Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah appeared to be rooting for the destruction of Washington in his Aug. 23 WorldNetDaily column, in the wake of the earthquake that hit the East Coast:
Look, this earthquake turned out to be a warning only, without loss of life or serious property damage. But there will be a bigger one coming, as everyone should understand.
Your life can change dramatically in the blink of an eye.
I don't know what to expect from this hurricane on its way toward the East Coast. It could be devastating for some or nothing at all.
Nevertheless, it's always a good time to get right with God.[...]
Washington, D.C., deserves more than the wallop it got today. It needs a much bigger shaking up than it got. And I have no doubts that it is coming – unless there is a real change of heart in the leadership of this country.
After all, if America doesn't face judgment soon, God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. And God doesn't offer apologies.
Then again, God could just be sending a sign to Farah to stop using his website to peddle lies, distortions and birtherism and to become an honest journalist. Farah's probably too arrogant in his faith to have considered that interpretation, though.
The following day, Farah asserted that ABC had "deliberately misquoted" him from his column:
When I say "deliberately misquoted," I don't mean a reporter for ABC News interviewed me about my column and mischaracterized what I said. What I mean is that a reporter for ABC News read the column and pulled words out of context to suggest I was saying things I was not saying.
Which, of course, is not "deliberately misquoting" at all; it's taking something out of context -- something WND does on a regular basis.
Anyway, back to Farah:
But here's where I have a problem: "Farah went on to warn that 'there will be a bigger one coming' because 'Washington, D.C., deserves more than the wallop it got today. It needs a much bigger shaking than it got.'"
You will notice the partial quote "there will be a bigger one coming." You will notice the linking word "because." But if you read my column, as I'm sure this ABC reporter did, you will notice that these ideas of a "bigger one coming" and "Washington needing a wallop" are nowhere close to each other in the piece. They are not related ideas. They were purposely and inappropriately linked by the ABC reporter to suggest I was talking about a bigger quake coming to Washington, D.C. I never said that. I said the city needs one. I said the city deserves one. But I never said one was coming.
Actually, he kinda did. Here's the full context of that statement:
Look, this earthquake turned out to be a warning only, without loss of life or serious property damage. But there will be a bigger one coming, as everyone should understand.
Farah is very much talking about a bigger earthquake coming. Given that the entire column is about warning people to get right with God or worse things will happen, it's entirely reasonable to conclude that Farah is talking about a bigger earthquake coming -- and entirely hypocritical for Farah to complain about being taken out of context when at no point in either column he establishes what the proper context is for his claim that there will be "a bigger one coming."
Farah whining continued:
I think it's also worth pointing out that I never attributed any of this activity to "D.C. politics," as both the story and the headline of the ABC report contend.
I did say there needed to be a change of heart in the leadership of this country. But that is something very different than "D.C. politics."
When you are talking about Washington deserving to get hit by a bigger earthquake, you are indeed talking about "D.C. politics."
If Farah doesn't want to be as misinterpreted as he claims he is, perhaps he should have written more clearly in the first place.
