Topic: WorldNetDaily
At the end of 2011, WorldNetDaily's Les Kinsolving had a major freakout over the idea that Thomas Jefferson might have fathered a child with black slave Sally Hemings, declaring it "one of the most outrageous libels in American history" and an "unconscionable smear of the third president of our country and author of our Declaration of Independence."
Kinsolving returns to the subject in his Jan. 1 WND column, asserting that Jefferson's "very deep grief" at the death of his wife, "as well as his decision to remain a widower for the rest of his life, surely demonstrates the malicious foolishness of claims that the author of the Declaration of Independence and twice-elected president of the United States would ever have had sex with, and fathered any children with, a slave.
Kinsolving then takes issue with a New York Times op-ed on the subject, responding that "there is simply no genetic proof that Thomas Jefferson ever seduced or raped slaves." But the words "rape" and "seduce" appear nowhere in the op-ed.
Further, surely Kinsolving knows that definitive "genetic proof" is impossible given that the question is alleged liaisons that occurred 200 years ago. But there is an undeniable likelihood that Jefferson fathered at least one child with Hemings.
At the end of Kinsolving's column is a link to purchase David Barton's book "The Jefferson Lies" from WND's online store, despite the fact that the book has been withdrawn from sale by its publisher for apparent falsehoods. The WND store page on the book makes no mention of the controversy, nor does it explain why WND continues to sell a book its publisher does not consider fit for sale.
