Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah spends his July 6 WorldNetDaily column dissing Jonathan Krohn, the teenager who has rejected the conservativsm he spouted at 13 at CPAC and is now a liberal-leaning college student-to-be:
According to the article, “Jonathan Krohn took the political world by storm at 2009′s Conservative Political Action Conference when, at just 13 years old, he delivered an impromptu rallying cry for conservatism that became a viral hit and had some pegging him as a future star of the Republican Party.”
Somehow I missed this memorable speech – or forgot it. He also wrote a book called “Defining Conservatism,” which is currently ranked 2,338,880 at Amazon – and not rising.
What is Krohn talking about today? The 17-year-old’s 15 minutes of fame is based on what he said and wrote when he was a 13-year-old conservative.
But wait -- didn't Farah and WND have their own teenager spouting conservative platitudes at one point? Yes, they did.
Kyle Williams started his WND column in 2001 at the tender age of 12. As we detailed at the time, Williams wasn't offering anything terribly original, just spouting right-wing talking points.Farah wasn't mocking his age or purported wisdom then, as this introductory article shows:
Williams’ column is called “Veritas,” and he focuses like a laser beam on the deeper truths he has discovered in his young life.
“Home-schooled in rural Oklahoma, Williams gives us faith that America really does have a bright future,” said Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily. “I have every confidence that Williams’ writing will be as inspirational to WorldNetDaily readers – young and old – as I found them.”
Farah praised him further in a 2003 column:
He’s no one-trick-pony, this Kyle Williams. Week after week, he has turned in very professional work. He meets his deadlines. He writes provocatively and persuasively. I find him to be inspirational – redefining our expectations of just what young teen-agers are capable of doing.
If you aren’t already checking out his column on Saturdays in WorldNetDaily, I really urge you to do so. And drop young Kyle an encouraging e-mail if you agree with me he’s something special.
But that wasn't all:
Shortly after I founded a new book-publishing partnership with Thomas Nelson Publishers – WND Books – I twisted a few arms and secured the young Mr. Williams his first book contract.
Now, in addition to being America’s youngest weekly pundit, he may also be America’s youngest non-fiction author. Kyle Williams’ “Seen and Heard” is out. I want to ask you to consider buying the book by this gifted young prodigy and perhaps giving it to your son, daughter or grandchild to help raise their own expectations about what they can achieve if they simply put their mind to it.
That's right -- like Krohn, Williams wrote a book. According to Amazon, it's ranked right now at 4,256,981, a couple million titles below Krohn's book.
WND stopped carrying Williams' column in 2005, and he pretty much disappeared from the scene. The most recent information we could find on him was a series of columns he wrote in 2009 for the student newspaper at the University of Oklahoma, where he was "a history and classics sophomore" at the time. His ideology appears not to have changed much -- some of those columns served up conservative viewpoints.
Since being homeschooled was one of his original calling cards and he once bragged about giving up on public schooling after a single semester, Williams' going to a public university is presumably a huge disappointment to Farah, who sends his own kids to the far-right Christian, homeschooler-friendly Patrick Henry College.
Did Farah forget about the right-wing teen phenom he nurtured and published, or is Williams' going to a public school too much for the guy? Either way, mocking Krohn for being a conservative teen star who changed his views is rather petty -- and, given the existence of Kyle Williams, more than a little hypocritical.
