Topic: WorldNetDaily
The headline of a Dec. 2 WorldNetDaily article by Brian Fitzpatrick declares: "WND accused of 'violent rhetoric'; Southern Poverty Law Center offers no evidence to back the claim."
From the SPLC article to which WND links (emphasis added):
A month after the Valley Forge conclave, a different group of Patriots met in a far different setting. The three-day “Taking America Back” conference at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami was organized by the right-wing WorldNetDaily (WND) and its co-founder, Joseph Farah. The numerous speakers and other conference attendees didn’t voice the violent rhetoric of those at the Valley Forge event, but their fury and disgust with the Obama Administration and the general direction of the country were no less fervent.
Fitzpatrick doesn't make that direct claim in his article; instead, he complains that the SPLC "has attempted to discredit WND by associating the organization with a group that indulged in a negligible amount of over-the-top rhetoric." He went on to complain that the SPLC "was able to point at only three speakers who arguably advocated violence" at the event it focused on -- a "Freedom Action National Conference" by the right-wing American Policy Center -- "and none of these issued any specific calls to arms."
Fitzpatrick then huffed that "SPLC proceeded to associate WND with APC, which it had just accused of using violent rhetoric." But WND has demonstrated a sympathy toward the APC's agenda -- the name of APC director Tom DeWeese comes up 37 times in WND's archive, most recently in September when DeWeese declared that focusing the federal government on "livable communities" is a "socialist trap."
Meanwhile, the outrage by WND's Joseph Farah and the Western Journalism Center's Floyd Brown at being linked to violence is disingenuous at best. Just a few weeks ago, we detailed how WND's Molotov Mitchell appeared to be advocating violence against gays. And in May, WND columnist Robert Ringer certainly seemed to be advocating "insurrection" against the "criminal government in Washington," and insurrections are not known for being peaceful.
