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Tuesday, December 1, 2015
WND Peddles False Trangender-Leftist Narrative on Planned Parenthood Shooter
Topic: WorldNetDaily

CNSNews.com isn't the only part of the ConWeb trying to deflect coverage of the shooting at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado away from the anti-abortion aspect of the story.

WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh has already complained about folks on Twitter (liberal folks, that is, but that's understood) jumping to conclusions about the shooter before all the facts are in. Then, oddly, WND does exactly that in an article published not too long after that one:

Throughout Friday’s six-hour armed standoff at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility that left three dead and nine wounded, social media feasted on the fact the gunman was described as a white man, as WND reported.

It didn’t take long for that meager piece of information to morph into “Christian,” “pro-lifer,” and “Republican,” even though authorities had not then — or even yet — released any information about the gunman’s motive.

So far, Robert Lewis Dear, 57, of Hartsel, Colorado, is disappointing those who tried to stereotype pro-life Christians as terrorists.

No evidence of Dear’s involvement or even opinion on the issue of abortion or religion has surfaced. Pro-life groups denounced the shooting and indicated they had neither interacted with or heard of him.

As it turns out, Dear’s not even a Republican — he’s registered to vote in Park County, Colorado, as unaffiliated. And as a female!

Voter registration information posted by Gateway Pundit gives Dear’s address and notes, “Her voting status is: Active. She is unaffiliated.”

The fact that WND is getting its information from the Dumbest Man on the Internet is a major clue to its veracity. Needless to say, WND's suggestion that Dear is a transgender leftist is not true at all.

First, the mugshot of Dear (above, also in the WND article). Does he look transgender? The voter information form identifying Dear as a female is most obviously explained as a typo. And he actually more closely fits the profile of the ideal WND reader: Buzzfeed quoted a neighbor of Dear describing how Dear was "handing us anti-Obama pamphlets” and saying that “Obama was ruining the country and needed to be impeached.”

Nevertheless, the counterfactual portrayal of Dear has made it all the way to Ted Cruz. And WND is totally cool with that; a WND headline on a story stolen from CNN reads, "CNN's panties in bunch over 'transgendered' shooter." Meanwhile, WND's original story remains uncorrected.

So, mission accomplished, WND -- once again putting an untruthful narrative ahead of the facts. And, hilariously, mere hours after complaining others were doing the same thing.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:50 AM EST

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