More Name-Calling From Ellis Washington Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ellis Washington devotes his Oct. 3 WorldNetdaily column to attacking two "doyens of liberalism," Gore Vidal and Garrison Keillor.
Washington describes Vidal as "a petite Leni Riefenstahl," and makes a big deal out of noting that Vidal's first book, "The City and the Pillar," was "a sexual tome that infuriated mainstream critics in that this was one of the first major American novels to feature conspicuous homosexuality." He goes on to call Keillor "a petite Walter Duranty."
Washington concludes by declaring: "Indeed, Mr. Gore Vidal, Mr. Garrison Keillor and President Barack Obama, your replacements have arrived and they are – God, America's Founding Fathers and We the People."
Shocker: Someone In the ConWeb Finally Denounces Newsmax's Coup-Advocating Column Topic: Horowitz
It took a while, but someone has broken the ConWeb silence on John L. Perry's Newsmax column advocating a military coup against President Obama.
David Forsmark criticizes the column in an oct. 2 NewsReal post, though it was curiously done so as backhanded praise for the hated Keith Olbermann highlighting it (along with Chris Hayes of "the Marxist magazine The Nation"):
In fact, I would argue they gave Newsmax too much credit. There is no statement denouncing the piece to be found on the site, or to be obtained by calling Newsmax’s office– which is the minimum requirement if they are going to maintain that they hold to some kind of journalistic standard. When I asked the person who took my call if they were “just going to take it down and pretend it never happened,” she chuckled and said, “That’s about right.” My emailed request for a response or a statement has been ignored for over a day.
Perry’s initial response was that he was not calling for a coup, just examining a lurking possibility—and the column is couched as reporting—but that’s not a defense. That’s worse. It’s a slander on the only military in the world that has NEVER turned its guns on its own citizenry. It’s a slander generally reserved for liberal novelists and screenwriters and the Seven Days in May scenarios that Olbermann and Hayes indulge in toward the end of this segment.
Forsmark then curiously claims that "Newsmax is also probably single-handedly keeping the 'birther' farce alive, with staff 'reporting' and commentary on the issue, which are sent out to their huge email list." In fact, while Newsmax did go birther in Christopher Ruddy's advocacy of it and publishing the factually challenged rantings of Pam Geller, it pales in comparison to the all-birther-all-the-time rabidness -- and out-and-out lies -- of WorldNetDaily.
Forsmark is correct in noting that Newsmax has refused to acknowledge the controversy over Perry's column on its website, let alone apologize to its readers for posting it.
James Hirsen uses an Oct. 1 Newsmax column to rant against Hollywood types who signed a petition demanding the release of Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a 30-year-old arrest warrant after he fled the country before sentencing on a charge of having sex with a 13-year-old girl:
These people are truly certifiable. They will forgive the likes of Polanski, the rapist, seek clemency for Tookie Williams, the murderer, but will never forgive Elia Kazan, the truth teller.
Of course, as we've detailed, Hirsen has been an apologist for his buddy -- and foundation funder -- Mel Gibson, a relationship Hirsen has not disclosed to his readers. Hirsen has declared Gibson no longer needs to apologize for his drunken anti-Semitic rantings, and he has remained silent on Gibson's extramarital escapades.
Seems to us that Hirsen is a bit on the certifiable side, too.
MRC Promotes False Parallels Between Letterman, O'Reilly Scandals Topic: Media Research Center
An Oct. 2 MRC Culture & Media Institute item (and NewsBusters post) by Colleen Raezler and Carolyn Plocher draws false comparisons between sex scandals involving David Letterman and Bill O'Reilly to complain that "How the networks cover media sex scandals apparently depends on the political views of those involved."
Raezler and Plocher complain that the media "largely portrayed Letterman as a victim" while they "gave the [O'Reilly] scandal nearly the same weight as they did a presidential debate." But they ignore the significant difference between the scandals:
Letterman was indeed the victim of an extortion attempt by someone other than a person with whom he had an affair; O'Reilly was sued by a former staffer, Andrea Mackris, alleging sexual harassment.
Letterman admitted his behavior on national TV; O'Reilly denied it, filed a countersuit against Mackris, then settled out of court, reportedly paying Mackris millions of dollars.
Letterman has not set himself up as a judge of the morals of others; O'Reilly has.
But if Raezler and Plocher admitted these differences, they wouldn't have an article.
Klein Grants Anonymity to Terrorists -- Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein provides anonymity to terrorists once again in an Oct. 2 article quoting "U.S.-trained Palestinian gunmen" as claiming that their training "will likely be utilized in the not too distant future to kill Israelis."
Klein wrote: "The pardoned gunmen agreed to speak on condition their names be withheld and that WND does not print the name of the city in which the meeting took place, citing concerns over their current jobs in the PA's U.S.-backed security forces."
This is not the first time Klein has given anonymity to terrorists; as we noted, a July 2008 article quoted members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who were "speaking to WND on condition of anonymity." A May 2008 article quoted members of Hamas similarly "speaking on condition of anonymity" in the service of Klein's attempts to link Barack Obama to Hamas.
All this anonymity would seem to be in contradiction of WND editor Joseph Farah's assertion that "Aaron Klein doesn't use anonymous sources when he quotes senior terrorist leaders in Gaza and many of the most prominent Islamists in the world. He names names."
Farah Hypocritically Sings Praises of Andy Williams Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previously detailed how WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah bashed "spoiled-brat political activists masquerading as entertainers" and wanted to bring back the blacklist against such celebrities -- but only if they expressed political views to the left of Farah.
Celebrities who agree with Farah, however, get a much different reception from him. Chuck Norris, for example, was given his own column. And Farah spent his Oct. 1 column singing the praises of singer Andy Williams for bashing President Obama.
"It's funny where you have to search for truth these days. Who would have thought we'd hear it from 81-year-old singer Andy Williams, best known for his rendition of 'Moon River'? " Farah wrote, adding that "I agree with Andy Williams that Barack Obama's goal is to see the country fail."
Williams' "truth," of course, is in reality nothing more than one man's opinion. But when others offered an opinion Farah didn't agree with, he wanted to censor them and destroy their careers.
Farah thus joins NewsBusters in the hypocritical stance of "shut up and sing" -- except when they're singing your tune.
In an Oct. 1 Newsmax article purported to detail the "new taxes, fees, and other costs over the next 10 years" President Obama's policies "could" result in, David A. Patten repeats a discredited claim about an energy "tax."
Patten cites a "Treasury Department document obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute following a Freedom of Information Act request reveals that the administration projected revenues of '$100 to $200 billion annually' from auctioning off the right to emit greenhouse gases – the system known as cap and trade" as evidence that "cap and trade as currently proposed would cost consumers $140 billion per year."
In fact, as we pointed out the last time Newsmax cited it, the Treasury document Patten cites -- which Newsmax previously claimed computed to a cost of "$1,761 a year" to "every American household" -- is not applicable to the cap-and-trade bill currently before Congress since it, among other things, didn't figure in methods to reduce the impact of cap-and-trade on consumers. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the current legislation found that that average cost to households in 2020 is $175 per year when various methods of impact mitigation methods are included.
Klein Still Concealing GOP Link to Khalidi Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Sept. 30 WorldNetDaily article complains that "The Los Angeles Times has no plan to ever release a video it stated it obtained of President Obama attending an anti-Israel event in which he delivered a glowing testimonial for Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism."
Klein went on to note that "then-Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain" sought "the release of the video." But Klein failed to note -- as he has frequently failed to do -- that McCain has ties to Khalidi as well.
As we detailed last year, the International Republican Institute -- chaired since the early 1990s by McCain -- gave another group headed by Khalidi, the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, numerous grants, including one for nearly half a million dollars, dwarfing the $75,000 Khalidi's Arab American Action Network received from the Woods Foundation, on whose board Obama sat at the time the grants were granted and through which Klein made his original link of Obama and Khalidi.
Klein largely ignored the McCain-Khalidi link -- then, when he was forced to address it, did his best to minimize the connection.
Has Warner Todd Huston Ever Bothered to Actually Read Perry's Columns? Topic: Newsmax
In a Sept. 30 post at Publius' Forum (copied at TheRealityCheck.org), NewsBusters misleader extrordinare Warner Todd Huston concedes that John L. Perry's Newsmax column advocating a military coup against President Obama "really does not add to the national debate" (yet defends the guy by asserting that it was "all speculation and phrased as a question, not asserted as fact or presented as imminent"). But then he writes:
But there is one tiny, little, bitty fact about this story and its author that every single one of these lefty sites that are railing about this story have left out.
The fact of the matter is that John L. Perry is not a conservative. In fact his bio page says that he's worked for Jimmy Carter, a Democrat governor of Florida and other Democrat Party institutions.
[...]
With all that background as a liberal democrat, Perry does not fit the normal image of a "right wing conservative." Yet not on eof the lefty sites going nuts on this story have mentioned this.Warner curiously fails to mention that all of these "liberal democrat" connections occurred well over 30 years ago.
Further, Warner's claim is evidence that he has never read anything written by Perry, who has written for the right-wing Newsmax since 1999. In addition to his orgy of hatred against Obama, Perry has repeatedly demonstrated his right-wing credentials, and is particularly enamored with Sarah Palin.
When you buck the local political establishment and stand up for honesty in government, people know what you're doing. In Alaska, they remember and adore Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin for that. They know her job was a lot harder than being mayor of a big city where you are a stranger to most constituents.
Those qualities do qualify this strong woman to be a heartbeat away from the presidency - a condescending Barack Obama to the contrary notwithstanding.
Voters need not be predictable, stereotyped herds as Barack Obama cynically sees them. They can become their own independent mavericks, standing apart from the herd. Sarah Palin gets this. So does John McCain, who chose her.
People can identify with parents like Sarah and Todd Palin, who are not, thank God, embarrassed to be seen loving God's children. That difference is what is driving political elites crazy with fear -- fear that she will win and they will lose.
The Republican road back to the White House in 2012 looks a whole heck of a lot clearer and brighter now that it leads right through downtown Wasilla, Alaska (known also as Hometown, USA).
Only the losing vice-presidential aspirant, Sarah Palin, and her accidental, de facto running mate, Joe the plumber, spoke the middle-class language with believability. It came too late in the game.
Unless Huston can prove there's a huge "liberal Democrat" base Palin has tapped into, we can safely say without fear of contradiction that Perry is, in fact, a conservative.
At NewsBusters, Celebrities Allowed to Speak Only If They Bash Obama Topic: NewsBusters
An August 2008 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston endorses Kid Rock's statement that entertainers "should keep their mouth shut on politics," calling it "quite an intelligent point of view. ... these Hollyweird types should avoid talking about things they obviously have no idea about." Huston went on to sneer:
Naturally, these "beautiful people" spend their days being fawned over and they must grow to imagine that they are the height of human achievement, believing that they can do no wrong and that their every pronouncement should be looked upon as words from Mount Olympus.
Of course, the boys at NewsBusters don't believe all celebrites should be forbidden from speaking out on politics -- only the liberals. If you're a conservative celebrity, opine away.
We've already noted that, a month ago, NewsBusters gave space to Pat Boone to misleadingly quote President Obama out of context. And a Sept. 29 post by Brent Baker highlights singer Andy Williams' attack on Obama, highlighting how he 'flipp[ed] Rush Limbaugh's hope that Obama 'fails'"by claiming that Obama "wants the country to fail." Baker added: "Let's hope interviewers prompt him to elaborate on his evaluation of Obama."
A Sept. 30 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard carries the headline "Why We Shouldn't Listen to Overpaid Celebrities About Healthcare." But Sheppard and the rest of his NewsBusters buddies most assuredly want you to listen to overpaid celebrities bash Obama.
UPDATE: An Oct. 1 post by Rusty Weiss continues the hypocrisy, bashing Roger Ebert for writing a column critical of the Republican "lunatic fringe," dismissing it as "a scathing critique which detests the overt melodrama, the wretched dialogue, and the lack of a plot line" and claiming that it "proved that he is very skilled at one thing and one thing only - movie reviews."
Then And Now: CNS and Troop Levels Topic: CNSNews.com
A Sept. 30 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones carries the headline "43 U.S. Troops Have Died in Afghanistan Since Gen. McChrystal Called for Reinforcements." The article lists the names and hometowns of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan since August 30, when Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, in Jones' words, "sent a confidential war assessment to the Obama administration, warning that more forces are needed--soon."
Another Sept. 30 article, by Christopher Neefus, details how "As a presidental candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly said he would reinforce the U.S. troops in Afghanistan" but "as commander-in-chief, however, Obama has thus far failed to heed" McChrystal.
This article prompted us to wonder: Did CNS -- apparently following the lead of Fox News in making a big deal out of President Obama's purported dithering over Afghanistan -- similarly obsess in 2003, shortly before the Iraq war, when then-Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki testified that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to successfully occupy Iraq?
A search of the CNS archive turned up no reference to it, but it's possible that most stories older than mid-2007, when CNS redesigned its website, may not be in the archive at all. But as an observer of CNS at the time, we don't recall that CNS highlighted Shinseki's testimony.
Corsi: End of Federal Subsidies = Tax Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Sept. 28 WorldNetDaily article promoting the latest Jerome Corsi Red Alert newsletter asserts that "President Obama declared war on oil and natural gas." How so? by allegedly wanting to end tax subsidies for fossil fuel production:
The Environmental Law Institute estimated that in the U.S., the biggest fuel subsidies are tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels that added up to $72 billion over the seven year period studied, 2002 to 2008.
"Should Obama succeed, the end result will be tantamount to imposing a new tax on oil and natural gas production, with the outcome being that U.S. energy consumers will see energy price increases," Corsi warned.
[...]
Corsi said he believes Obama may be desperate for tax revenue to cover the projected trillion-dollar federal budget deficits the administration is planning to incur in the foreseeable future.
"Yet, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies as part of a global-warming ideological agenda seems a particularly strange way to stimulate the economy out of a recession," he wrote. "Eliminating tax provisions that encourage U.S. investment in oil and gas technology, exploration and production will certainly increase U.S. dependence on foreign oil, with the resultant negative impact on our already negative balance of international trade."
That's right -- according to Corsi, ending a federal giveaway to oil and natural gas producers is the same thing as a tax increase for them.
Funny, we thought right-wingers like Corsi opposed federal subsidies. Shouldn't he be demanding that the fossil-fuel industry pay its own way instead of relying on government handouts?
John L. Perry's Greatest Obama-Hating Hits Topic: Newsmax
John L. Perry's Newsmax column advocating a military coup against Obama was merely the latest and most extreme example of Perry's hatred of the president.
Perry has long bashed Obama, beginning after Obama's 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention. Perry wrote:
Think, also, what license the dyslexic rent-a-crowd poster-scribblers will have with Barack Obama's moniker. Seemingly endless permutations off the letters spelling Obama are good for many a quality-time family-values game of "Anagrams."
Top of the Charts
Already you can hear rappers ranting out best-seller CDs without once repeating themselves:
"Obama, Boama, Amabo, Maboa.
"Oamba, Bamoa, Abamo, Maoba.
"Oabam, Baoma, Amoba, Moaba.
"Obaam, Bamao, Aobma, Mboaa.
"Obmaa, Bomaa, Aobam, Maaob."
Captures the very heart and soul of America, doesn't it?.
Everybody Sing Now
"We're Barack Obama bound!
"There'll be no heebie-jeebies hanging 'round.
"All aboard Barack's Express!"
When the 2008 election rolled around, Perry was ready to attack again:
Will an Obama victory be the dawning of the socialist revolution in America the far left has been panting for and working so hard all these years to bring about?
How soon will the masscomm egomaniacs fall out of love with this new administration? (And they will. They always do. The only thing they are truly in love with is themselves.) How will blacks respond to that?
It’s not a very pretty prospect any way you look at it. The world is about to see whether Americans are ready yet for self-government.
If elected president of the United States, Obama would bring his extensive management inexperience directly into the White House with him on his very first day in the Oval Office, the command post of the world’s most-powerful executive.
Talk about on-the-job training!
And speaking of talk, what has Barack Obama ever run — except his mouth?
The time for liberals to save their own political skins is now, before Nov. 4. They have an honorable, patriotic duty to stand up and say to America, “Stop right here! We want off this bus before it goes over the cliff. We were wrong about this Obama fellow. The evidence is now pouring in that he is not what he led us to believe. He is no liberal. He is a far-left radical and a mortal danger to this republic. Don’t give him your vote. He’s not getting mine.”
Will any of the leadership liberals do that? Do pigs fly? Do bears go in the middle of Times Square?
They’ve never tried.
If liberal Democrats fail to put country above party on Nov. 4 and if Obama wins, they can kiss their Democratic Party goodbye. They will deserve the political hell-fires they have stoked for themselves.
Like the Yorkshireman, Barack Obama burst upon the scene from obscure lineage — his emanating in disparate continents, Africa and North America.
Arms extended, Obama still circles the arena. Cheers continue, but slacken. His ill-timed effort to spread his wings across Europe, so congenial in leftist venues he courted, turned into a trans-substantial continental flop.
High-flying oratory proved utterly inefficacious in winning any major foreign-policy result he set himself to bring home in triumph. Obama’s personal diplomacy never took off.
Insightful, delightful humorist James Thurber once wrote, “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.” Are you listening, Barack Obama?
The new president purports to be in affinity with Abraham Lincoln, who made a lot of sense a lot of the time, including one time when he said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.”
Using Lincoln’s maxim as his caliper, Obama has built a career slipping through a lot of the time with as much … well, call it foolery … as he could get away with at any given time.
[...]
Thurber’s humor was delicious, none of it built around narcissistic self-aggrandizement. What he had to say, what he wrote, what he drew in his near-blindness with a lump of charcoal was of lasting enrichment and enchantment.
On the other hand, Obama’s teleprompted words, before which his leftist adulators in the media fawn and grovel so, are blowing in the wind.
Absolutely, you can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Time is not with Barack Obama. Even for him, there’s a limit of available fools.
Now that he’s president, Barack Obama has new clothes, even if they don’t always fit. What he still lacks is class. Tailors can’t fix that.
Before, during, and since the president’s elevation to his stratospheric altitude in the vault of the heavens, he has been adorned in an unprecedented array of resplendent raiments of praise befitting his One-ness.
[...]
Under those conditions, how, if the president has no class, is his populace to know what he’s doing that is classless? It’s a bit like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s celebrated dictum non-defining hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it.”
So, the answer is that if the president’s classlessness is observed, it must be without comment about:
The way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks down his nose.
The way he hasn’t learned to tie a four-in-hand necktie like the men do.
The way he smirks in public gatherings at crude, inappropriate humor.
The way he sulks or huffs like a spoiled child when disputed or denied.
The haughty way he fakes erudition off his teleprompter screens and proffers profundities on subjects in which he lacks credentials.
The way he says, “as I’ve said before,” when he hasn’t.
The way he jumps down, spins around, picks a new position when the one he holds drifts downstream toward the unpopular.
The way he tries to straddle two horses racing in diverging directions.
The way he concocts ever-shifting lexicons for marketing distasteful policies when public perceptions catch up with reality.
The way he can’t seem to avoid the first-person singular with almost every breath.
The way he behaves not only as if it’s all about him but also as if he’s all about all that is.
The poor fellow is classlessly infatuated with his reflection in the gazing pool of media adulation. Narcissism was never remotely emblematic of a class act.
Even to allow Obama’s socialist programs a mere toe in the water could prove to be too late. These programs are like flypaper or unspeakable social disease. The elevator to the hell of a Marxist society goes in only one direction – ever higher into costs taken from appropriations of individuals’ earned incomes.
[...]
It won’t be enough for Republicans just to be “the party of no” and stop there. They will also have to propose national alternatives that begin all over again where Barack Obama first seduced America into his leftward-spiraling, all-consuming maelstrom of latter-day Marxism.
If they fail, this nation will be down on its hands and knees for decades, scouring floors in an Augean stable where no one-time sluice will suffice to eradicate the bacilli of socialism from forever attempting a comeback.
Perry seems to be turning into the new Norman Liebmann, the former Newsmax columnist known at the time for his hateful smears of the Clintons and others he didn't like (such as Arabs).Liebmann quit Newsmax in 2004 after it allegedly refused to publish a virulent anti-gay rant of his. These days, Liebmann is mostly confined to his own website, where he's being just as hateful toward Obama.
Obama-Nazi Reference of the Day Topic: WorldNetDaily
The Nazis had a word for what Barack Obama declared in the United Nations General Assembly last week.
When a city or a district or a nation was "clean of Jews," it was pronounced "Judenrein."
The goal of the Nazis was, of course, for all of Europe to be cleansed of Jews – then the whole world.
[...]
In other words, Barack Obama is in favor of an ethnic-cleansing operation – one that will eventually require the forcible removal of all Jews, no matter how long they have lived in these areas, no matter what they paid for their properties, no matter what.
That's because the monsters who control the Palestinian Authority, even the so-called "moderates," demand that all Jews leave. Jews will simply be unwelcome in this future Palestinian state. End of story. It's a non-negotiable demand.
[...]
I know Americans have their own problems with Obama, but why are we sitting around quietly while he embraces policies that would reduce Israel to Auschwitz borders?
It's this simple: If ethnic cleansing is wrong, so are Obama's policies in the Middle East.
