Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's columnists unsurprisingly joined its so-called reporters in praising Mike Johnson's selection as House speaker and pretending there's nothing abnormal about his right-wing extremism. Jerry Newcombe wrote in his Oct. 31 column:
After Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson was voted in as the Speaker of the House, many on the Left threw a fit about him. He has been described as:
- an “extremist” by Democratic Congresswoman AOC of New York City.
- a “Christian Nationalist” by a Christian professor (John Fea, Messiah College).
- a "staunch conservative on issues like abortion and government spending" by journalist Garrett Haake of NBC News and MSNBC.
And on and on it goes.
But the reality is that Mike Johnson stands in a long tradition of American leaders who looked to God and the Bible for guidance. If you know history, you know that great Americans like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were regular readers of the Scriptures.
Today’s secularists have so successfully cut us off from our Judeo-Christian traditions that someone like Mike Johnson is supposedly an interloper in an otherwise blissfully secular America, to paraphrase the late D. James Kennedy.
[...]
If Mike Johnson is an “extremist” and a “Christian Nationalist,” then so were George Washington, John Adams, and most of America’s Founders. And I’ll gladly take more of that rather than less of it.
Patrice Lewis similarly defended Johnson in her Nov. 3 column:
Like most of America, I knew very little about Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson until he was elected speaker of the House. Now, of course, every aspect of his life and past is being examined under a microscope. The mainstream media – which has been engaging in a great deal of pearl-clutching over his conservative Christian values – is desperately trying to uncover some dirt on the man so they can brand him as a hypocrite or a danger or a criminal. So far they're not coming up with much. As a relative newcomer (he was first elected to Congress in 2016), maybe he simply hasn't been around long enough to tick off important people.
On the surface, Johnson seems to be a decent guy. He and his wife have been married almost 25 years and have four kids. No personal scandals are associated with his name (beyond the "scandal" of being a conservative Christian, of course).
Contrary to the mainstream media complaints (MSNBC calls him a "Christian nationalist" who wants to end abortion rights and gay marriage; The Guardian accuses him of being an election denier, climate skeptic and anti-abortion), Johnson's primary political focus appears not to be cultural issues so much as the national debt and international saber-rattling. Whatever.
So, in the absence of anything more substantial, the mainstream media are doing what they do best: Manufacturing scandal out of nothing. To this end, they came up with the most shocking and disturbing information they could about Speaker Johnson. After thoroughly scouring his personal and financial histories, Democrats have launched a full-scale assault on Johnson for an unforgivable reality: He isn't rich.
WND also published a Nov. 6 Real Clear Wire column praising Johnson: "The election of Mike Johnson as speaker is nothing short of a miracle – not just because he is a lesser-known congressman with little leadership experience, but because he is a man of faith who promises to govern based on biblical principles. It’s almost like he wants to make America great again, following the lead not of Donald Trump, but of George Washington."
