Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi has a dearth of birther stuff -- his obsession helped make his employer, WorldNetDaily, the laughingstock it is -- so he's trying to branch out into new conspiracies, which also includes whitewashing the fringe views of right-wingers.
In a Feb. 24 WND article, Corsi touts Ken Timmerman -- whose questionable attacks against Chuck Hagel Corsi uncritically repeats -- as a "former Nobel Peace Prize nominee." Corsi adds: "Timmerman began in the Foundation for Democracy in Iran in 1995 as part of his ongoing support for freedom in the Islamic country and in 2006 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Sweden’s former Deputy Prime Minister Per Ahlmark for playing a major role in exposing Iran’s plans to develop nuclear weapons."
Who is Per Ahlmark? He's a pro-Israel right-winger who has been approvingly quoted by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, so that makes him immediately suspect.
It's also unclear what standing Ahlmark had to legitimately submit such a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Here are the people who can nominate a Peace Prize candidate:
• Members of national assemblies and governments of states
• Members of international courts
• University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
• Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)
• Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee
According to his Wikipedia bio, Ahlmark has not been in government since 1978, he was never a university professor, and he appears not to have head a "peace research institute" or been associated with the Nobel Committee.
Further, Timmerman's veracity is dubious at best. We've detailed how he served as a mouthpiece for former Rep. Curt Weldon's conspiracy theories about national security, failing to fact-check his claims as he was regurgitating them. Timmerman also promoted the bogus claim that the closings of certain GM and Chrysler dealers while the manufacturers were in bankruptcy were motivated by how much money the dealers gave to Republicans. On top of that, Timmerman promoted birtherism, essentially declaring that the Obama campaign's failure to respond to a birther lawsuit means that everything outlined in the lawsuit is true.
That last item, of course, may be the big reason Corsi likes Timmerman so much.
