From a Jan. 19 NewsReal post by JE Tabler:

CBN, the most underrated news source on the planet

Yes, he's referring to the CBN of Pat Robertson and David Brody.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:04 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Leave it to the Horowitz empire to defend a false conspiracy.

A January 13 NewsReal post by Diane Suffern runs to the defense of Chuck Norris from big bad Newsweek, which demolished his conspiracy-laden WorldNetDaily column about President Obama's executive order extending certain "privileges, exemptions, and immunities" to Interpol. At no point does Suffern offer any evidence to disprove any Newsweek criticism; rather, she complains that "Newsweek attempts to equate reasonable concern for our sovereignty over international agencies with extended speculation (read: conspiracy theories). Not surprising."

Really? Asserting that "Interpol will become Obama's secret vault for terrorists' criminal records and evidence" and Obama's "original, long-form birth certificate" is "reasonable"?

Suffern also complains that Newsweek cited a National Rifle Association analysis of the executive order -- which, by the way, also blows Norris' conspiracy-mongering out of the water -- while conceding it's a "sound argument" (but not that it debunks Norris).

Suffern can't claim that both Norris and the NRA are being reasonable.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:01 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Kathy Shaidle not only is a blogger for NewsReal, where she remains unable to comprehend the simple fact that George Soros does not fund Media Matters, she also writes a weekly column summarizing talk radio for WorldNetDaily.

WND seems to be an appropriate home for her since they both share an interest in gay-bashing.

Her personal Five Feet of Fury blog currently hosts an ad for a subsidy-published book written by a "nuclear submarine force engineer" who insists that homosexuality is a "sexual dysfunction." (And really, who better to analyze the issue of sexuality than an engineer?)

Actually, that's a relatively minor offense -- blogging doesn't pay so any ad revenue is generally tolerated, right-wingers like Shaidle (and, presumably, her readers) eat these books up, and an obsession with homosexuality seems right up her alley.

Here's a post outlining her response to a story that a claim of a playwright ("who still hasn't died of AIDS for some reason") that Abraham Lincoln was gay was made up to "raise awareness": "Dear gays: this is why people hate you."

And here's another one tastefully responding to a British education official named Ed Balls who, after police were called on an 11-year-old for calling a classmate "gay," said that "Even casual use of homophobic language in schools can create an atmosphere that isolates young people and can be the forerunner of more serious forms of bullying."

Shaidle's bon mot: "Not like sending four cops to some kid's house, you dumb fag!" And her headline: "Bullied as a child for obvious reasons, Mr. Balls takes it out on little kids."

WND obviously has no problem with such gay-bashing. But what about the Horowitz empire, which operates NewsReal? After all, managing editor David Swindle insists that commenters refrain from "Abusive, Ad Hominem, Overly Mean-Spirited" comments and "Hyperbolic Nazi References" -- though, as we've noted, that doesn't seem to apply to NewsReal's bloggers.

We predict Shaidle will get to keep her NewsReal job, as long as she keeps her overt homophobia confined to her personal blog (covert homophobia, we suspect, is mostly tolerated). After all, she does serve as NewsReal's reliable (if not coherent or factually accurate) basher of our employer, and that seems to be good enough for the Horowitz folks.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:16 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

It's kinda cute how David Swindle is pretending that Sarah Palin isn't promoting birtherism.

In a Dec. 4 NewsReal post, Swindle bashes "leftist polemicist[s]" for highlighting Palin's statement that "the public, rightfully, is still making" Barack Obama's birth certificate an issue and "I think it’s a fair question" to ask Obama to present further evidence of his birth. Yet Swindle insists that Palin is not "part of the cult of crackpot conspiracists who know for certain that President Obama was born in Kenya or, is at the very least, 'hiding his birth certificate'" becausePalin tried to walk back her statement on her Facebook page.

Based on that statement, Swindle declares: "So, no, Palin is not a birther. She was just caught off guard in an interview and chose her words poorly."

Swindle refuses to acknowledge the possibility that Palin is trying to have it both ways -- pretending she's not a birther (Swindle fell for that -- he has no evidence that she initially "chose her words poorly" on the subject) while also raising questions about Obama's birth certificate.

If birtherism is, as Swindle says, "poisonous crackpot conspiracism" on a par with 9/11 truthers, then why give Palin a pass by taking Palin's walk-back as a denial and ignoring the fact that she played into the hands of birther conspiracists like WorldNetDaily by answering the question as she did?

In an update to his post, Swindle complains about an Alaska blogger who noted that Swindle failed to note that Palin's statement, in the same interview in which she made the statement about Obama's birth certifciate, that she has released Trig Palin's birth certificate is apparently not true -- as Andrew Sullivan points out, no birth certificate or other evidence has been released by Palin. Still, it gives license for Swindle to complain about "crackpot 'Trig Birtherism' conspiracy theories." Never mind that his boss, David Horowitz, has flip-flopped on embracing conspiracy theories like depicting Obama as a "Manchurian candidate."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:55 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, December 6, 2009 10:51 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

We've detailed how David Horowitz has flip-flopped and embraced the kind of outrageous attacks on President Obama he once criticized.

Horowitz does it again in a Nov. 26 Newsmax article, which began as a promotion of his new book about his late daughter but quickly descended into vicious attacks on Obama:

“His roots are in the Left,” says Horowitz. “He (Obama) came out of the movement that I came out of, but he never actually came out of it. Their agendas are power, control and creating enormous slush funds for the armies of the Left -- and that's what this Administration is about. It is the most radical, the most dangerous political administration in Washington that we have ever seen.”

[...]

There has never been an Administration that is so anti-Jewish,” he blasts. “There is a global genocide that is being planned and organized in full view of everybody -- and Obama is appeasing them and sticking it to the Jews. These are very dark times for this country, but I'm very optimistic because I believe that people are finally waking up.”

He sees a dark repeat of history.

“Everybody who calls themselves a progressive was a supporter of the Soviet Union or China -- the slaughter of 100,000 million people in order to make them go along with the socialist program. Obama is aiding and abetting and facilitating our enemies as we speak.”

[...]

“I am a former leftist so I understand the Left, and it has taken a long time for the conservatives to stop calling these people Liberals -- since they are bigoted, intolerant and totalitarian -- and start calling them the leftist or socialist that they are, and that is happening now in a big way.

[...]

“Inside of every so-called Liberal is a totalitarian screaming to come out. There is one TV channel that has some critics of the President on it like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity -- and they want to suppress it. That tells you exactly who they are. They are communist and, of course, it is so unfashionable to say that. I mean with a small ‘c,’ I don't mean the card-carrying communist. Their mentality is communist. It is not liberal,” he concludes.

Horowitz talks about his personal evolution.

“I was one of the founders of the New Left and I have been atoning for that ever since. I got involved in raising money for the Black Panther Party, and they murdered a woman whom I recruited to do their bookkeeping…

“In the mid '70s the Left -- and, by the Left I included the Democratic Party -- at this point had sabotaged the Vietnam War and forced America’s withdraw and 2 ½ million innocent peasants in Indo- China were slaughtered by the allies of the American Left.

“All progressives supported this, and there were no protests from the Left about it,” he adds. “That was the end of my soldering in the Left. I understood that these people have evil agendas. It all sounds very good -- peace, justice -- but it true, it is the form that evil takes, has taken in the 20th century.”

“They will destroy our democracy. That's what they are setting about doing – destroying our democracy or as we used to say during the Cold War our way of life.”

Really? ALL progressives support genocidal regimes? Please. Do you realize how wild-eyed and silly you sound, David?

Posted by Terry K. at 10:52 AM EST

Updated: Saturday, November 28, 2009 11:05 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Nov. 22 NewsReal post by Paul Cooper properly notes that criticism of right-wingers citing Psalm 109:8 in reference to President Obama is valid: "The context of the passage is of an evil leader being killed – it is not talking about someone being voted out of office. I believe proper use of the Bible centers around using verses in their proper context."

But then Cooper adds that "the verse is used by most people as a joke and not for genuine prayer." Cooper offers no evidence to support the claim. Indeed, we saw no evidence of humor or irony in Joseph Farah referencing it; of course, he also failed to present it in its proper context of killing a leader.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:22 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

A Nov. 16 NewsReal post by Paul Cooper bashes outgoing White House communications director for noting that "Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central…That’s where you are getting fact-checking, investigative journalism these days," asserting that this statement means "Dunn actually believes The Daily Show is more legitimate journalism than FoxNews." Curiously absent from Cooper's post is any mention of the incident that prompted Dunn to make that claim.

From the Bloomberg interview of Dunn that Cooper references:

DUNN: I'll give you one fact -- actually fun fact from this week, is that the, you know, a opinion show on a certain news network was using edited footage to make it appear that a rally last week in political opposition to the president was much larger than it appeared. Some of you may have heard about this, that the people who went in and did the fact-checking on that and actually exposed this, this kind of spliced, edited video that was designed to make it appear that more people oppose the president than really do, the people who exposed this -- Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, OK? Well, that's where you are getting, you know, fact-checking, investigative journalism these days, folks.

It is a different media environment. And the reality is that, you know, let's face it,  we're under no illusions about what the political agenda of certain news networks are.

Cooper also avoids repeating more inconvenient criticism of Fox, stating that Dunn "defends" MSNBC in the interview without noting that Dunn also pointed out that Fox News contributor Karl Rove "declared war on [NBC] during the previous administration, and you may recall that Fox actually applauded Karl for doing that."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:28 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Ben Johnson is furiously trying to spin bad news about Carrie Prejean.

A Nov. 12 NewsReal post tries to change the subject away from news about a solo sex tape Prejean made that allegedly, when California pageant officials informed Prejean about their knowledge of itsexistence, caused Prejean to quickly settle her lawsuit against them without receiving the million dollars in damages she sought. Johnson attempted to engage in speculation, baselessly suggesting that pageant officials were distributing a "underage pornographic video to smear Carrie Prejean."

First, Johnson offers no evidence that pageant officials were distributing the video. Second, Prejean may not have been underage at the time: TMZ reports that the ex-boyfriend to whom Prejean originally sent the video claims she was 20 at the time, not 17 as she claimed.

Johnson engages in more subject-changing in another Nov. 12 NewsReal post:

Some readers have asked if — with the release of topless photos and now a solo sex tape — conservatives, or Christians, or conservative Christians, should consider former Miss California Carrie Prejean a role model. The question strikes me as off-base, a hybrid of the cult of hero worship and the 24/7 media’s information overload.

The underlying issue in the Prejean case is not — or at least, it has never been for me — one of the pageant (near-)winner’s character or admirability. It’s a simple matter of the Left’s aggressive politicization of every aspect of life, including beauty pageants and football.

[...]

Does Carrie Prejean deserve such a status? The deeper question is: Who cares? The existence of topless photos, a solo sex tape, or a secret home altar to Baal are irrelevant to Prejean’s underlying story: as a contestant in a beauty contest, she was sabotaged by a bigoted hysteric and almost certainly lost the national crown on the basis of politics. From that moment, pageant officials seemed to try to find every conceivable way to revoke her Miss California title. Now, a string of sexually explicit photos and a video have hit the news — all because she gave an apologetic endorsement of a 5,000-year-old institution that happens to be the bedrock of civilization.

The issue is not whether Carrie Prejean is a model Christian, conservative role model, or a good spokesmodel. The issue is the unconscionable behavior of pageant officials and the media, and the Left’s insatiable desire to feast on the blood of its enemies. 

[...]

The fact that Prejean made a solo sex tape puts her in the company of approximately 100 percent of her fellow models. 

That strong breeze you feel is merely Johnson desperately trying to spin away the right-wing fetish for Prejean.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:17 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

If you're going to make fun of someone for having typos in his blog post, you probably should not have, on the day before you engaged in such fun-making, published a blog post with this headline:

That is all.

Hugs,

ConWebWatch

Posted by Terry K. at 12:03 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Any comments that fall within the following categories will most likely be deleted:

[...]

1. Abusive, Ad Hominem, Overly Mean-Spirited. Attack arguments and ideas, not people.

[...]

2. Hyperbolic Nazi References. Try not to compare people to Hitler and the Nazis unless they’re actually advocating anti-Semitism, racism, or genocide. See Godwin’s Law. These references usually poison debate and are indicative of intellectual laziness. 

-- David Swindle, Oct. 24 NewsReal post

Editor's Note: This is the first in an ongoing series in which NewsReal’s Paul Cooper focuses on the exploits of CNN’s Jon Stewart-wannabe, the clownish embarrassment Rick Sanchez.

-- Paul Cooper, Oct. 24 NewsReal post

Last night, Brit Hume and Bill O’Reilly informed their audience, in a discussion about recent White House attacks on Fox News, that partisan comparisons to Nazi Germany in today’s political world are verboten. Apparently it rebounds negatively back onto the writer or speaker. However, sometimes the shoe fits so well, it must be worn. White House interim communications director Anita Dunn is desperately trying to avoid the fate of her historical doppelganger sister in arms, Leni Riefenstahl.

-- Michael Rulle, Oct. 21  NewsReal post

Posted by Terry K. at 12:07 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Apparently, nobody is ever supposed to say anything bad about Glenn Beck -- even if it's the truth.

NewsReal's David Swindle takes us to task for daring to defend reporting pointing out that Beck's claim that his mother committed suicide is at variance with the facts, which show that the cause of her death is at best inconclusive. His professed problem with it is that it delves into Beck's personal life, which should be off limits in political debate:

If the question of whether she died by suicide or by accident is in doubt (which is all you might be able to establish) then it’s awfully sick of you and MM to choose the answer which makes Beck out to be a liar. I mean you do see how this is really distasteful and unnecessary and how a reasonable person could call this a smear? The circumstances of someone’s mother’s death is in doubt and you accuse them of lying about it in order to illicit sympathy from people and further their career? You really hate Beck that much? Because it seems to me that if you just disagreed with his arguments then that’s all you’d do. You’d refute his arguments (which is fair game.) But instead you choose to dig into his past to try and destroy him personally.

1) No "choice" was made to "make Beck out to be a liar." All that was done by Media Matters is highlight reports showing what the official investigation into Beck's mother's death and what Beck himself has said about it. There are discrepancies, and Swindle doesn't refute that.

2) Obviously, Beck himself is the only one who can answer questions about the discrepancy. But does Swindle really think that such a shameless entertainer as Beck is incapable of enhancing a tragedy for sympathetic effect?

3) Swindle accuses us of "dig[ging] into [Beck's] past to try and destroy him personally." As if that has never been done by conservatives looking to attack liberals. (See Clinton, Bill.) But really, how exactly does this little incident "destroy him personally"? Further, Beck has made the claim publicly on numerous occasions, which opens it up to public scrutiny.

It seems to us that Swindle is opposed to any criticism of Beck. After all, his boss, David Horowitz, has embraced Beck as "the most eloquent, fearless and effective warrior standing between Barack Obama and a collectivist state." But Horowitz himself is embracing personal attacks as well: Just four months after declaring that smears such as "Manchurian candidate" were beneath substantial criticism of Obama, Horowitz called Obama that very thing.

Ultimately, this is small potatoes and hardly the worst thing Beck has done (the top of that list is likely ridiculing the wife of a rival radio host for having a miscarriage). But the fact that Swindle is in full defense mode over such a relatively minor indiscretion tells us that Beck is now a priority of the Right as someone who must be protected at all costs -- just like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:25 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

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.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:27 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

For reasons clear only to him, David Horowitz has felt the need to smack down Marc Lamont Hill.

In a Sept. 25 Newsreal post, Horowitz declares Hill -- a frequent guest on "The O'Reilly Factor" -- to be "an embarrassment to his own standards and an insult to the intelligence of African Americans particularly and his entire audience generally." Why? Because, Horowitz writes, "Hill is an expert on “hip-hop culture,” i.e., rap music. His academic degree is in education. What are his views on foreign policy worth, unless putting him on was designed to show up the shallow views of the left?" Horowitz continues:

I wonder if O’Reilly understands that putting on such a lightweight feeds the racism of low expectations. There are  very intelligent blacks (and leftists) who could provide an interesting foil for conservative views if that was the agenda. Having a Columbia professor of rap music comment on the foreign policy views of Karl Rove (who was featured in the preceding segment) is demeaning to Rove and embarrassing to every African American watching. First we have a figure involved in every major foreign policy decision of the Bush administration who happens to be white. Then we have an aficionado of rap music who happens to be black? What does that say to the television viewer?

If O’Reilly wants to bring Hill on to defend Ludacris or some other morally-challenged rapper then fine. If he is the best defender that ACORN can get, then fine too. But spectacles like tonight’s segment are like circus sideshows that reflect poorly on the judgment of the Factor’s producers and are unworthy of the Factor itself.

Of course, O'Reilly himself has no particular experience to draw on that would give him expertise in discussing foreign policy. But Horowitz doesn't seem bothered by that.

Needless to say, Hill was not happy with this unprovoked attack, responding on his Twitter account, writing among other things: "David Horowitz has made his career calling people communists and/or anti-semites. He sees no irony in challenging credentials, while exercising the freedom to talk about whatever he wants with NO training at all. How does his Masters in literature allow him to write books on Islamic radicalism? "Furthermore, why hasn't he challenged Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh's ability to analyze politics and lead the GOP w/ HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMAS?"

This, of course, merely set up Hill for more abuse from Horowitz. In a Sept. 27 FrontPageMag article headlined "Fox’s Affirmative Action Baby Whines," Horowitz again sneered that "Hill’s expertise, such as it is, is hip-hop culture — the very low end, in other words, of popular music which is better known as rap," adding, "With an expertise in rap music, Hill has a professorship at Columbia University, illustrating  my often made observation that our liberal arts colleges have fallen to their lowest intellectual level in 100 years." Horowitz asserted that "a rap professor pontificating about geopolitical issues" feeds "the soft racism of low expectations and that it was in fact an insult to all those black academics who would actually have had something intelligent to say about the Iran crisis."

Horowitz went on to complain that Hill's use of Twitter to respond to him was "bad judgment" because it revealed that "His Twitter web page is wall-papered with one of his heroes, Assata Shakur — a fugitive killer, wanted for the cold-blooded murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973." Horowitz then expanded his smears of black liberals:

Marc Lamont Hill, out of all the black intellectuals available, to talk about cultural issues (let alone international affairs.) Hill is one of a community of black intellectuals promoted well beyond their abilities — Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West are two obvious others — who are poisoning the minds of  black youth with the idea that politically correct murderers like Assata Shakur are heroes, and patriotic Americans are devils incarnate. Of course confronting O’Reilly — and cherishing his air time and Fox stipend — Hill is far more moderate on TV than he probably is in his classroom or at the public speaking venues his gig on Fox makes possible.

Horowitz also gets pedantic about what Hill actually wrote:

Hill’s second complaint is that I wrote a book called Unholy Alliance about radical Islam but I’m not an expert in Islam. This is supposed to take the heat off him for making inane comments on the Iranian crisis. Actually, my book — which he obviously didn’t read — is about theAmerican left — not Islam — and is an attempt to explain its tacit alliance with the Islamic totalitarians of al-Qaeda and Hamas. This is a subject I happen to be an expert on. I have studied the American left longer and know more about it than Professor Hill does about hip-hop culture or, for that matter, about me.

Horowitz doesn't address Hill's point about conservative radio hosts who pontificate about geopolitical issues with no college degree at all.

Remember, this is all happening because Hill is a black liberal who likes rap music -- and therefore, in Horowitz's eyes, isn't qualified to talk about anything else.

And Horowitz is the one complaining about others' "soft bigotry of low expectations"?

UPDATE: Cliff Kincaid follows Horowitz's lead by complaining in a Sept. 28 Accuracy in Media column that Hill is allowed to comment "on issues that go far beyond his expertise on hip-hop culture."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:00 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 1:12 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Estimates vary, as they always do, as to how large the crowds were, but the general consensus seems to have settled at one million, and possibly as high as two million.

-- Tim and Alissa Birkel, Sept. 15 Newsreal post

What is this "consensus" the Birkels are referring to? We have no idea.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:10 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink