New Article: The Palin Brigade
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb had a mission: Make Sarah Palin look good despite the facts, and impugn the motives of her critics. Mission accomplished. Read more >>

WND Making Excuses for Palin
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Further conflicting with Joseph Farah's "none of the above" credo, WorldNetDaily is endeavoring to explain away various scandals surrounding Sarah Palin.

A Sept. 16 article by Chelsea Schilling suggested that Palin -- who "has a pro-life voting record and has not indicated support for the morning-after pill" -- was correct to make rape victims pay for police evidence-collection kits because they include "emergency contraception." Schilling then repeats a claim by Feminists for Life, of which Palin is a member, that emergency contraception medications Preven and Plan B "actually act as an abortifacient in many cases by preventing the implantation of an already-fertilized human embryo."

In fact, according to Amanda Marcotte at RH Reality Check, emergency contraception "works the same way as the birth control pill by suppressing ovulation" and, thus, is not an abortifacient since a fertilized egg is not involved.

Another Sept. 16 article by Bob Unruh uncritically repeated claims by the conservative Liberty Legal Institute -- which Unruh describes only as a "Texas law firm" -- that an Alaska investigation into Palin's firing of Alaska public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, allegedly for not firing a state trooper involved in a contentious divorce with Palin's sister, has "lost the appearance of impartiality required under the Alaska Constitution."

Unruh wrote that Palin "has said Monegan declined to cooperate with her budgetary plan for the state and was insubordinate," but didn't note that this is, as TPM Muckraker details, "the third substantive explanation given by Palin for that departure. And, to one degree or another, all those explanations contradict each other." Unruh also writes that "She has said Monegan himself has confirmed that she never asked him to fire the trooper," but not that, according to the Anchorage Daily News, an audio recording shows an aide to Palin "pressuring the Public Safety Department to fire a state trooper embroiled in a custody battle with her sister."

Unruh also plays the idiot messenger here, never bothering to explain why a "Texas law firm" that claims a mission to "protect religious freedoms and First Amendment rights for individuals, groups and churches" would get involved in a state-level dispute in Alaska that does not involve religious freedom. Nor does Unruh ask who is funding the legal work of the Liberty Legal Institute in this case. But incomplete, one-sided reporting is how Unruh rolls.

MRC Misstated Gore Then, Defends McCain Now
Topic: Media Research Center

A Sept. 17 NewsBusters post by Jeff Poor complained that an NBC report noting McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin's claim that the BlackBerry was "the miracle that John McCain helped create" didn't also "explore McCain's work on the Commerce committee and any influence he may have had over technological innovations."

By contrast, the MRC quickly distorted Al Gore's 1999 claim that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" as a congressman into the false assertion that Gore said he "invented the Internet" (as it did in a June 1999 CyberAlert) while ignoring "any influence he may have had over technological innovations." The MRC did its best to perpetuate the falsehood:

• A February 2000 "Media Reality Check" by Tim Graham complained that Tom Brokaw "did not report Gore's claim to have invented the Internet." Why would he? That's not what he said.
• An April 2000 "MagazineWatch" by Paul Smith stated: "If Gergen seriously believes people will miss Clinton’s science speeches, he must also believe that Al Gore did invent the Internet."
• Brent Bozell asserted in a June 2000 column: "Gore portrays himself as the technical genius who invented the Internet."

And Bozell tried to change the subject in an October 2000 column complaining about anyone who tried to correct the record:

He didn't really say he "invented the Internet," they complain, he "took the initiative in creating it." The real point here isn't the complete lack of distinction between "inventing" and "creating" the Internet. It's that Gore said this on March 9, 1999, to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, and Blitzer didn't even blink. He didn't follow up. His eyebrows didn't even move. He just asked another question. The statement went completely unreported on television for ten days. 

A June 2000 CyberAlert referenced "Gore's Internet invention claim."

The MRC clearly wants to keep Holtz-Eakins' claim from turning into a "McCain invented the BlackBerry" meme. Too bad it couldn't be bothered to hold themselves to a similiar standard of accuracy in discussing Gore's claim.

Palin-Philia Watch
Topic: Newsmax

The nomination of Sarah Palin is now the Hungarian Revolution and Six-Day War of American Christians. A mother who chooses not to abort a child with Down's Syndrome. An unashamed believer in God who un-apologetically participates in the all-day-singing-and-dinner-on-the-ground style of country-and-peasant Christianity. This is primordially thrilling to millions of Christians who had grown accustomed to derision and humiliating exile to the back of the American cultural and political bus with no relief, no allies and no redemption this side of heaven.

Make no mistake. The very nomination of Sarah Palin is the revolver in the hand of the [Warsaw] Ghetto Jew and the Molotov cocktail in the hand of the Hungarian Freedom Fighter. If I, as a Jew, am enjoying this dramatic payback, what must the Christians be feeling?

-- Barry Farber, Sept. 16 Newsmax column

NewsBusters: Vulcan Hand Sign = Support for Gay Marriage
Topic: NewsBusters

A Sept. 16 NewsBusters post by Kyle Drennan is headlined, "CBS's Rodriguez Shows Support for Gay Marriage." And how exactly did CBS "Early Show" co-host Maggie Rodriguez perform such a sinister act? Drennen explains:

On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez interviewed ‘Star Trek’ actor George Takei and his partner Brad Altman about their wedding following California legalizing gay marriage and asked: "George, how was the wedding? Was it everything you dreamed of?" At the end of the segment, Takei declared: "And may sweet equality live long and prosper," making the Star Trek Vulcan hand sign. Rodriguez showed her solidarity, making the hand sign back and replying: "Let me do it. Same to you." [boldface in original]

No, Rodriguez could not possibly have been a fangirl who couldn't pass up the opportunity to do the Vulcan hand sign with a real, live "Star Trek" actor. Drennen wants you to believe that endorsement of gay marriage was the only possible interpretation.

Newsmax Overly Defends McCain on Computer Use
Topic: Newsmax

A Sept. 16 Newsmax article by Tim Collie claims that "A campaign ad mocking Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s computer literacy is backfiring on Democratic rival Barack Obama in some very painful ways," going on to assert: "While McCain himself has often joked about his ignorance of email and phone texting, the Vietnam veteran rarely goes into the reason: his hands and fingers were shattered by wartime torture, making it painful to keyboard for any length of time."

In fact, McCain has repeatedly professed his computer illiteracy and has apparently never cited his war injuries in doing so. Further, it responded to Obama's ad not by citing war wounds but by asserting that "John McCain travels with a laptop." Indeed, there are assistive devices out there -- i.e., voice activation -- that allow one to communicate with a computer without a keyboard.

CNS Misleads About Obama's Position on Abortion Law
Topic: CNSNews.com

A Sept. 16 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas incompletely details Barack Obama's position against an Illinois law "protecting babies who survived abortions."

After noting that Obama had said he opposed the Illinois law because it did not match a federal law on the subject, Lucas noted that "The 2003 version of the state proposal mirrored the federal law in that it had specific language stating that nothing in that law should be construed to undermine the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision."

But as Media Matters noted, a state law containing the same language as the federal law would not have offered the same protection because, as Planned Parenthood has pointed out, there are no federal laws regarding abortion but there are state laws, and a state law that declared it was not "undermining" Roe v. Wade would also need to state it was also not undermining state abortion regulations as well.

Lucas also failed to note Obama's other defense for not supporting a "born alive" law -- that it was unnecessary because the behavior it banned was already illegal.

Irvine Likes Racist Waffles
Topic: Accuracy in Media

A Sept. 15 Accuracy in Media blog post by Don Irvine endorses "Obama Waffles," recently busted at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit for using racial stereotypes to depict Barack Obama.

"The FRC should lighten up and quit bowing to the politically correct mainstream media," Irvine wrote. "If this was so offensive to them then why did they let them vemd [sic] in the first place?" Irvine then adds a link to the Obama Waffles website so readers can "support these entrepreneurs."

Newsmax Columnist Hurls False Obama Claims
Topic: Newsmax

A Sept. 16 Newsmax column by James Humes -- "a former presidential speechwriter" who is now "Schuck Fellow and Visiting Historian at the University of Colorado/Colorado Springs" -- wrote of "Barack Hussein Obama, who was schooled in Kenya home of his Islam-raised father, who had four wives."

In fact, Obama did not visit Kenya until he was 26 years old, in 1988.

Humes also falsely claims that "the jailed racketeer Tony Rezko gave [Obama] a sweetheart deal on buying his house." In fact, the sellers of the house Obama have said they did not cut their asking price because Rezko bought the adjacent lot.

We've previously noted Humes' factually challenged writing. And this guy professes to be a historian?

WND, Newsmax Embrace Claim By Documented Liar
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Sept. 15 WorldNetDaily article and a Sept. 16 Newsmax article by Phil Brennan repeated a claim --  made in a New York Post column by Amir Taheri -- that Barack Obama purportedly "has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence." (Brennan also spells Taheri's name wrong.) But neither WND nor Brennan noted Taheri's history of dubious claims.

As we've detailed, Taheri claimed in May 2006 that the Iranian parliament passed a law "that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims." After that quickly made its way around the right-wing Internet, the story was just as quickly debunked, and the paper where Taheri published the claim, Canada's National Post, issued a retraction. WND had noted the spuriousness of Taheri's claim at the time, and Newsmax noted its retraction -- which makes it strange that they would so unquestioningly embrace Taheri's new claim.

TPM Muckraker also notes a review of 1989 book by Taheri pointing out that it "repeatedly refers us to books where the information cited does not exist," and is "capable of generalizations of breathtaking sweep and inaccuracy."

WND followed up with a Sept. 16 article claiming that the Obama campaign's "angry denial" of Taheri's report "essentially confirmed the story." Well, no.

The Obama campaign said that "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi Parliament," and "has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades." Taheri, if you'll recall, specifically accused the Obama campaign of negotiating in private with Iraqi leaders, which -- despite what WND wants you to think -- isn't "confirmed" by the Obama statement.

WND again failed to report Taheri's dubious history, or that the Obama campaign also stated that Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement with a separate Status of Forces agreement.

UPDATE: FrontPageMag reprints Taheri's original piece. There's no mention anywhere else at FrontPageMag of Taheri's fact-challenged record.

UPDATE 2: A Sept. 16 NewsBusters post by John Stephenson also repeats Taheri's claim without noting Taheri's fact-challenged record. NewsBusters, if you'll recall, was among the biggest promoters of Taheri's 2006 claim while burying its retraction in an update to the post five days later.

Kincaid Thinks Corsi Has Noble Motives for Bashing Obama
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Cliff Kincaid declared of Obama attack book author Jerome Corsi in a Sept. 15 Accuracy in Media "AIM Report": "Corsi has written a book on Obama for the obvious reason that there is little evidence that the major media are interested in uncovering or publicizing the hidden facts about him."

Funny -- we thought Corsi wrote his book for the obvious reasons that he hates Obama and wanted to make some coin off said hate.

Newsmax False Headline Watch
Topic: Newsmax
The headline for a Sept. 15 Newsmax article on an ad featuring criticism of John McCain by a fellow prisoner of war falsely states that the organization that put out the ad is an "Obama group." In fact, the article itself doesn't make that claim; it accurately states that "produced by Brave New PAC, a liberal political action committee affiliated with Brave New Films."

Aaron Klein Even-More-Desperate Obama Smear Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Sept. 15 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein portrays a claim that in 2000, "Barack Obama cited a job at an organization founded by former Weathermen radical Bill Ayers as evidence of his qualification for public office" as something that "contrasts sharply with multiple interviews as a presidential candidate in which he has sought to downplay his relationship with Ayers."

Completely lacking is any evidence that Obama done anything wrong through his relationship with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or even that the CAC itself has done anything wrong. Indeed, as we've noted, those CAC papers right-wingers have made a big deal out of after official expressed an initial reluctance to release have uncovered nothing untoward, let alone illegal.

So instead, Klein concocts a conspiracy: Because Obama served a chairman of a group Ayers co-founded, the two have a "relationship."

Klein flogs this dead guilt-by-association horse a bit further by claiming that "While chairing the CAC, Obama approved grants to some controversial figures, including a group founded by Ayers and led by former communist leader Mike Klonsky, WND exposed yesterday." But again, Klein offers no evidence that Klonsky did anything untoward with those grants or even anything other than what the grant was for.

Klein appears to assume that people who once proclaimed to be communists should not be allowed to handle money. How utterly desperate of him is that?

Newsmax: Telling Truth About Palin = 'Attacks'
Topic: Newsmax

A Sept. 15 Newsmax article by Jim Meyers portrayed anyone who told the truth about Sarah Palin or pointed out her thin records as "gang[ing] up" on her and "unleash[ing] new attacks."

Meyers began by offering up a baseless correlation-equals-causation fallacy: "With the Republican ticket gaining in the polls, guests on the Sunday TV talk shows unleashed new attacks on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, challenging her qualifications for office and her stand on earmarks." Meyers, of course, has no evidence that the Sunday shows criticized Palin because she was doing well in polls, nor do we recall anyone at Newsmax admitting that their criticism of Obama was based on Obama was "gaining in the polls."

Meyers also fails to acknowledge any of the criticism of Palin he quotes in his article -- such as that Palin "has taken more in federal earmarks per person than any governor in the history of the planet" and that "There are serious questions about the stand that Palin has taken on the 'Bridge to Nowhere,' which she’s always supported" -- as being factual, instead dismissing it as coming from "Obama surrogate[s]."

Joseph Farah vs. WorldNetDaily, Continued
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Sept. 14 WorldNetDaily article makes a big deal out of how the photographer of John McCain for a cover of The Atlantic "took the opportunity to purposefully make McCain look bad, including snapping a shot in which the candidate looms like a horror-movie monster."

Why should WND care if McCain looks bad in a photo? After all, its founder, editor and CEO, Joseph Farah, doesn't want McCain to win -- indeed, in his Sept. 15 column, he repeats his claim that McCain "will be a disaster for this country" and that "Most of those who vote for McCain this year will live to regret it."

Oh yeah, we forgot -- Farah's "none of the above" campaign is just meaningless window-dressing, Farah himself is irrelevant to the actual workings of news operations, and WND really does want McCain to win.