Topic: WorldNetDaily
As if its shoddy record of generating fake news wasn't enough, WorldNetDaily is bringing in fake news from outside. Like this Oct. 30 article carrying the byline of Ed Klein:
Despite a couple of appearances on behalf of Democratic candidates, Barack Obama has adamantly refused to heed the pleas of his party to lead the “resistance” against Donald Trump and instead spends much of his time at his home just blocks from the White House playing video games, chatting on the phone with celebrity pals, smoking marijuana and popping cannabis-infused gummy bears.
This startling description of Obama’s post-presidential life is based on interviews with a close Obama family friend who has been a sleepover guest at the Obama home in the Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., and who has smoked pot with the former president.
“Barack sees himself as sort of a hipster ex-president, a cool guy,” said the friend who was interviewed for my new book, “All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump.” “He wants to go back in terms of fashion and style to his pot-smoking days as a member of the Choom Gang at the Punahou School in Hawaii.”
In his 1995 memoir “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote about smoking pot “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” “in the dorm room of some brother” and “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”
Now, according to the family friend, the former president “smokes weed once or twice a week. He stopped while he was president, because he knew it impaired his judgment, but he feels he can get away with it now. It’s legal in D.C., so why not?
Klein does not name his purported "close Obama family friend" -- let alone explain why any Obama associate would ever talk to him -- nor does he give any indication he has bothered to corroborate the claim.
That's because this is Ed Klein we're talking about here: a right-wing fabulist known for making up stuff about Hillary Clinton and rarely, if ever, naming his sources. Even Klein's fellow conservatives question his credibility, which explains why he had to go to WND -- which has no credibility to speak of -- to promote his new book.
The bio at the end of Klein's article describes him as "the former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine," but thatwas 30 years ago, and he left after it was revealed an article published during his tenure was fabricated. Sense a pattern here?
If WND was ever genuinely interested in addressing its credibility issues, hooking up with Ed Klein is not the way to go about it.
