Topic: WorldNetDaily
For years, WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi has been peddling the falsehood that Barack Obama entangled himself in Kenya's presidential election during a visit to that country in 2006. He does so again in a Nov. 19 WND article:
WND reported the existence of a strategy document developed by Obama and Odinga during Obama's 2006 senatorial "fact-finding" trip to Kenya. It called for Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, or ODM, to exploit tribal tensions should Odinga lose the 2007 presidential challenge, as a means of keeping alive his aspiration to be Kenyan head of state.
During the 2006 trip, Obama campaigned so openly for Odinga that Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua went on Kenyan television on behalf of Kenyan President Kibaki to object that Obama was meddling inappropriately in Kenyan politics, as WND reported.
As we documented over at Media Matters, PolitiFact reported that while Obama met with Odinga during his trip, Obama did not campaign for him and took no side in that election. Corsi has never challenged these findings, so his continued insistence that Obama did campaign for Odinga can only mean that he's lying.
Corsi also wrote:
WND further reported documentary evidence that Obama contributed nearly $1 million to the ODM in support of Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign, recorded in an ODM campaign accounting document that listed the contribution as coming from "Friends of Senator BO."
As we pointed out in 2008, when Corsi returned from Kenya with this "documentary evidence," the document he's relying on to make this claim is most likely a fake. Further, as Snopes notes, there was no legal entity called "Friends of Barack Obama" in existence at the time Corsi claims.
Sadly, Corsi's lies are infecting other WND reporters. Michael Carl channels Corsi in another Dec. 19 article:
The fire bombing was part of post election violence following President Mwai Kbeki's defeat of President Barack Obama's Kenyan friend, Raila Odinga, in the race for the nation's presidency.
WND previously reported Obama traveled to Kenya to campaign for Odinga.
Obama appeared with Odinga at campaign stops and gave speeches accusing the sitting Kenyan president of being corrupt and oppressive.
Odinga lost, despite attracting Muslim votes through a secret Memorandum of Understanding with Muslim Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chief of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.
Carl is simply regurgitating a lie. He offers no evidence to back up his assertions, not even links to other WND articles. There's also nothing to back up Carl's assertion that Odinga is Obama's "friend."
This is the state of reporting at WorldNetDaily -- lies are passed off as truth, and even their own reporters are too lazy to uncover the facts.
