Who Lives, Who Dies -- and Who's Telling the Truth Topic: WorldNetDaily
The latest issue of WorldNetDaily's Whistleblower magazine has the theme, based on the Terri Schiavo case, of "Who Lives, Who Dies?"
Among the articles in the magazine is "The real Terri Schiavo story" by Diana Lynne, an in-depth investigative report unveiling frightening contradictions, cruelty and conflicts of interest." But will that article be the version heavily biased against Terri's husband, Michael Schaivo, that originally appeared on WND in March, or will it be the somewhat less biased version edited after ConWebWatch wrote to WND to request a more balanced article?
The magazine also promises an article called "Schiavo-like woman speaks after 2? years." We assume it's the same one that WND depicted in a May 13 WND article. But this woman was in a non-conscious state for 2 1/2 years, not 15 like Schiavo, and nowhere in the story does it indicate that the woman was in a persistent vegetative state, which the vast majority of experts not parading false Nobel nomination credentials agreed Schiavo was in. WND offers no evidence that the woman is "Schiavo-like" at all.
The article also states that the woman "received what Schiavo did not -- at least in the last several years -- therapy." This is deliberately misleading because it implies that Schiavo never received meaningful therapy. In fact, Schiavo did receive therapy for the first several years after the 1990 incident that put her in a vegetative state.
New Article: WorldNetDaily's Persecution Complex Topic: WorldNetDaily
In the Out There section: Earlier this year, WorldNetDaily was all over allegations that the killing of a Coptic Christian family in New Jersey was the work of Islamic terrorists upset with the family's evangelism. But when the killings ended up being linked to a robbery, not Islam, WND dropped the article like a stone, even though there was plenty to report since the case -- and the allegations of Islamic links -- excaberated tension between Christians and Muslims. Read more.
In the process of moving her political persona to the center, I suspect that Hillary Clinton has sufficiently demonstrated to many important people who have been skeptical of her in the past that she is willing to temper her national socialist instincts in favor of continuing George W. Bush's international program.
Remember when calling politicians Nazis was a bad thing?
Non-disclosure Topic: WorldNetDaily
A May 28 WorldNetDaily story on the "Iran Freedom Walk" once again failed to note that 1) WND editor Joseph Farah is on the board of the Iran Freedom Foundation, which organized the walk; and 2) Jerome Corsi, leader of the walk and longtime bigot, is a WorldNetDaily columnist and author.
So Not Over It Dept. Topic: WorldNetDaily
Among the many things the ConWeb has not gotten over is John Kerry. A May 29 WorldNetDaily article demonstrates it's still OK to bash him. The story's actually about Jane Fonda allegedly hooking up again with ex-hubby Tom Hayden (which sounds like it belongs more on "Entertainment Tonight" than WND), but it dredges up Fonda's and Hayden's anti-Vietnam War past and throws in a gratuitous slam at Kerry:
She told British reporters in 1971 that U.S. atrocities included "applying electrodes to prisoners' genitals, mass rapes, slicing off of body parts, scalping, skinning alive, and leaving 'heat tablets' around which burned the insides of children who ate them."
Maybe she heard that from John Kerry. Or maybe he heard it from her.
The allusion, of course, is to the Winter Soldier hearings, which was partly funded by Fonda and included Kerry as a questioner, and Kerry's subsequent statement about atrocities committted by U.S. soldiers in a 1971 Senate committee hearing. Despite the ConWeb's claims otherwise, and despite what is hinted at in this story, the allegations raised in Winter Soldier have never been discredited as a whole.
Praying for Fairness Topic: WorldNetDaily
Brannon Howse, president and founder of Worldview Weekend -- which appears to be a series of seminars across the country purportedly teaching attendees how to "Think and Live Like A Christian" -- wrote a liberal-media-bashing May 28 column for WorldNetDaily. While denouncing Laura Berman, "a liberal Detroit News columnist," for allegedly getting information about him wrong, Howse wrote that Berman noted that "those who lead the National Day of Prayer Campaign also'offer a catchy prayer for the media: 'Pray for journalists to be fair and accurate.''" Howse adds:
I'll join anyone in praying that we have fair and accurate journalists. However, I'm guessing the answer will not likely be a wholesale changing of liberal journalistic hearts but a changing of where people get their information. Ever heard of Fox News? WorldNetDaily? Rush Limbaugh? Michael Reagan? Sean Hannity?
Yes, we have. And we know that if anything, they are even less "fair and accurate" than those being prayed for. Plug those names into the search engines of ConWebWatch or Media Matters for the full details.
Is Howse praying for Fox News, WND, Rush, et al., to be "fair and accurate" as well? Because it's not working.
New Article: Falsely Asserting a False Assertion Topic: Media Research Center
The MRC piles on qualifications to try to turn a truth into a lie. Plus: Is sister site CNSNews.com resorting to Republican talking points on judicial nominations? And CNS won't point out judicial activism when a conservative does it. Read it.
Not Taking It Well Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax's Phil Brennan is having a spot of trouble with the concept of political compromise. In a May 24 column on the judicial nominee deal made by Senate centrists, peppered with terms like "cancer" and "treason," Brennan had nothing nice to say about the seven Republicans who helped broker the deal, calling them
seven Republicans who, if they had a shred of decency, would adopt the Judas solution: Find a tree, throw a rope over the lowest limb, put the noose around their necks and swing to and fro in the breeze.
New Article: A Lesson Unlearned Topic: The ConWeb
New Update compilation on the main site. Among the subjects covered: WorldNetDaily's editor could stand to read an article by one of his columnists, NewsMax and WND cozy up to another convicted criminal, WND can't keep its facts straight within the same story, and more. Read it.
Preview: Wrong But Revealing Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax put a headline on an Associated Press article that manages not only be factually inaccurate bur reveals a little something about the current fight over judges.
The headline NewsMax put on the May 23 story reads: "Mass. Justice: Judicial Activism Should Be 'Cherished'." But that's not what Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said. From the story:
"I worry when people of influence use vague, loaded terms like 'judicial activist' to skew public debate or to intimidate judges," Marshall said. "I worry when judicial independence is seen as a problem to be solved and not a value to be cherished."
Is NewsMax really equating "judicial independence" with "judicial activism"?
Look for this and more in an "Update" coming Wednesday on the main site.
New Article: Bashing Judges, Then and Now Topic: Free Congress Foundation
Conservative rhetoric against Clinton's judicial nominees clashes with conservative rhetoric in favor of Bush's judicial nominees. Read it.