Newsmax Fires Up the Gingrich Hype Machine Again Topic: Newsmax
After dialing things back in New Hampshire following an all-out effort in Iowa -- both of which couldn't get its candidate to finish any higher than fourth place -- Newsmax appears to be cranking up the Newt Gingrich hype machine once again just in time for the South Carolina primary.
A Jan. 14 "exclusive interview" by Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter touts Gingrich's claim that "any primary vote that is not for the former House speaker is a vote for Mitt Romney." A Jan. 16 article by Paul Scicchitano highlighted how "Gingrich appeared to score big points in Monday night’s two-hour Republican debate, according to an analysis by Fox News," adding: 'More importantly, Gingrich’s response to questions on the economy, foreign policy, and race in particular appeared to resonate well with the national viewing audience, who were invited to assess whether they felt candidates had answered questions — or attempted to dodge them — using the Twitter social media website to register their responses."
Meyers returns to crank up the level of fawning in a Jan. 17 article:
Newt Gingrich is garnering high praise for his performance in Monday night’s presidential debate in South Carolina — a dazzling success that drew an unprecedented standing ovation and could propel him back into close contention for the nomination.
And his sharp-edged response to a question from Fox News contributor Juan Williams may have generated the buzz equaled only by Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980 New Hampshire debate outcry, “I am paying for this microphone.”
Will Newsmax be buying TV time to run that so-called "campaign special" informercial for Gingrich in South Carolina the way it did in Iowa? We shall see, though that may be less a function of desire than available TV time in the state.
UPDATE: Newsmax keeps up the hype in a Jan. 18 article by Martin Gould, who reports that "Newt Gingrich is closing in fast on Mitt Romney just three days before the vital South Carolina primary," adding that "Now all eyes will be on Thursday night’s debate in North Charleston, S.C. when Gingrich will again try to use his rhetorical skills to catch his principal rival."
We suspect, however, that all eyes will be on Gingrich's debate performance for a different reason.
MRC Still Won't Break Down Fox News Debate Questions By Ideology Topic: Media Research Center
We've detailed how the Media Research Center has been quick to inform its readers how many questions in Republican presidential debates sponsored last year by networks such as NBC and CNN were "liberal" or "conservative" -- but not for the debate sponsored by Fox News. That blind spot continues in the latest round of debates.
The MRC was quick to roll out predictable critiques of debates hosted by ABC and NBC:
But when it came to the debate Fox News hosted on Jan. 16, the MRC was, as before, not interested in breaking down the questions by ideology -- even as it attacked one of the questions.
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard highlighted the "rather testy exchange with Fox News's Juan Williams" over Williams' suggestion that Gingrich was "racially insensitive" by claiming that black Americans lack a work ethic. Sheppard responded: "Despite his likely respect for his former Fox colleague, it was nice to see Gingrich do this. As NewsBusters has been reporting for months the media are going to constantly bring race into the discussion to assist Obama's reelection." But at no point did Sheppard attack Williams for asking a question "from the left."
Is the MRC so afraid of Fox News that it will avoid telling the truth about Fox News out of fear of offending them? Or does the MRC simply give Fox a pass no matter how egregious the behavior?
Then again, MRC chief Brent Bozell clearly feels so comfortable on Fox that he'll call President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" without fear of retribution.
WND's Corsi Tries to Whitewash Charges Against Arpaio Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi keeps up his borderline illegal fanboy-esque slobbering over Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio in a Jan. 16 WorldNetDaily column.
Corsi does his best to paint Arpaio as the noble victim of a conspiracy against him led by none other than President Obama:
What is shaping up is an epic political battle in which the Obama White House has decided to launch a full-scale assault against local Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
In other words, the national battle on both illegal immigration and on the Obama birth certificate is rapidly coming down to a local duel that can be properly billed much like a heavyweight prizefight, as “Obama v. Arpaio.”
Moreover, it appears the White House has set February as the month Arpaio has either to comply with the Department of Justice demands, or face Eric Holder in federal court.
This is not coincidental.
Corsi is referring here to the investigation into whether Arpaio and his deputies committed civil rights violations against Hispanics. Corsi conveniently fails to mentiont that, as the Arizona Republic pointed out, this investigation began under the Bush administration, and it could have been completed sooner had Arpaio's office cooperated and not forced federal officals to go tocourt to obtain records. In other words, the timing of this investigation is largely a problem of Arpaio's making, not Holder's.
Corsi also tries to dismiss accusation that Arpaio's office botched hundreds of sex-crime investigations, calling it an "old story" and insisting that "the city of Phoenix has five times the uninvestigated sex crimes Sheriff Arpaio’s office supposedly mishandled." At no point, however, does Corsi address the substance of the charges or explain why it's relevant that other jurisdictions have more supposedly mishandled crimes that Arpaio's office.
As he has before, Corsi denounces an effort to remove Arpaio from office, attacking its leader, Randy Parraz, as having a "leftist Saul Alinsky background." And as before, Corsi doesn't explain the relevance of such an accusation -- he clearly has no other purpose than to hurl an ad hominem attack at Parraz.
Corsi even falsely attacks the Hispanic group La Raza:
La Raza even today retains its founding political agenda that major portions of the American Southwest should be returned to Mexico and/or allowed to form a mystical nation of indigenous Indians and Latinos, called “Atzlan.”
Truly, La Raza activists hold the extreme view that the United States should concede back to one form or another of Hispanic rule major portions of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas (at a minimum), under the presumption that an Anglo-dominated United States that communists and the radical left in general view as a capitalist, imperialist nation with colonial ambitions.
La Raza is not an "extreme" group who wants to return the southwester U.S. to Mexico -- in fact, it explicitly rejects that view.
But Corsi still isn't done painting Arpaio as a victim, or slobbering over him:
What the White House appears to hate is that Arpaio is an elected law enforcement officer who remains enormously popular in Maricopa County, precisely because he has the courage to stand up to their Saul Alinsky bullying tactics.
Since the White House declared war on Arpaio, he has announced both his decision to seek re-election this November as Maricopa County sheriff and his willingness to take on the wildly partisan Obama DOJ in federal court.
[....]
In the final analysis, Arpaio remains a hero to millions of law-abiding citizens across America precisely because today he still retains the same respect for law that has served to distinguish him throughout his five-decades-long career in law enforcement.
Remember, such sycophancy is being done in hopes that Arpaio's "cold case posse" will ignore a complete summation of the facts and return a birther investigation that comports with WND's birther obsession. So consider Corsi's slobbering just another bribe from WND to that end.
UPDATE: TPM reports that Arpaio is still being uncooperative, meaning that the reason this investigation is being dragged out is because of Arpaio himself, not the Obama administration.
Sheppard Approves of Gingrich Demanding That Romney Do Something Illegal Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard uses a Jan. 16 NewsBusters post to highlight Newt Gingrich's attack on Mitt Romney in which Gingrich claimed that "Mitt Romney's inability to control what a Super PAC supporting him says 'makes you wonder how much influence he’d have if he were President.'"
It's a strange thing for Sheppard to highlight, given that it would be illegal for a candidate to have any control over the super PAC supporting him. It's doubly strange because Gingrich has no control over his super PAC either -- to the point where he has to beg his super PAC to fix inaccurate claims in an anti-Romney video it released.
Why did Sheppard highlight this exchange without bothering to report all the relevant facts? Um, because he's incompetent?
Kessler Keeps Up the Romney-Fluffing Topic: Newsmax
Now that Newsmax has unleashed Ronald Kessler to do some Romney-fluffing, Kessler is rushing to take advantage of the opportunity.
For his second such article in three days, a Jan. 13 column by Kessler touts how one of Mitt Romney's co-founders in BainCapital presents the private equity firm's experience with office-supply retailer Staples as a "microcosm" of how the firm did business. Kessler does his best to embellish things further:
The Romney campaign has said that Bain helped create 100,000 jobs while Romney was at its helm. That is clearly a gross underestimate. Today, Staples alone employs 90,000 people and has 2,000 stores. Over the years, that means more than a million people have had jobs because of Staples alone.
Bain Capital went on to help launch or acquire more than 100 companies, including Domino’s Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, The Sports Authority, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Toys "R" Us.
Kessler even throws in the bonus commentary from his buddy and fellow Romney-fluffer David Keene. If you'll recall, Kessler had penned a Romney-fluffing column featuring Keene when Newsmax was plugging its Donald Trump-hosted debate. When Romney declined to take part in the debate, Kessler's column mysteriously disappeared.
CNS' Jeffrey Slobbers All Over Mark Levin Topic: CNSNews.com
When an interviewee begins his interview with the words, "How are you, brother?" and the interviewer is not in a religious order, you know you're in for a huge chunk of softball.
That's exactly how radio host Mark Levin, who has a new book to promote, begins his interview with CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey. Clearly, Levin is not expecting to field any tough questions, and Jeffrey keeps the sofballs coming:
"And as I was reading your book--and it had been a while since I looked at The Communist Manifesto--I'm thinking: Well, am I reading the Democratic Party platform here or am I reading The Communist Manifesto? ... Compare modern liberals in America today to this vision that Marx and Engels had in The Communist Manifesto?"
"Mark, in 'Ameritopia' you write, let me quote you back to yourself, you say of John Locke, 'Early in the Second Treatise of Government, Locke introduces the notion that of an individual’s God-given and inalienable rights, in which all individuals are entitled and which provide the moral condition of a civil society.' ... What kind of impact did this kind of thinking have on the Founding Fathers, for our country?"
"You look at things that are happening in American government today. You have a House of Representatives that is occasionally supine in resisting the Executive Branch, or a Congress in general, that is. You have a president who just a week ago appointed a director to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, three members to the National Labor Relations Board, theoretically as a recess appointment, but under the plain terms of the Constitution the Congress was not in recess. Do we see an erosion in America today of the separation of powers, the systems of checks and balances that Montesquieu envisioned?"
"And do you believe we’re reaching an endgame here where we either have to choose to just go to the financial and freedom disaster of the welfare state or really roll the federal government back and move back to a free society?"
"On a few occasions Mark, when President Obama has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, he has very cleverly edited it--dropped out the Creator, nowhere our rights came from. Do you believe that Obama’s fundamental vision--with his talk about class war and victims and victimizers, and the way he frames the political debate--that his fundamental vision is basically Marxist, is basically similar to the sort of vision that Karl Marx and Engels were laying out?"
So, yeah. CNS is not about journalism -- it's about manufacturing right-wing talking points. Terry Jeffrey has seen to that.
A Jan. 15 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh promotes a new "quo warranto" lawsuit over Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility, making a big deal of the status of the filer as a self-proclaimed "contender for the presidency."
Unruh pumps up the credentials of the filer, "former lawyer" Montgomery Blair Sibley, citing his "a colorful history, including a grandfather who was the last private owner of Blair House – now a government property – across from the White House." But Sibley's background is much more colorful that Unruhdescribed it, starting with the reason Sibley is a "former lawyer."
That's because Sibley has been disbarred first in Florida in 2008 and then in a reciprocal action in the District of Columbia. The D.C. disbarment ruling contains the background of the case.
Sibley failed to pay his ex-wife child support, in an amount that ultimately totaled $100,000 by the time Florida authorites found him in contempt and ordered him incarcerated. Meanwile, Sibley was sanctioned for filing "vexatious and meritless litigation" regarding his divorce. According to the Washington Post, Sibley once threatened his wife: "We will litigate until I am disbarred and bankrupt if necessary."
In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court appointed a referee to the Sibley case, finding that Sibley had willfully failed to pay child support and had initiated meritless litigation and recommended suspension of Sibley's law license, for which he must show fitness for reinstatement.
Unruh writes of Sibley's lawsuit that he states that "given his access to the Internet and mobile information technology, his support could rise quickly." That dramatically understates what Sibley actually said:
While this Court is doubtlessly paled by the implications that flow from this Petition for Writ of Quou Warranto reaching a jury, the impact and reach of the present day Internet and Mobile Information Technology platforms create a force multiplier effect which could benefit Sibley in his campaign which has known no like since Leonidas of Sparta chose the ground of Thermopylae to make his stand.
Sibley also repeatedly misspells Obama's name as "Barrack" throughout.
Unruh did mention that Sibley is a former attorney for "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, but not that, according to the Washington Post, federal prosecutors in Palfrey's case said that Sibley's filings are so ignorant of basic legal tenets that they are "almost incoherent."
Further, you may remember Sibley as the former lawyer for the utterly discredited (and WND-promoted) Larry Sinclair. Sibley showed up at an infamous press conference for Sinclair wearing a kilt, which he justified by talking about his genitalia.
Funny that Unruh didn't mention any of this. Can the birther case really be all that formidible if the best person WND can come with to defend it is a disbarred lawyer?
AIM Bashes CREW, Doesn't Disprove CREW's Criticism of Santorum Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a Jan. 9 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid rants about Ron Paul used "Soros-funded research" in an attack ad target Republican rival Rick Santorum, clarifying: "The Soros organization alluded to by Santorum is the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It is the source of the corruption charge against Santorum in the Ron Paul ad."
At no point does Kincaid identify the corruption charges CREW leveled against Santorum -- let alone disprove any of them. Instead, Kincaid mindlessly repeated criticism of CREW from Santorum and other right-wingers accused of shady dealings by the group.
Since Kincaid won't acknowledge this, here are the allegations leveled against Santorum by CREW in 2006, which caused CREW to place Santorum on its list of most corrupt congressmen that year:
Even though Santorum and his family lived in Virginia, his children attended a cyber charter school based in Pennsylvania, at an estimated cost to local taxpayers of $72,000.
Santorum and his PAC received political donations from companies that Santorum-promoted legislation would benefit from.
Santorum received a special mortage that his financial records indicate he didn't qualify for.
As CREW has pointed out, Santorum has not responded to the substance of these charges. We suspect Kincaid won't either.
As a sidelight, Kincaid tacitly admitted that Fox News' coverage has a vindictive right-wing bias. After noting that CREW recently issued a press release "highlighting Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation, parent of Fox News, as 'scoundrel of the year'," Kincaid added, "Perhaps this has something to do with Fox News running a story on CREW’s frivolous complaints against Republicans."
Yet somehow, in Kincaid's eyes, CREW is biased and Fox News is not. Go figure.
WND's Farah: Eligibility Questions (About People Other Than Obama) Are A Distraction Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah is annoyed. The editor of WorldNetDaily and prominent birther has discovered that questioning the eligibility of a presidential candidate can be a distraction.
Here's how Farah begins his January 13 WND column:
How do these things get started?
No wonder people are so confused about the issues of the day.
I am literally deluged with emails from Americans insisting that Mitt Romney is not constitutionally eligible to be president.
It's not true.
Really? The man whose website is so obsessed with the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president that it ignores facts and descends into the realm of absurdity is wondering how such things "get started"?
Farah continues:
Furthermore, while I remain a strong advocate of the position that Obama is not eligible for a variety of reasons, I have never made this assertion based on the fact that I detest everything for which he stands. That assertion is based on fact, on reality, on verifiable truth.
Given his willingness to overlook overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it's difficult to believe that Farah would be such a "strong advocate" of Obama's purported ineligibility if he did not "detest everything for which he stands." As for Farah's claim that his assertion "is based on fact, on reality, on verifiable truth," this ignores reality as well. For example, a new book debunks many birther claims, and one prominent birther, Philip Berg, has shot down the WND-promoted idea that Obama is using a fake Social Security number. Curiously, WND has yet to report on either of these things, and WND's Jerome Corsi has refused to debate the book's author about his conclusions.
Farah then complains again that questions about Romney's eligibility is becoming a distraction to "my team at WND":
So can you please stop writing to me and to my team at WND with suggestions that Mitt Romney fails the constitutional eligibility test? It's not true.
I don't think he gets a passing grade on understanding and interpreting the Constitution, but - unfortunately, from my perspective - he passes the litmus test for serving as president.
Can we move on to more substantive issues in this campaign?
Presumably, Farah and his WND team don't think eligibility questions about Obama are a distraction from "more substantive issues," even though no factual basis for them exists.
MRC's Graham Wants You To Believe Michelle Obama Is An 'Angry Black Woman' Topic: Media Research Center
If one needs evidence that Michelle Obama's complaint about media portrayals of her as an "angry black woman" are entirely justified, one needs look further than the Media Research Center.
A Jan. 15 NewsBusters post by MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham carries thte headline "Newsweek Slams Liberal Reporter For Ignoring Angry Michelle Obama's 'Grace, Charm, and Intellect'." It's accompanied by a picture (which curiously shows up only in summary form) of a particularly angry-looking Michelle:
In the post, Graham is contradictory, mocking Obama's concern about the image by stating that Jodi Cantor's book "somehow caused the First Lady to assert she was being painted as an angry black woman," then sneering, "Black women apparently never get angry -- it's too stereotypical to notice if they do."
Of course, the image of Michelle Obama as perpetually angry is one Graham is all to happy to perpetuate, no matter how far from reality it is. After all, like any good MRC employee, slavishly following right-wing talking points is more important than telling the truth.
Is WND Trying To Influence (Or Buy) Arpaio's Birther Investigation? Topic: WorldNetDaily
The way WorldNetDaily in general -- and Jerome Corsi in particular -- have been sucking up to Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio lately, you'd think that they were trying to influence the birther investigation being conducted by one of Arpaio's posses ... or maybe they know what the outcome will be.
Corsi has been particularly interested in Arpaio -- to the point where one must wonder if he's trying to make sure the posse investigation reflects his birther conspiracies. After all, we know that Corsi "spent 18 hours over a two-day period in Arizona briefing the Cold Case Posse on a wide range of evidence regarding Obama’s eligibility," but we have no idea whether the posse ever talked to anyone who wasn't a rabid birther. Since then, though, Corsi has been fawning over Arpaio to the point that one just wonder if he's trying to make sure the latter doesn't happen, thus skewing the posse investigation toward WND's predetermined conclusions.
On Dec. 8, Corsi played up the "death threats" Arpaio has supposedly received regarding the investigation -- while providing zero evidence of them. On Dec. 15, Corsi defended Arpaio's office against allegations of misconduct as well as gave space for Arpaio to defend himself.
When an effort began to remove the sheriff from office, Corsi made sure to discredit the effort and smear the person leading the campaign. On Jan. 3, Corsi asserted that the leader of the effort, Randy Parraz, is a "transplanted radical attorney-activist " who "has made his career applying Saul Alinsky-style community organizer tactics for radical leftist movements in the U.S. and Canada." The next day, Corsi claimed that Parraz "staged a poorly attended protest Wednesday morning at the sheriff’s downtown Phoenix office." On Jan. 9, Corsi claimed that "A protest against Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Gov. Jan Brewer organized by transplanted attorney-activist Randy Parraz yielded exactly one protestor."
Meanwhile, WND appears to be going the more direct bribery route by raising money to help fund the posse investigation. WND's online store offers a page where you can donate to "fund independent investigations of Obama's eligibility," adding: "A portion of all contributions will go to support WND’s efforts, with another portion going to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse, set to issue its report in February 2012." WND has sent out at least three email solicitiations promoting this fund since the beginning of the year.
Of course, WND investigations of Obama's eligibility are politically motivated and anything but "independent," and there's little evidence that the Arpaio investigation has any independence either, given WND's enthusiasm for funding it. WND, notoriously secret about money, also provides no details on exactly what the funding split will be.
WND's efforts to suck up to Arpaio and fund his birther investigation smacks of outright influence of a public official. Perhaps when Arpaio is done investigating Obama's eligibility, it can investigate WND for attempted bribery.
UPDATE: A Dec. 26 column by Joseph Farah begs readers to donate to the fund, declaring it "probably America’s last chance to salvage the integrity of the Constitution for all time."Farah doesn't mention that WND is skimming off an unknown percentage of each donation for its own purposes.
AIM's Kincaid Repeats Bogus Attack Against Panetta Topic: Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid just can't stop smearing Leon Panetta.
In a Jan. 11 Accuracy in Media column, Kincaid rants once again about "Panetta’s anti-defense views and his personal ties to radical left-wing forces and Communist Party member Hugh DeLacy." Except that's not true at all.
As Media Matters detailed (and as we noted the last time Kincaid did this), Panetta had no "personal ties" to DeLacy -- it was nothing more than correspondence between a constituent and his congressman, which is what Panetta was at the time.
We've previouslyhighlighted Ellis Washington's ridiculous "dialectics" in which he attempts to portray himself as Socrates by putting his right-wing opinions in the mouth of the great philosopher, opinions the real Socrates would never have said.
Washington is at it again in his Jan. 13 WorldNetDaily column. This time, Washington -- er, Socrates is in smackdown mode, trotting out authors he doesn't like, distorting their work in order to create a straw man for Washington to knock down.
For instance, here's the "dialectic" between "Socrates" and "Nietsche":
Nietzsche: It was I who began an atheistic revolution in my 1882 book “The Gay Science,” by boldly professing that “God is dead.” I refused to repent but elevated my narcissistic blasphemy as the fundamental theme of my greatest work, “Beyond Good and Evil” (1886). In that opus I argued that men are driven by an amoral “Will to Power” and that inevitably superior men will triumph over Christianity, over religiously inspired moral rules, which I judged as “slave morality” and as artificial as every other moral rule. Therefore, it is the primary concern of the Ubermenchen (Supermen) to force, to dictate all laws necessary to secure their domination of the world over the inferior nations and races in their midst.
Socrates: Nietzsche, your brilliant but insanely evil ideas would served as the blueprint a generation later for the apotheosis of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who worshipped your philosophy and fanatically implemented your ideas on a genocidal scale, causing World War II, the Holocaust and the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people.
Gee, we didn't know that "Socrates" knew so much about Nietsche or the Nazis -- we thought it would be a little difficult given that he died thousands of years earlier.
And here's "Socrates" and "Karl Marx":
Karl Marx: I wrote “Das Kapital” in 1867. Engels, my benefactor, posthumously published volumes II (1885) and III (1894) from notes I left behind. “Das Kapital” forces the round peg of capitalism into the square hole of my atheistic, materialistic theory of history. To me capitalism was the most contemptible word in the human language because I believed that all capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the cheapest possible wages to the working class to reap the highest possible profits for themselves.
Socrates: When conservative Newt Gingrich can spend several millions of dollars on ads in South Carolina and Florida against “moderate” Mitt Romney for his role as head of Bain Capital by shamelessly speaking against capitalism as a demagogue, it is the triumph of Marxist ideas first promulgated in “Das Kapital.”
Washington's "Socrates" is even so up-to-date on current events that he mindlessly spews right-wing talking points, just like Washington himself:
Socrates: In February 2008, nine months before Election Day, when Barack Obama arrogantly declared, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” in reality, he was proclaiming the triumph of Sartre’s existential philosophy over America’s Christian founding; a diabolical idea rooted in narcissism, Marxism and failed delusions.
Washington concludes: "At our next Symposium we will discuss the remaining five books that have caused the downfall of society and contributed to the damnation of ideas." Of course, deliberate mischaracterization of ideas and bastardizing one of the world's greatest philosophers for the sake of political attacks is far from a "symposium" as one can get -- and it sure as heck has nothing to do with anything the real Socrates did.
MRC Sees Political Motive in Obamas' Anniversary Wishes for 'Today' Show Topic: Media Research Center
How paranoid is the Media Research Center about so-called "liberal bias"? It thinks an innocuous message by President Obama and his wife marking the 60th anniversary of NBC's "Today" show is part of the president's political agenda.
After noting the Obamas' message , Kyle Drennen huffs in a Jan. 13 MRC item: "Given the broadcast's consistent left-wing slant over the years, and love for the Obamas more recently, it's no wonder why the President and First Lady would join the party."
Never mind the fact that any president, Democrat or Republican, would undoubtedly do what Obama did, and no political agenda is betrayed in the message. Here's the message, as transcribed by Drennen:
BARACK OBAMA: Good morning, everyone. And happy 60th anniversary to the Today show.
MICHELLE OBAMA: So many Americans start their day right here watching all of you as they're getting ready for work and sending their kids off to school.
BARACK OBAMA: Over decades and across generations the Today show has become part of American culture. A place where millions tune in to see how their world has changed overnight. That's why we're both so pleased to join all of you in celebrating this remarkable milestone.
MICHELLE OBAMA: And we know you'll have many more years of success. But first, this is Today on NBC.
BARACK OBAMA: I wanted to say that.
MICHELLE OBAMA: Sorry.
Drennen really thinks this is evidence of a left-wing agenda? He needs to get out of the MRC offices more.
WND's Mercer Still Lamenting the End of Apartheid Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ilana Mercer comes to the defense of poor Pat Buchanan in her Jan. 12 WorldNetDaily column, touting how Buchanan's view of face and multiculturalism dovetails with her own.
Then, as she is wont to do, Mercer once again laments the death of apartheid in her native South Africa:
America, as Mr. Buchanan observes, was eaten away by the acid of the 1960s revolution, “with its repudiation of Christian morality and embrace of secularism and egalitarian ideology.”
South Africa was relatively unaffected by that revolution. It was a staunchly traditional Christian country. Stores closed on Sundays. Television came late to the place but so did pornography and the gay-rights movement. In South Africa, the influence of Christianity receded after the 1994 democratic transition.
Whereas “Americans are no longer a people,” by contrast, the Afrikaners, as illustrated in “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” still linger as a people, clinging to what Barack Obama would indubitably deride as their Bibles, their guns and their bigotries.
Dubbed the white tribe of Africa, this organic nation has, however, ceased to exist as a nation-state, dissolved by democratic decree. The sundering of state sovereignty has, in turn, exposed Afrikaners to ethnic cleansing, a familiar feature of democracy a la Africa.
Despite the Afrikaner’s superior military prowess, they simply “surrendered without defeat.” Ferocious though it was, the South African Defense Force (SADF) ceded to the African National Congress and its representatives.
“You, me and our men can take this country in an afternoon,” said former chief of the SADF Gen. Contand Viljoen, famously, to the reigning chief, Gen. George Meiring. He uttered this comment as President de Klerk prepared to cave into ANC demands, forgoing all checks and balances for South Africa’s Boer, British and Zulu minorities. Yet, the very same Afrikaner people, in the same spirit, went on to peacefully dismantle the six nuclear devices they had built at Pelindaba, west of the capital, Pretoria.
Why did the mighty SADF capitulate to Mandela’s ragtag ANC? Why did the tough descendants of the trek Boers, who have 350 years of history on the continent of Africa – as long as their American cousins have been in North America – give up their birthright for a mess of pottage?
Since it all makes so little sense, my conclusions are more philosophical than factual.
No mention, of course, of the inherent unfairness and virulent racism of the apartheid system the "mighty SADF" was defending.
