Brent Bozell's Favorite Domestic Terrorist Topic: Media Research Center
An Oct. 12 NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer asserts that a Chicago Tribune article "demonstrates that for all these years a large plurality, if not a majority, of Democrats who hold the levers of power ... really haven't had a problem welcoming [William] Ayers, [Bernardine] Dohrn, and their unrepentant views of their violent pasts."
What Blumer doesn't mention: His NewsBusters publisher has no problem welcoming its own unrepentant terrorist and convicted felon into the mainstream.
G. Gordon Liddy was a featured "accepter" at the Media Research Center's 2008 Gala. As we've detailed, Liddy is the unrepentant Watergate felon who plotted to kill numerous people and plotted to bomb a liberal-leaning think tank. Liddy appeared in 2007 as well, in which he "accepted" an award for Katie Couric. An April 2005 CyberAlert reprinted a Washington Times article noting that Liddy was among the guests that "roared at the assembled clips and commentary" during the 2005 awards gala.
Liddy also served as a judge for the MRC's year-end Notable Quotables awards in 1992, 1995 and 1997.
The MRC further sought to whitewash Liddy's 1994 statement on his radio show that "if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests" by insisting in a November 1995 MediaWatch that "Liddy meant shooting in self-defense."
The MRC and its writers and bloggers might want to keep their employer's unwavering, uncritical support of Liddy in mind the next time they want to distort Obama's relationship with Ayers.
WND Peddles Yet Another Obama Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's reporting and commentary on the Obama campaign is already littered with lies, so it's no surprise that WND would be peddling yet another one.
An Oct. 10 WND article by Drew Zahn uncritically accepts the premise of the creator of an anti-Obama ad that Obama was "mocking the Bible" during a 2006 speech. Zahn makes no effort to explain the full context of Obama's statements, and he selectively quotes from the Obama campaign's criticism of the ad to avoid mentioning damning its creator.
While Zahn quotes from Obama's speech to offer the "immediate context" of his words, he fails to quote from the Obama's campaign's statement that the speech "actually celebrates the role of people of faith in public life and offers nuanced thoughts on the intersection of religion and politics." Zahn does quote the Obama statement that "The video takes 5 sentences out of a 4,500-word speech Barack gave in 2006 completely out of context to stoke division and hatred," but he refuses to admit that that's exactly what the ad does.
Zahn curiously doesn't quote from the ad itself, which falsely claimed that Obama "mocked and ridiculed the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, even laughing at the Sermon on the Mount, taking those passages painfully out of context." Of course, taking Obama painfully out of context is exactly what thet ad's creator does in his attack.
Instead, Zahn focuses on the Obama campaign's criticism of the creator, Stepehn Marks of some 527 group called "pH For America," with Zahn paraphrasing the campaign's claim as being that Marks is "trying to scam Christians out of their money by promising to air a spot that will never be broadcast." In response, Zahn writes: "WND has confirmed, however, that – true to his word – the ad's creator purchased air time for the commercial on television stations in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Sources at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and a cable company servicing Erie told WND that the ad had been aired on several occasions."
But Zahn fails to mention that the Obama campaign noted in its statement that the ad did actually air: "At the beginning of October, the scammer behind this deceptive home video announced that he finally got his 'ad' on TV — but it turns out it only aired one time, at 2:00 a.m., on a single station in Pittsburgh."
Zahn further fails to mention that Obama's campaign pointed out that Marks' ads are "missing the required legal disclaimer at the end saying who funded them." Remember, WND made a massive deal earlier this year accusing the Obama campaign of running an "illegal lottery" because a promotion in which donors were eligible to win a trip to the Democratic National Convention initially mistakenly lacked the required mechanism to allow non-donors to enter.
Sadly, it's not surprising that WND continues to lie about Obama. It is surprising that they would do it so transparently that its jeopardizes what little credibility it has.
NewsBusters Peddles Dubious Claims on Obama, Odinga Topic: NewsBusters
An Oct. 12 NewsBusters post by Kerry Picket promotes allegations about Barack Obama "connection and support" for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Her sources? A couple less-than-reliable folks: Mark Hyman and Jerome Corsi.
Hyman is the former (or perhaps current -- we're not really sure) right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting commentator with a long history of false and misleading claims. The Washington Times commentary by Hyman to which Picket links cites no sources for his claims about Obama and Odinga, so they can be presumed to be as dubious as his commentaries.
Picket links to Corsi's WorldNetDaily assertion that Obama backed "ruthless foreign thug" Odinga, citing emails he obtained during his misadventure as evidence. Picket fails to note that those emails appear to have been forged.
Picket also links to a "popular internet video" on Obama and Odinga, but no source is listed in it, and it was apparently posted to Eyeblast, the MRC's video website, by Picket herself. (Picket is an an associate producer at Eyeblast.)
Picket concludes by claiming, "Many questions still remain unanswered. By omission, the mainstream media is delinquent with the scant coverage of this story, and it may already be dangerously too late." Too late for what? Smearing Obama with bogus claims? Picket might want to check the veracity of her sources before making such wild assertions.
Unruh Still Spreading Anti-Gay Lies Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previously documented WorldNetDaily's lies in promoting David Parker's anti-gay agenda. WND's Bob Unruh keeps it up in an Oct. 9 article.
Unruh falsely claims that a school in Massachusetts is providing "mandatory ... instruction for children as young as kindergarten in how to be homosexual," adding that the school is "teaching homosexuality to young children."
That is a lie, as evidenced by Unruh providing no evidence to back up his claims. In fact, as we've noted, the dispute between Parker and his school district began when his then-5-year-old child was given a book called "Who's in a Family?" that depicted different types of families, including a couple with gays in them.
As per usual, Unruh quotes only Parker and the anti-gay group that supports him regarding the court ruling that the story is ostensibly about, makes no apparent effort to fact-check Parker's anti-gay assertions, and makes no effort whatsoever to report the reaction of supporters of the ruling, as a real journalist would.
But Unruh isn't a real journalist, though he once was. He's a polemicist merely putting lies in a journalistic form -- which means he fits in quite well at WorldNetDaily.
MRC "Reality Check" Lacks Reality on Obama, Abortion Topic: Media Research Center
An Oct. 9 MRC "Media Reality Check" by Rich Noyes and Matthew Balan, in claiming that "the big broadcast networks" have failed to sufficiently report on Barack Obama's "pro-abortion stance," misrepresents Obama's views on abortion by repeating discredited right-wing claims.
The article repeats claims by anti-Obama activist Jill Stanek, "who described how a baby who survived an 'induced labor abortion' was abandoned by the hospital staff." But Noyes and Balan fail to mention that, as we've pointed out, Stanek's claims were never substantiated.
Noyes and Balan also assert that "Obama’s most extreme pro-abortion move came in Illinois, when he voted against a bill to protect babies born alive following unsuccessful abortions, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act." But they fail to note that Obama has claimed that the bill wouldn't have forbidden anything that wasn't already illegal.
They also claim that a CNN fact check on Obama's opposition over a proposed Illinois "born alive" bill failed to admit that Obama "unfairly attacked his critics as liars" by claiming that the bill originally failed to include to include "neutrality clause" protecting the status quo on abortion as a similar federal bill did because a clause identical to the federal clause was added to the bill. They fail to mention that, as we've noted, a state law containing the same language as the federal law would not have offered the same protection because no federal laws regarding abortion, which is regulated at the state level.
It was not until 2005, after Obama left the state legislature, that a "born alive" law passed in Illinois that specifically stated that it would not affect "existing federal or state law regarding abortion," a clause missing from earlier versions of the bill.
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Part 2 Topic: Newsmax
By the early 1930s, Germany was in the grip of an economic meltdown. Its loss in World War I, followed by the Draconian conditions imposed by the victorious United States, Britain, and France in the Treaty of Versailles, had left the nation humiliated and in poverty, with a runaway inflation destroying their economy and the lives of the German people. The Treaty of Versailles required ruinous reparation payments to the allies.
The global depression that came in the wake of the U.S. stock market crash in 1929, made matters even worse in Germany, causing banks to fail, factories to close, and unemployment to skyrocket. Like the American people, they looked for a savior.
They found him in Adolf Hitler; another spell-binding orator who pledged to bring about change in the way the nation was governed and the economy managed.
[...]
Like the German people of 1932, many Americans seem to be willing to put our future in the hands of a messianic leader with abundant oratorical gifts, a questionable and largely unknown past and a unshakable conviction born of a socialistic background that America can spend its way out of a debacle initially caused by trying to spend our way into prosperity.
WND Columnist Repeats Bogus Matthew Shepard Revisionism Topic: WorldNetDaily
In an Oct. 11 WorldNetDaily column marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, John Aman, "a writer for Coral Ridge Ministries and author of the book, 'Ten Truths About Hate Crimes Laws,'" repeats revisionist claims about Shepard's death to argue against hate-crimes laws:
There is just one problem with this story. According to the evidence, it is not true. Money for drugs, not "homophobia," was the motive for Matthew Shepard's murder, as revealed by a 2004 ABC News "20/20" report. Aaron McKinney, sentenced in 1999 to two life sentences for Matthew Shepard's murder, was on a sleepless week-long methamphetamine binge and in search of money for more drugs when he and his accomplice, Russell Henderson, met Shepard at a bar.
Earlier that evening, McKinney said, he had tried and failed to take $10,000 from a drug dealer. He saw in Shepard, a well-dressed but slight young man, an easy robbery victim and readily obliged when Shepard asked for a lift home because he was too drunk. All three were in the front seat of McKinney's truck, with Henderson driving, when Shepard grabbed McKinney's leg. McKinney reacted by hitting Shepard with his gun butt, as he told ABC, "I was getting ready to pull it on him anyway."
McKinney's attorney offered a "gay panic" defense at trial, suggesting that the murderer turned violent when Shepard made a homosexual pass at him. McKinney, who will never be eligible for parole, now says that was not the case. "No, I did not," he replied when asked if he attacked Shepard because he was homosexual. "I would say it wasn't a hate crime," he told ABC. "All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."
Henderson also denied the hate-crime charge. "It's not because me and Aaron had anything against gays or anything like that," he said.
As we pointed out back in 2004, when right-wingers begain taking refuge in McKinney's and Henderson's claims on ABC, McKinney and Henderson have a long record of lying, so it's rather impossible to believe anything they have to say now, especially given that the hate-crime aspect was corroborated at their trials.
As a Wyoming police detective who worked on the Shepard case said: "Only three people know what really happened that night. ... One of them is dead and the other two are known liars and convicted felons -- murderers."
Aman has decided to trust liars and killers instead of the record of the case. It's a lot like trusting Ted Bundy as a way to argue against pornography.
The secret to selling bad ideas is to make sure they are the only ones available. This is how totalitarian regimes take power. Whether it was Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany or Vladimir Lenin in Communist Russia, the pattern is largely the same – totalitarian dictators come to power by enshrining themselves as cults of personality and then creating political monopolies through often less than delicate campaigns of indoctrination and censorship – especially censorship enshrouded in the intimidating aura of state power. Ironically, these cloven-tongued leaders often rise to dominance by preaching power to those they will dominate, provision to those they will impoverish and liberty to those they will force into state labor. Whether they claim to be left or right, revolutionary or reactionary, communist or fascist, the result is always the same – tyranny.
The great discomfort for many Americans as they watch the current presidential contest is that the scent of such totalitarianism hangs heavy in the air; the pattern so familiar in European dictatorships seems eerily present in Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Farah Misleads About Corsi's Kenya Stunt Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah uses his Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily column to misleading Jerome Corsi's little Kenyan adventure. Farah writes: "Corsi made no secret of his mission in Kenya. He announced his intentions upon arriving in the country. He disclosed on his customs forms the purpose of his business trip."
In fact, as WND itself stated before the trip, Corsi "came at the invitation of Christian missionaries" allegedly worried about "the rise of Islam in the African nation." Corsi and Farah have never identified who these "Christian missionaries" are, orhow their anti-Obama stunts -- like presenting Barack Obama's Kenyan half-brother a check for $1,000 -- fit in with the the declared purpose of working with "Christian missionaries."
Farah also whined about the treatment of Corsi in the media:
Try to imagine, for a moment, how different coverage would be if a prominent reporter for the New York Times who was also a best-selling author was abducted at the point of automatic weapons by a foreign government as Corsi was, held without food, stripped of his passport and cell phone and denied the opportunity to make any calls or talk to the press. Do you suppose the Associated Press and other news service accounts would portray the reporter as some kind of reckless political operative?
But Corsi is a political operative. He went to Kenya for the sole purpose of attacking and embarrassing Obama, no matter how specious the "evidence." Curiously, we haven't heard a peep about those "Christian missionaries" Corsi was supposed to be helping.
Remember, Farah was rooting for Muslim riots over a WND-published book that put the prophet Muhammad on the cover, so he's clearly not averse to taking part in publicity stunts.
Will Farah and Corsi ever admit to their readers the full truth about the Kenyan trip? Don't count on it.
Michael Reagan's Favorite Domestic Terrorist Topic: Newsmax
So Michael Reagan has a Newsmax column up attacking Barack Obama for his connections to "unrepentant terrorist bomber Bill Ayers." Reagan might want to justify his own connections to an unrepentant terrorist.
The company that syndicates Reagan's radio show, Radio America, is the same one that syndicates the radio show by G. Gordon Liddy, convicted felon and wannabe (if not actual) murderer who also has ties to John McCain.
Why should we trust Reagan or heed his call to demonize Ayers when Reagan works for a company that supports an unrepentant thug like Liddy?
Huston Repeats False Claim on Illegals, Mortgages Topic: NewsBusters
An Oct. 9 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston touted "a shocking claim made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD says that five million illegal aliens hold illegal mortgages." Huston added: "This story should be in every paper and on every TV news cast. Yet it isn't. I'll leave the guessing as to why with you, gentle reader."
Um, how about the fact that it isn't true?
The Phoenix radio station that originally ran the story later pulled it, as Huston notes. But as the Phoenix Business Journal reports (h/t Media Matters):
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants.
A HUD spokesman said Thursday his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages.
But news reports, including one aired on KFYI-AM 550 in Phoenix, cite HUD as a source for the illegal immigrant mortgage number. The widely read “Drudge Report” posted a link to the KFYI report, but as of Thursday afternoon the link no longer connected to the story.
That radio station has a new article up claiming that its source was not HUD but, rather, "a retired agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
UPDATE: Huston has updated his post with the new article from the radio station, taking refuge in the radio station's claim that it "stands by the essence of their original report" -- even though the source remains anonymous and and no evidence is provided to back up the claim. Would Huston put up with that anonymity and lack of evidence if a liberal was making a claim that conservatives didn't like? We doubt it.
In an Oct. 9 NewsBusters post, Scott Whitlock, headlined "ABC's David Wright Rages at 'Full-bore Attack on Obama's Character,'" asserted that Wright "continued to rail against John McCain's 'full-bore attack on [Senator Barack] Obama's character' during Thursday's "Good Morning America.'"
Well, we watched the clip. We didn't see any raging or any railing -- just Wright pointing out that "in the past couple of days, the Republicans have been laying it on thick. Chumming the waters. And, not surprisingly, ugly reactions are beginning to surface." Whitlock doesn't contradict any of the claims Wright makes, which tells us that the whole point of the post is to equate telling the truth with having a liberal bias.
Corsi's Email Evidence Against Obama Debunked Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh touted "e-mails obtained by WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi during a trip to Kenya" as evidence that Barack Obama "backed" the "ruthless, foreign thug" and Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga. Corsi's key piece of evidence is an email purportedly from Obama to Odinga stating that "I will kindly wish that all our correspondence [be] handled by Mr Mark Lippert. I have already instructed him. This will be for my own security both for now and in future."
Well, not so much. As Politico's Ben Smith points out:
A small glitch: These emails, above, appear not to have been written by a native English speaker, unless "I will kindly wish..." is a phrase I'm just unfamiliar with. They have the unmistakable flavor of solicitations from dying African princes, who need only your bank account details to make you wealthy beyond measure.
At least the Bush National Guard documents were written in the right language.
Also unexplained: why Odinga would be using a Yahoo email account.
An Oct. 9 Newsmax article by Ronald Kessler purports to quote a "former Obama schoolmate" as saying that during high school in Hawaii, Barack Obama " didn’t hang out with a group I thought was the right group to hang out with," adding, "I would say Obama didn’t show great character about choosing who he hung out with. ... I think he behaved well and wasn’t getting into trouble, but he didn’t seem to hang out with the right people.”
Who is this "former schoolmate"? Kessler won't tell us, asserting that the woman "did not want to be quoted by name."
Kessler uses this person's alleged words to launch yet another attack on Obama, giving him an excuse to do his Republican duty and rehash Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan and William Ayers. Kessler concludes: "The fact that he associated with Ayers, remained a member of Wright’s church until this year, and exposed his children to Wright’s hate-America tirades shows the same poor character and lack of judgment Obama admits displaying in high school."
The fact that Kessler so willingly sold himself out to flip-flop from McCain-basher to McCain fluffer, and his willingness to forward anonymous smears, show us all we need to know about Kessler's character and judgment.
Farah, Liddy Channel Andy Martin Topic: WorldNetDaily
From the Oct. 7 edition of G. Gordon Liddy's radio show, which featured WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah taking some time to hang with his favorite domestic terrorist (via Media Matters):
FARAH: I hope to have Mr. Corsi, Dr. Corsi, on a plane to the U.K. before that debate takes place. If that is not the case, I hope we can make enough noise about this to make it an issue tonight.
LIDDY: Yeah. Now, in addition to freeing Dr. Corsi, are you also trying to free Obama's white grandmother?
FARAH: Good point. That's my next mission.
LIDDY: OK, Joseph. God bless you.
The stuff about Obama imprisoning his white grandmother comes straight from a March 2007 column Andy Martin wrote for Newsmax. But since neither Farah nor Liddy care thatmuch about facts, they think that raging anti-Semite Martin is a credible source. Indeed, as we've noted, WND considers Martin so credible that Aaron Klein treated his latest smear of Obama as fact in a Sept. 29 article.
Remember this the next time you're tempted to treat WND as a credible news source.
