Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Oct. 8 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh touts Floyd Brown's call to impeach President Obama. But Unruh failed to disclose his employer's connection to Brown.
Brown is the current head of the Western Journalism Center, which was co-founded by WND editor Joseph Farah. Further, WND began as a division of the WJC and later spun off from it as a for-profit operation. WJC's share of WND has been gradually transferred over the years to Farah, and it's unclear whether WJC still retains an ownership stake.
Unruh, however, fails to mention the WJC at all, let alone WND's connection to it. Instead, Unruh describes Brown only as a "political activist who was behind the famous Willie Horton advertisement that left Gov. Michael Dukakis' candidacy for president floundering and was among the first to sound the alarm on the need for Bill Clinton's impeachment says the United States."
Unruh also uncritically repeats Brown's evidence for impeachment, even though much of it is, speculative, misleading or discredited:
-- "Vindictively fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin, who investigated Kevin Johnson, a buddy of the president, for misuse of funds from an AmeriCorps grant." In fact, as ABC reported, Walpin had a history ofbeing "an ambitious and aggressive inspector general whose actions repeatedly offended officials fo the US Attorney's office, to the point that the Republican-appointee in the US Attorney's office filed an official complain[t] against the Republican-appointed inspector general." Further, Obama was acting on a unanimous request from the AmeriCorps board of directors that Walpin be fired due to questions about "his capacity to serve."
-- "When Obama said America is not a Christian nation." That's taken out of context; in fact, obama has said that "we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
-- "When, in his book, Obama wrote of Muslims, 'I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'" That's also out of context. Obama wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope" that "my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans" have shown him that "they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
-- "When the White House insisted the name of Jesus be covered before Obama could speak at Georgetown University." In fact, as we detailed, the White House requested only that Georgetown "cover up all signs and symbols" on the stage. There is no evidence that the Obama administration specifically "insisted the name of Jesus be covered."
Brown also shows himself to be unclear on the concept of democratic elections, asserting that "We're now in the middle of a bloodless coup." Unruh lets that one go by uncritically as well.
Now that Brown has once again demonstrated himself to be so utterly dishonest in his treatment of facts, how can he and his WJC -- which is embracing far-right conspiracy theories about Obama, just as it did under Farah when Clinton was the target -- possibly be taken seriously?
