obama bias in the media" despite "allegations of just the opposite."
Seton Motley asserted that the media was serving up "wall-to-wall slavish and adoring reporting" on Obama.
Lyndsi Thomas cited the alleged existence of "'Obamania' present within the mainstream media," "the glowing media treatment of Obama" and "their gushing ways to help their candidate of choice."
None made mention of the CMPA study that makes their views inoperative. After all, overwhelimingly negative coverage isn't exactly "gushing."
Will the MRC acknowledge the existence of the study? Ore are they feverishly devising an explanation to downplay its results? Then again, the MRC's own analyticalskills leave something to be desired.
UPDATE: A July 29 MRC "Worst of the Week" item complained that the network evening newscasts gave Obama's foreign trip "more than ten times the coverage" than to McCain's foreign trip in March. Again, no mention of the CMPA study.
Where Are They Now? Topic: Free Congress Foundation
Back in 2005, we detailed how conservatives who complained there wasn't enough obstruction of President Clinton's judicial nominees were quick to complain about obstruction of President Bush's nominees. One of those critics was John Nowacki, former head of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Law and Democracy, who left in late 2003 to take a position as senior counsel in the Justice Department's public affairs office.
Turns out he's been quite busy over there. The Chicago Tribune reported in May 2007 that Nowacki was helping to "shape the department's widely criticized response" to the controversial firings of several federal prosecutors for what appeared to be partisan reasons, adding "Nowacki worked closely with [former DOJ official Monica] Goodling to track the progress of congressional investigations and helped fashion testimony by top Justice Department officials, according to records released in the inquiry. That testimony is under review by departmental watchdogs trying to determine if Justice Department authorities intentionally misled Congress."
Now, a new inspector general's report asserting that Goodling "routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors" offers a role for Nowacki as well. From the Washington Post:
Investigators cited discrepancies in information provided by Goodling, Sampson and former press aide John Nowacki, who, like Goodling, received his law degree from Regent University, founded by television evangelist Pat Robertson. But they stopped short of concluding that the conduct rose to the level of a criminal violation.
An earlier version of the Post story noted that Nowacki was "on assignment in Iraq." What the heck is Nowacki doing in Iraq, and who is he "on assignment" for?
Farah's Disingenuous New Book Topic: WorldNetDaily
So WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has a new book coming out, "None of the Above," which a July 27 WND article hyperbolically describes as "is the first book of its kind in modern U.S. history – calling for Americans to send a message to the Democratic and Republican parties that they will not vote for candidates who do not honor and uphold the principles of the Constitution." The article adds: "Farah devotes chapters to explaining why both Barack Obama and John McCain are unqualified for the office and will each lead the country in the wrong direction – further from the uniquely American concepts of self-government, personal responsibility, national sovereignty and individual rights."
But as we've documented, the message that Farah's own website is sending is not "none of the above" but, rather, "vote for McCain." WND's news coverage is relentlessly anti-Obama -- to the point of telling outright lies about him -- while refusing to hold McCain to any meaningful scrutiny. WND has also offered only scant coverage of the type of third parties, even the ones with views that Farah presumably supports. Further, WND managing editor David Kupelian declared earlier this month that "John McCain really needs to be elected president in November."
Until WND offers genuine criticism of all candidates, not just the non-conservative ones, Farah's book must be considered as nothing but a disingenuous stunt.
