Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's practice of dishonestly promoting Aaron Klein's anti-Obama screed "The Manchurian President" by cherry-picking criticism of the book and falsely presenting it as the only substantive criticism of it continues a June 5 article taking offense at a single paragraph of a Los Angeles Times article on "Pumped-up polemics."
The paragraph reads:
Not even out yet — but already topping Amazon.com's list of political bestsellers — is "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists" by Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott, which echoes the 1962 classic film in which Chinese communists try to hypnotize their way into the White House.
WND declared this to be an "attack" and a "smear." How so? Because Klein and co-author Brenda J. Elliott really weren't trying to evoke "The Manchurian Candidate," really:
While the title is taken from "The Manchurian Candidate" movie, Klein writes in the book's introduction the work specifically does not echo the film's plot of a hypnotized president.
Writes Klein, "The authors are by no means arguing herein that President Obama has been brainwashed by anyone or is a sleeper agent for any international party."
"However, the main theme of The Manchurian Candidate's various incarnations – that of a powerful politician whose true past has been intentionally obscured, and who has become the vehicle for implementing a hidden radical agenda – absolutely fits with the theme of this work and with the facts that are carefully documented in these pages," Klein writes in the intro.
A suggestion to Klein: If you don't want people to think you're trying to paint Obama as a "Manchurian candidate" -- a perfectly reasonable and essentially accurate assumption, WND's protestations aside -- perhaps you shouldn't have named your book something very similar.
(And you should also explain why your WND boss, David Kupelian, wrote an article headlined "Yes, Barack Obama really is a Manchurian candidate.")
Meanwhile, Klein has yet to offer any substantive response to our detailed, substantive documentation (published at Media Matters) of false and misleading claims in his book.
If you want the ultimate example of how petty and cowardly Klein is, consider this: He has blocked me from following his Twitter account.
Klein will confront terrorists -- as he frequently promotes himself -- but he's afraid to confront me. Sad, isn't it?
P.S. Elliott is just as cowardly, refusing to post comments I've made on her blog, The Real Barack Obama. These two really are afraid of the truth.
