Massie Falsely Attacks FBI Documents Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist (and Slantie winner) Mychal Massie falsely casted doubt on documents upon which Sen. Richard Durbin based his claim (for which he has since apologized) that U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was akin to Nazis and other brutal dictators.
Ini his June 28 column, Massie claimed Durbin's statement was "based on an unsubstantiated – and as yet unseen – FBI report." He later claimed Durbin cited an "alleged FBI report."
In fact, the documents cited by Durbin -- released by the federal government through a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union -- are publicly available. Only Massie has questioned their authenticity.
In his June 21 WND column, Massie discounted the claim Durbin cited of a prisoner who had torn his hair out after suffering alleged abusive treatment: "Prisoners who are freezing or suffering from heat exposure do not pull their hair out, but unstable psychotics do."
Stuff WND Won't Report Topic: WorldNetDaily
Don't look for WorldNetDaily to tell its readers the following anytime soon:
-- Via Josh Marshall, we learn that Florida Rep. Katherine Harris, WND Books' first author and beneficiary of sycophantic WorldNetDaily "news" coverage, may get pulled into a burgeoning scandal involving a defense contractor called MZM, exposed by Marshall as being very, very generous to another congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Not only did Harris receive $32,000 in campaign contributions from the company and its employees, she has a history of receiving tainted contributions.
-- A June 26 column by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dennis Roddy notes that Bijan Sepasy, president of the Iranian Freedom Foundation founded by WND columnist and author Jerome Corsi (WND editor Joseph Farah is a board member), used to be a lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose overthrow Corsi is trying to agitate. WND's only reference to Sepasy ignores his lobbying work and describes him only as "an Iranian-American born in Iran and naturalized as a U.S citizen."
Roddy quotes conservative author Kenneth Timmerman, who questioned the effectiveness of Corsi's group between Sepasy's background and Corsi's intrusion:
"Jerry Corsi is unknown to the Iranian community and the pro-democracy movement in Iran," Timmerman said. "Until he published a book on Iran. That has made some people suspicious of his motives."
Roddy also quotes another Iranian democracy activist (who is not only Iranian and not allied with former employees of the Islamic government, her father is currently imprisoned in Iran) as saying that while Corsi tries to dominate the debate in an already fracuous Iran democracy movement, "none of us ever gets heard. That's what freaks me out. No one's willing to speak to us. But they bring someone like Jerry Corsi? When did Jerry Corsi end up knowing more than I do?"
EDIT: Fixed Cunningham's name; it's Randy, not Randall.
LeBoutillier Lies About Podhoretz Topic: Newsmax
In a June 27 NewsMax column chastising conservatives for not supporting Edward Klein's anti-Hillary book, John LeBoutillier selectively quotes comments by one conservative to advance the false claim that he didn't read Klein's book.
From LeBoutillier's column:
Another GOP strategist, said he "wanted to take a shower" after reading the book. He obviously did not read a page of it because, if anything, the book repeats much of what has previously been published elsewhere.
In fact, this unnamed "GOP strategist" is New York Post columnist John Podhoretz who made it clear in his June 22 column that he did indeed read the book. The full quote:
This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word.
New Article: Les Loves Lott Topic: WorldNetDaily
The model for Jeff Gannon, WorldNetDaily's Les Kinsolving, uses his White House briefing questions to push a revisionist history of Trent Lott's controversial remarks. Read more.
Keeping Quiet Topic: Newsmax
In neither its June 26 "Insider Report" nor a June 26 story by Carl Limbacher alleging that the alleged cancellations of appearances by Edward Klein on some TV shows "may be an unprecedented act of media censorship" does NewsMax note two important things regarding Klein's book "The Truth About Hillary":
-- The June 24 interview Klein did with Al Franken and Joe Conason in which Klein is cracked open like a soft peanut on said errors.
Limbacher's article also fails to correct an error by Klein collaborator-slash-Hillary-hater John LeBoutiller, who called the claim in the book that Bill Clinton raped Hillary "Hillary's spin, an exaggeration of items of the book to make it look extreme." In fact, it was Matt Drudge, no Hillary lover, who advanced that accusation. (LeBoutillier's role in the book is not disclosed in Limbacher's article, either.)
The Rest of the Story Topic: WorldNetDaily Bartholomew tells what WorldNetDaily doesn't in its June 18 article on an anti-gay-rights rally in Poland. A group called the League of Polish Families led the rally; turns out it has ties to violence against gays and hosted a American who lobbied the Polish parliament for $10 million to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuality, not to mention an anti-Semite in the family tree.
Tearing Down the Wall Topic: WorldNetDaily
More evidence that a laudatory "news" article is a part of the package when you advertise on WorldNetDaily:
A June 23 WND article by Ron Strom paints a sympathetic picture of Voice of the Martyrs, an organization whose goals are "aiding Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith, fulfilling the Great Commission to spread the Gospel, and educating the world about the ongoing persecution of Christians."
Voice of the Martyrs and WND to have complementary agendas. Voice of the Martyrs is a regular supplier of articles to WND on alleged persecution of Christians (such as this June 22 article), and as ConWebWatch has noted, Christian persecution is the only kind of persecution WND cares about.
But Voice of the Martyrs is also an advertiser on both WND and Joseph Farah's radio show. And not only does WND have a history of of not properly disclosing its personal and financial interests in the topics it covers (Jerome Corsi, Jesse Lee Peterson), it has a history of presenting promotions for advertisers as news articles (Jack Wheeler, Move America Forward).
It's time for WorldNetDaily to come clean with its readers about this breach of the time-honored wall between news and advertising: Is softball news coverage what advertisers pay for when they place an ad at WND?
WorldNetDaily's Idea of Balance Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 24 WorldNetDaily article by Ron Strom is a 49-paragraph opus about a man who is challenging his dismissal from an insurance company allegedly for writing an article critical of same-sex marriage that was published on several conservative web sites.
Of those 49 paragraphs, only four detail the response of the insurance company -- which hadn't even been served with the man's lawsuit challenging his dismissal -- and they don't show up until paragraph 40.
When In Doubt, Bash a Clinton Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax's chosen method of distracting from Bush adviser Karl Rove's claim that Democrats are soft on terror was a June 23 atricle that dragged out a post-9/11 speech by Bill Clinton that, according to the headline, "proves Rove right."
In the speech, Clinton noted the Crusades, slavery and the treatement of native Americans as examples of how "the killing of noncombatants for economic, political, or religious reasons has a very long history." NewsMax selectively cites from Clinton's speech, then concludes: "By the time Mr. Clinton was done with his terrorism history lesson, it was clear America got what it deserved on 9/11."
Of course, that's not what Clinton said at all. As the actual speech shows (and as ConWebWatch noted at the time), Clinton assigned no blame on the U.S. for 9/11; he also said "I support the efforts of President Bush, the national security team, and our allies in fighting the current terrorist threat" and that "no terrorist campaign has ever succeeded, and this one won't if you don't give it permission."
Even the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto defended Clinton, calling a Washington Times attack on the speech that took a NewsMax-like taken-out-of-context approach "unfair" and calling the speech incoherent ... but it's far from seditious."
Totally Manchurian Topic: The ConWeb
Media Matters notes the following quote from Jay Severin about Hillary Clinton:
She's absolutely sociopathic. And she has a 50-50 chance of being the next president of the United States, save McCain. She's the Manchurian candidate.
ConWeb Balance Topic: CNSNews.com
Breakdown of a June 22 CNSNews.com article by Melanie Hunter on the House's passage of an anti-blag-burning constitutional amendment:
New Article: Money Over Facts Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax doesn't want to tell you the truth about "The Truth About Hillary"; it's too busy trying to sell you the book. Read more.
For a century, reveals "Hoodwinked," so-called "progressive" writers and filmmakers – multiculturalists like [Ward] Churchill and Alex Haley, sexual revolutionaries like Kinsey and Margaret Mead, quasi-Marxists like Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, and radical naturalists like Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson – have been using falsehood and fraud as primary weapons in their assault on traditional American culture.
Unlikely to appear as an example in Cashill's book is Cashill himself, though he has perpetrated his own share of hookdwinking. As ConWebWatch has documented, Cashill wrote a seven-part opus (what is it with Cashill and multi-part articles?) purportedly demonstrating that anti-abortion extremist James Kopp was innocent of killing abortion doctor Barnett Slepian -- a few months before Kopp confessed to killing Slepian.
Priorities Topic: WorldNetDaily
Number of original WorldNetDaily "news" stories that mention the Downing Street Memo": 2
(A June 19 article attempting to debunk it, and a June 16 article on an online MSNBC poll noting that 94 percent of respondents agreed that President Bush misled the nation into war.)
Number of original WorldNetDaily "news" stories that mention the new TV ad for Carl's Jr. featuring Paris Hilton: 7
(The latest is a June 20 article on a parody ad; WND has made a point of noting that the ad is "blasted by some as soft-core pornography.")
