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Friday, August 5, 2005
Condemnation
Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Aug. 5 WorldNetDaily article by Art Moore notes the Council on American-Islamic Relations' condemnation of the killing of four people and wounding of a dozen others on a bus in Gaza by AWOL Israeli soldier Eden Natan Zada -- then quotes two "terrorism experts"-cum-bloggers, Robert Spencer (last seen around these parts trying to whip up anti-Islamic sentiment in the death of a family that turned out not to be Islamic-related at all) and Steven Emerson, attacking CAIR for not sufficiently condemning Islamic terrorism to their satisfaction.

A quick check of these so-called experts' blogs, Jihad Watch and Counterterrorism Blog, shows that neither Spencer nor Emerson have condemned the Zada killings.

Then again, neither has WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:47 PM EDT
CNS Spin-O-Rama
Topic: CNSNews.com
Today's CNSNews.com "Fact-O-Rama" is a sidebar to a surprisingly balanced article by Jeff Johnson on financial improprieties at a New York City Boys & Girls Club that have a link to Air America Radio. Unlike the article, the Fact-O-Rama manages to be quite misleading.

The headline is "Left's Silence on Air America Scandal." The front-page promo claims that the B&G Club scandal "has received almost no attention in the establishment media." Of course, "the left" and "the establishment media" are not the same thing, no matter how much CNS' overlords at the Media Research Center think they are.

But the actual "Fact-O-Rama" has an even greater disconnect between headline and copy. It has the same "Left's Silence on Air America Scandal," but instead, it discusses the ownership of Air America's New York affiliate, citing a only a "CNSNews.com Commentary" as a source; more precisely, the source is an Aug. 3 column by Michelle Malkin. Whoever copied-and-pasted the "Fact-O-Rama" out of Malkin's column gives some infor on someone named "Jackson" but failed to give the guy's first name. Presumably, it's Jesse.

The article says nothing about anybody's silence.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:36 PM EDT
WND Perpetuates Killer As Victim
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Another Aug. 4 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein portrays Eden Natan Zada, the AWOL Israeli soldier who shot and killed four people and wounded a dozen others on a bus, then later killed by a mob responding to the deaths, as a victim of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

While Klein doesn't claim in that that Zada was "murdered" by the mob as he did in an earlier Aug. 4 article (a designation he did not apply to the four people Zada killed, as ConWebBlog noted), he does state that Zada "was killed when he was assaulted by a mob of angry Arab bystanders and witnesses."

But Klein continues the lionization of Zada as a victim of Gaza withdrawal, using the following quotes:

-- "Had he not been enlisted, had they not forced him to be scheduled to uproot Jews, there wouldn't be any deaths."

-- "[Eden] was a quiet kid. Withdrawn. But very nice. We certainly were in shock when we heard what happened. But when [the IDF] made him serve and then sent him to jail for refusing, something in him changed."

-- Zada was "a humble and very shy Jew. The disengagement really broke him."

A third Aug. 4 WND article by Klein repeats the quote, from a purported friend fo Zada's, that "Had he not been enlisted, had they not forced him to be scheduled to uproot Jews, there wouldn't be any deaths." But not until the very last paragraph does Klein quote someone -- for the first time anywhere in the three stories he wrote Aug. 4 on the incident -- as noting that Zada "took the lives of innocent people."

Posted by Terry K. at 3:31 PM EDT
NewsMax, True to Form
Topic: Newsmax
Once again demonstrating that there is apparently no conservative misdeed NewsMax will not try to minimize by claiming that a Clinton did it worse, an Aug. 5 NewsMax article compares Robert Novak's profanity-laced departure from a live CNN interview with something Bill Clinton did.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:42 PM EDT
New Article: Joseph Farah's Current Bitterness
Topic: WorldNetDaily
A new exhibit in the Out There section: The WorldNetDaily editor seems unusually bitter about Al Gore's new TV channel. It must be that defamation lawsuit filed against WND by a Gore fund-raiser. But why won't Farah give us the full story on that lawsuit? Read more.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:37 AM EDT
Thursday, August 4, 2005
WND Lead of the Day
Topic: WorldNetDaily
From an Aug. 4 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein:

A mob of Palestinians tonight murdered a Jewish Israeli man in a police uniform after he opened fire on a bus and killed four Arabs, allegedly in protest of the Gaza withdrawal plan.

Klein does not describe the four victims the man killed anywhere else in his article as being "murdered," just the killer himself. In fact, he quotes several people calling the man, an AWOL Israeli soldier named Eden Natan Zada, as a victim of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

A guy who shot four people to death is a victim? Hey, it's keeping with WND's theme of the day, in which Israelis are apparently not to blame for criminal behavior (a strange stance given that WND is normally a law-and-order kind of website). WND also serves up another sympathetic article by Klein on convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, whose release WND has previously agitated for.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:19 PM EDT
What WND Doesn't Cover
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's front page currently features an outside link to an article on a raid of property belonging to a Democratic congressman. We don't recall seeing even an outside link at WND to a similar raid on the house and yacht of Repubican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

But you knew that already.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:58 PM EDT
Farah Hangs With FrontPageMag
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah did an Aug. 2 interview with FrontPageMag.com. The interview with FrontPage managing editor Jamie Glazov is essentially a fluff piece; FrontPageMag's two modes are either fluffing conservatives (the treatment Farah gets) or attacking people and organizations that don't agree with it. As ConWebWatch has noted, a number of the claims Farah is pushing come from a guy trying to sell a book, while others come from a discredited source who claims to be a "former Israeli counterterrorism intelligence officer."

The main focus in this interview is the claim promoted at WND and sister site G2 Bulletin that Osama bin Laden has nuclear weapons and plans to detonate them in the U.S. in what is being called the "American Hiroshima" plan.

One thing Farah plays up is the use of significant dates, noting in particular Aug. 6, the date of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. Farah adds: "No year has been set, but it is worth noting that this Aug. 6th is the 60th anniversary of that attack." Also worth noting (though Farah apparently doesn't think so) is that Aug. 6 falls on a Saturday this year, minimizing the amount of disruption and carnage (and thus attention) that can be caused since nobody will be commuting to work that day. An Aug. 2 WND article does not this, but adds: "Others point out that Aug. 6 arrives in Japan while it is still Aug. 5 in the U.S. Does that raise the threat level this Friday?"

Farah makes the following interesting statement: "I have had what I consider to be credible sourcing on 95 percent of this for quite awhile." That means 5 percent of what he claims is not credibly sources; perhaps Farah will tell us sometime what those claims are.

Farah also slips into conspiracy-mongering, claiming that illegal immigration in the U.S. is part of a plan: "There is a master plan for global governance being plotted in meetings of groups like the Council on Foreign Relations."

And if you need any more evidence of the fluff job this is intended to be, check out Glazov's parting words: "Mr. Farah, it was a pleasure to have you here with us today. Thank you for coming to share this vital and traumatizing information. We won’t blame the messenger. Take care my friend."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:39 PM EDT
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Blaming the Victim
Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Aug. 3 WorldNetDaily column by Jill Stanek plays blame-the-victim in criticizing the National Organization for Women's highlighting of individual cases of women who died as the result of illegal abortions. In the case of one woman NOW cites, Becky Bell, Stanek writes:

It turned out Becky had been promiscuous since age 15 and was a known drug user. Her parents placed her in drug rehab earlier in 1988 for several weeks. The weekend before Becky died, she was, according to the coroner's report, "reportedly at a party where various drugs were being used [cocaine, 'speed,' and LSD] ... and later claimed that someone had put 'speed' in her drink."

Stanek adds: "And what about the faces of death due to legal abortions? There are four timely faces NOW could showcase – four who have died just since 2003 from legal RU-486 abortions." As ConWebWatch has noted, the number of deaths allegedly linked to RU-486 is much smaller than the number attributed to liver failure induced by taking Tylenol, as well as smaller than the number of men killed by taking Viagra. But we don't see Stanek rallying the troops to take Tylenol or Viagra off the market.

And somehow, we suspect Stanek won't be painting the purported victims of RU-486 as sluts and druggies like Becky Bell. (Not that we have any knowledge of that.)

Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 PM EDT
Tuesday, August 2, 2005
What CNS Won't Tell You
Topic: CNSNews.com
An Aug. 2 CNSNews.com article by Melanie Hunter touts the results of a report by the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund alleging that "paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression activities than were their Republican counterparts during the 2004 presidential election."

Hunter describes the American Center for Voting Rights merely as "a voting rights group"; in fact, the group is a conservative group (which explains the focus on alleged Democrat voter fraud). The group's leaders have a Republican background: The group's legislative counsel, Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, was a national election counsel for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, and the center's publicist, Jim Dyke, is a former communications director for the Republican National Committee. (BradBlog has more.)

CNS knows all this, by the way; it did a story back in March on criticism of the group's Republican ties. Interestingly, the article, by Kathleen Rhodes, doesn't actually detail what those ties are, merely paraphrasing Dyke acknowledging that "the group includes a number of people formerly involved in Republican politics" and noting the "apparently partisan edge" and the "pretty anti-Bush" posts found on BradBlog.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:35 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 9:45 PM EDT
Say What?
Topic: Newsmax
An Aug. 2 NewsMax article makes the claim that Edward Klein's factually flawed attack on Hillary Clinton "will appear on the New York Times best-seller list to be published this coming Sunday, for a record-setting fifth week in a row."

Huh? Since when is five weeks on the Times list considered a record? The list itself notes that Jon Stewart's "America (The Book)" has been on the list for 43 weeks.

The next paragraph clears up things: "Klein's success with his Hillary bio outstrips his success with his previous record of a four-week stint on the Times list for his book 'All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy.'"

Oh. It's not a record for the list; it's a personal record for Klein. That makes it the biggest ConWeb non-news event since WorldNetDaily breathlessly declared that a book on prophecies had more five-star reviews on Amazon than "The DaVinci Code."

NewsMax's "Analysis"
Topic: Newsmax
An Aug. 2 NewsMax "analysis" by Stewart Stogel of John Bolton's recess appointment to United Nations ambassador is long on cheerleading for Bolton and short on "analysis."

Stogel's "analysis" is full of unsubstantiated claims, such as "Madeleine K. Albright, who was approved by the Senate, was disliked by many a U.N. diplomat" and "On qualifications, Bolton is one of the most qualified of all U.S.-U.N. ambassadors in the last decade."

Stogel also contradicts himself, following up the claim that "While at the U.N. Bolton kept a low and distinctively professional profile" a couple paragraphs later by noting that Bolton engaged in "repeated clashes with then U.S.-U.N. ambassador Thomas Pickering."

Further, it is not stated anywhere what qualifications Stogel has, if any, to offer any sort of "analysis" of Bolton. Given that his piece isn't really an "analysis" at all, one can probably assume such qualifications are scant.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:09 PM EDT
New Article: CheesecakeNetDaily
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is so offended by ads featuring scantily clad women that it must write about them -- and show you the pictures. Read (and see) more.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 AM EDT
Monday, August 1, 2005
Cliff Kincaid's Lesbian Obsession
Topic: Accuracy in Media
An Aug. 1 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid manages to squeeze in the word "lesbian" twice in describing Rachel Maddow, panelist on MSNBC's "The Situation with Tucker Carlson":

The problem with the Carlson show is the format, which places too much emphasis on his guests, including a regular named Rachel Maddow, a radio host on Air America who is described as the first out-of-the-closet lesbian to be named a Rhodes Scholar. She is a lesbian with hair so short that she looks like a man.

So, how does Kincaid want his lesbians to look? Or does he secretly want to, a la Hillary Clinton, rub Maddow's hair?

Posted by Terry K. at 3:04 PM EDT
No Bolton-Bashing Here
Topic: CNSNews.com
One thing was conspicuously missing from an Aug. 1 CNSNews.com article by Randy Hall about President Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

While Hall noted that "where Republicans saw a silver lining in the Bolton appointment, senators on the other side of the political aisle saw only clouds" and that "Senate Democrats have blocked the job change for the undersecretary for arms control and international security for four months," he does not explicitly state why Democrats opposed Bolton. Hall quotes Sen. Ted Kennedy as saying that "the administration stonewalled the Senate by refusing to disclose documents highly relevant to the Bolton nomination," he fails to explicitly state that this was the reason why Senate Democrats blocked his Senate confirmation vote. However, Hall makes sure to quote Bush accusing Democrats of "partisan delaying tactics."

Hall's "only clouds" comment is not the first time that CNS has negatively portrayed Bolton's opponents in a "news" article. A May 26 article by Susan Jones called Republican Sen. George Voinovich "weepy" for getting emotional during a speech opposing Bolton nomination.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:43 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, August 1, 2005 12:47 PM EDT

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