MRC Bashes Pretty Much Anyone Who Praised Michelle Obama's DNC Speech Topic: Media Research Center
The idea that Michelle Obama's universally loved speech at the Democratic National Convention must not be praised apparently wasn't limited to CNSNews.com -- it was apparently a companywide edict at the Media Research Center.
Post after post at the MRC attacked people in the media for committing the offense of saying nice things about Obama's speech, apparently believe that it is "liberal bias" to admit that her speech went over well.
Curtis Houck complained that the TV networks "gush[ed] over her “artfully painted” address featuring “trademark...grace” in attacking Donald Trump." Houck despised Obama's reference to the fact that the White House was built by slaves, denigrating the comment by sneering parenthetically that the White House "was gutted and renovated by multiple times post-slavery." Nicholas Fondacaro similarly called out people on CNN for praising the speech.
Semi-resident MRC New York Times-basher Clay Waters (who still gets to do so there, but not as the full-time employee he used to be) predictably bashed the Times' coverage of her speech, huffing that "The reporters misleadingly sold Michelle Obama’s First Lady persona as studiously nonpolitical."
Samantha Cohen was in full rant mode, grumbling that on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," "panelist after panelist took turns gushing over Michelle Obama." Cohen attacked co-host Mika Brzezinski for her "chilling remarks" that Obama's speech was "real" and "personal," unlike the "whitewash" she heard at the Republican convention. Cohen howled:
Shallow Brzezinski must have been brainwashed by Michelle Obama last night, because one of the most moving speeches at the RNC in Cleveland was delivered by Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who was killed in the 2012 Benghazi attacks. That speech wasn’t real? That speech wasn’t personal?
What may have been even more chilling than Brzezinski’s ignorance was co-host Joe Scarborough’s leap in likening Michelle Obama’s speech to Ronald Reagan.
Somebody should explain to Cohen the difference between "media research" and a mean-spirited personal attack. Or does the MRC not see a difference between the two anymore?
CNSNews.com reporter Susan Jones has a nastyhabit of injecting editorial comment into her supposedly fair and balanced "news" articles -- you know, the exact same thing her employer, the Media Research Center, loves to accuse the "liberal media" of doing. She's so biased, apparently, that she cannot admit the near-universal bipartisan consensus that Michelle Obama gave a very good speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
Jones had to find a way -- presumably under orders from editors Terry Jeffrey and Michael W. Chapman -- to denigrate the speech in her article on it, which seems to explain her very odd opening paragraph:
Children who need protection. Bullies and "hateful language from public figures." A White House built by slaves. Black SUVS and big men with guns. Little faces pressed up against the window. And at the end of First lady Michelle Obama's speech, an admission that "right now, this is the greatest country on earth."
Huh? What does that even mean? Is Jones so desperate to avoid saying anything nice about Obama's speech that she emulated a word cloud to open her article on it?
Much of Jones' article did find her in stenography mode summarizing the speech, but she couldn't resist getting one more dig in, adding at the end: "On the campaign trail in 2008, Michelle Obama made waves when she said, 'For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.'"
This negative spin contrasts with Jones' effort to put a happy face on Ted Cruz's speech at the Republican National Convention, insisting that Cruz's "powerful speech" was "well-received until the very end, when it became clear he would not endorse Donald Trump."
WND Takes Michelle Obama's Bait On Birther Reference Topic: WorldNetDaily
All the revisionism WorldNetDaily is trying to do in order to distance itself from the birther issue that defined the website for much of the Obama administration -- most recently, Joseph Farah was insisting the "eligibility" issue ended in "late 2011" even though that was the time when WND's Jerome was working behind the scenes to sleaze the incompetent and dishonest "cold case posse" into existence -- can't hide the fact that WND will go birther given the right provocation. WND did so last month when laughably tried to redefine the term "birther" as someone who debunks the "eligibility" issue as opposed to its long-established defintion as someone who perpetuates the issue in the face of all that debunking evidence (you know, what WND did for years and continues to do).
When Michelle Obama made a passing reference to birtherism in her Democratic National Convention speech, WND got suckered in again. "MICHELLE OBAMA RAISES BARACK'S BIRTH-CERTIFICATE ISSUE" screamed the headline of Bob Unruh's article on the speech, and Unruh runs with it:
Michelle Obama focused on praising Hillary Clinton Monday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, insisting she was the only presidential candidate who could be trusted with the children of the nation, but she took a side trip down a path that raised old shadows.
She said one of her jobs in the White House was to teach her daughters “to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith.”
She was referencing the challenges to her husband’s constitutional qualification for office as a “natural born citizen.”
Dozens of lawsuits were filed over that issue before and after Obama’s election in 2008, and the White House ultimately released a document he said was his Hawaiian birth certificate.
Get the book that blew the lid off Barack Obama’s past. “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” — now just 99 cents!
The only law-enforcement investigation of the issue, however, concluded the document likely is a forgery.
Of course Unruh won't tell his readers that the "only law-enforcement investigation of the issue" -- the Arpaio "cold case posse" is a corrupt sham, staffed by Corsi himself, that never had any intention to look at all evidence and was interested only in declaring the birth certificate a "forgery" despite never examining an actual copy of it.
WND destroyed what little credibility it had in spreading lies about President Obama, led by its full-birther, truth-free agenda, and being in a state of denial -- a state that continues to this day -- about how discredited it is. Until Unruh, Farah, Corsi and the rest of the corrupt WND crew come clean and tell the truth, WND will continue to lack credibility.
MRC Mocks Idea That Russia Hacked DNC Emails, Ignores Russia's Ties to Trump Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro writes in a July 24 post:
With what seemed like the plot of the next James Bond film, or perhaps Austin Powers, CNN Political Commentator Sally Kohn accused Russian hackers of trying to sink Hillary Clinton’s campaign by leaking DNC documents. “One of the more unexplored parts of this story is that these leaks were done by Russian hackers,” Kohn noted on New Day Sunday, “And the fact that these leaks, if anything, help— seem intended maybe to help Donald Trump. So, I think first of all, we should point that out.”
Kohn relied on an argument made by Clinton’s pick for vice president, “And looking at the connections between Trump and Russia and Putin, you know, as Tim Kaine pointing out, Putin being the only person Donald Trump hasn't criticized.”
Fondacaro didn't concede that Kohn is correct about there being significant enough ties between Trump and Russia that there is at least a circumstantial case that the Russians hacked the DNC documents and scheduled them for release just before the Democratic convention for Trump's benefit. Among those ties:
The Washington Post reported that some cybersecurity experts agree that hackers working for or on behalf of the Russian government did conduct the DNC hack.
Trump has taken the position -- also favored by the Russians -- that a President Trump might not protect the (former Soviet) Baltic states that are members of NATO from Russian threats.
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort used to be a lobbyist for and adviser to the pro-Putin former Ukranian leader Viktor Yanukovych.
That would all seem to be important information that lends credence to Kohn's claim. But it seems Fondacaro would rather pretend Kohn is a conspiracy theorist.
At WND, DNC's Grieving Moms Are 'Activists' But RNC Ones Aren't Topic: WorldNetDaily
One reason WorldNetDaily is in financial trouble is its aggressiveness in injecting right-wing political bias into its "news" articles. Take this July 24 WND article by Garth Kant, for instance.
Kant's point is to demean the mothers of children killed at the hands of police or other authorities. Each of his mini-profiles of all but one of the mothers contains a similar line; can you spot it?
"Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, became a political activist."
"Fulton also became a political activist."
"Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland’s mother, became a political activist."
"Dontre’s mother, Maria Hamilton had become a political activist."
"Davis’ mother, Lucia McBath, calls herself an accidental activist."
"The dead girl’s mother, Cleopatra Pendleton-Cowley, has become a gun-control activist."
That's right -- as far as Kant is concerned, all of these women are "activists." For the one he doesn't apply the "activist" label to, Kant makes sure to note that she "wrote an endorsement for Hilary Clinton."
By contrast, he does not identify Patricia Smith, whose son died during the Benghazi attack, as an "activist,"' even her speaking at the Republican National Convention is clearly a form of activism.
Kant also talks about Idela Carey, whose "34-year-old daughter, Miriam Carey, was shot in the back and killed by federal officers near the Capitol after she made a wrong turn into a White House guard post, then tried to leave. " But in reality he's plugging the WND-published book he's writing about the incident, which WND has tried to exploit in an attempt to find any excuse to bash the Obama administration rather than any genuine interest in righting an injustice.
In their July 20 column, the MRC's Tim Graham and Brent Bozell were upset that the media would dare fact-check reliable right-wing ranter Patricia Smith, whose son died in the Benghazi attack:
PolitiFact put a picture of this angry mother on their home page with the headline "Checking Patricia Smith's claims about Clinton and Benghazi." The suggestion? Smith probably told some whoppers on the floor in Cleveland.
But the article that followed was, to borrow from [the Wall Street Journal's James] Taranto, "mere opinions on matters about which they do not know the facts." PolitiFact creator Bill Adair wrote, "We can't put Smith's claims on the Truth-O-Meter. But here, we'll lay out the case for and against the allegations against Clinton and let readers come to their own conclusion."
When the review of what the survivors of the four men lost in Benghazi said was finished, PolitiFact merely threw up its hands, claiming that none of these grieving relatives can really be trusted as reliable providers of fact.
[...]
To Politi-"Fact," Clinton's record of lying about her server doesn't tilt the scales of credibility. In another article on Monday night, the website suggested grieving relatives might have "fuzzy" memories. Adair even suggested that even if Clinton was incorrect, she might not have been lying: "If she did say something about the video, would it have been an intentional lie? It's very possible that this is one of the many conflicting pieces of intelligence that the administration was working with at the time."
Adair claimed no one can really claim Clinton lied: "There simply is not enough concrete information in the public domain for Rubio or anyone to claim as fact that Clinton did or did not lie to the Benghazi families."
Adair and his ilk aren't fact-checking in any way. They're masquerading in fact-checker costumes to engage in shameless speculation, blather and spin favoring democrats.
Yes, how dare the media demand Smith to be bound by facts? All that matters to Graham and Bozell is that she was spewing as much venom as possible at Hillary Clinton -- not whether any actual facts back up her hate.
MRC Still Flip-Flopping On How To Criticize Trump's Media Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center, it seems, still can't stop lapsing back to flip-flopping over Donald Trump's coverage in the media, which it did for much of the primary season before mostly getting in line after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination.
A July 13 post by Sam Dorman -- who has apparently parlayed his baiting of Nancy Pelosi into responding to a gotcha question while an MRC intern into a full-time gig there -- recounts how a NBC producer says that prior to running for president "Trump campaigned years beforehand on the network," even dinging usual right-wing fave Jay Leno for calling Trump "the next president of the United States" in 1999.
Five days later, a July 18 post by Sarah Stites went the opposite way, complaining that how in Hollywood "movers and shakers have taken to movies, shows and music to revile Donald Trump in whatever way possible," noting that "more than 20 TV shows have targeted him."
This means in the space of five days, the MRC has changed from criticizing the media for building up Trump to criticizing the media for bashing him. So much for consistency in messaging.
MRC's Bozell Won't Lead By Example on Right-Wing News Standards Topic: CNSNews.com
Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell surprisingly went after the standards of the right-wing media, according to the Daily Caller:
Founder of the media watchdog group Media Research Center Brent Bozell criticized bloggers in their “underwear” who write unsubstantiated stories at 3:00 am and their effect on the rest of the media.
[...]
Commenting to the division in conservative media, “I warn my fellow conservatives about this. We are very critical of the old media for all the rules that they break. But the new media, it’s the wild, wild west. There are no rules. And in the name of journalism you’ve got websites that are projecting things that are terrible [for] journalism.”
“The first rule of journalism is that if you don’t have two independent sources, you don’t have a news story,” Bozell said. “And you look at some sites, especially bloggers, and they put forward things that occur to them at 3:00 in the morning in their underwear and then the next site picks it up because it’s interesting and if it’s not true, well they just point to the blogger.”
“You can have the guy in his underwear but if you have an independent source that confirms what he said, then you got a news story.”
“So be careful. We have to all be careful,” he said.
That's a good point, of course, and it would mean something if Bozell practices what he preaches. He doesn't.
Much of the original reporting at the "news" division of Bozell's MRC empire, CNSNews.com, is simplystenography and it often does not include the "two independent sources" Bozell says make a news story. CNS is run by a managing editor who's much more interested in copying-and-pasting the latest anti-gay and anti-Muslim rants from Franklin Graham than he is offering fair and balanced reporting. And it has opted to publish nothing about Donald Trump rather than report anything negative about him.
Instead of merely spouting off on journalistic standards, Bozell could lead by example by structuring and staffing CNS to be the model of the news organization it wants to see. But judging by CNS' nearly 20 years of bias, he has no intention of ever doing that.
P.S. Wasn't just a few weeks ago that Bozell's lieutenant-slash-ghost writer, Tim Graham, was insisting that right-wing media was just as good and original as the "liberal media"? Yes, he was.
One of the biggest zombie lies WorldNetDaily has refused to kill is the claim that President Obama's call for a "civilian national security force" meant that he wanted some type of police force or something other that what Obama meant (he meant the use of diplomatic "soft power" in international conflicts to complement military might). We first wrote about this in 2008.
Now WND "practical prepper" columnist Pat McLene takes a crack at reviving the zombie lie in his July 18 column. He repeats Obama's statement and immediately jumps to claiming that it meant Obama wanted a "federal police force," then tries to explain how Obama's words have been fulfilled despite the fact that Obama has never created said federal police force:
As an example, back in 2008, then-candidate Obama argued for a powerful well-funded federal police force. However when any supporter of Constitutional limitations called Obama on his desire, the SJWs attacked en masse, calling the questioner a (pick one) racist/tool of the NRA/ fascist/Nazi/all of the above. Oh, and a liar. Always a liar. “Oh yeah? Where’s his army? Where’s the federal police force? Nowhere … you racist, homophobic, sexist liar!!!”
And of course, by carefully defining and limiting the argument, the SJWs and their handlers were correct. They always are, when they use this tactic. Our government rarely goes for its desires in a single shot. Instead they’ve developed a much more subtle mechanism for achieving their goals.
They don’t make something illegal, they simply make it impossible. They don’t create a new thing, they simply task an old thing to new purposes.
[...]
So here’s how you give birth to a federal police force without calling it a federal police force:
Find a situation where a police force has had a serious altercation with a protected minority class. Create that conflict if expedient.
Mobilize the SJWs to attack those police forces as an “-ist.”
Drum up protests, get op-eds written, have political fellow-travelers demand a federal investigation.
Get or require the policing authority in question to admit a mistake or a wrong-doing.
Begin a long and open-ended Justice Department investigation, usually with specific law enforcement officers under indictment.
Appoint federal liaisons (read: controllers) to those police departments, and require those law enforcement organizations to receive training based on federal guidelines.
Make sure all new agency hires fall within acceptable federal requirements for race, ethnicity, sex and sexual orientation.
Finally, no matter what the result of the investigation shows, maintain all of the above, especially the “liaisons.”
Voilà! Another solid brick in the civilian national security force wall.
McLene's "SJW" references are about those "social justice warriors" right-wingersd like to obsess about, adding: "Barak [sic] Obama isn’t a social justice warrior. No, really, he’s not. He’s a social justice warlord. He uses regular SJWs to push his own agendas."
Somehow, McLene movves from this to a call to arm yourself to the teeth: "Get thee to the gun show right now. Head for the gun store and buy more ammunition, right now. Form a buyers club and buy in bulk. Right now. ... Past behavior is indicative of present intent, especially when a government is after your liberty. Get busy. Get armed for your self-defense. Get prepared."
NewsBusters Blogger Rants At The Onion for Mocking Trump Topic: NewsBusters
Jorge Bonilla must be the most humorless person on the planet. His July 11 NewsBusters post is dedicated to how much he hates a satirical article at the Onion headlined "‘I’m A Trump-Era Conservative,’ Says Horrifying Man 25 Years From Now." The Onion, is making "an awful descent into media self-parody" with this "unfunny and unoriginal" piece of "derivative tripe."
Bonilla's post, though, is framed in a larger conspiracy theory: that Univision, which purchased a controlling stake in The Onion earlier this year, is now dictating the website's editorial agenda, which apparently involves a mythical dictate from Univision bigwigs to mock Trump -- as if The Onion hasn't been doing that for years.
He has no proof of this, mind you, but he nevertheless rants that "This awful stab at comedy is nothing less than Univision Digital's attempts to follow the vision of boss Isaac Lee, who infamously characterized opponents of the network's agenda as 'Nazis'."
WND Columnist: Obama Should Tell Blacks About 'The Benefits of Being Black' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Blacks are much more likely than whites to have children out of wedlock, and black males are much more likely to skip out on the mother of their children than males of other races. Over 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock, which is an express ticket to a life of poverty and a fast track to crime and incarceration.
Obama should say, “It is time for the black community to take charge and declare a war on illegitimacy. It’s also time for the black community to declare war on those individuals, organization and movements that want to capitalize on this violence and blame others for our problems that we create for ourselves.”
While Obama has experienced some of the negative aspects of the “black experience,” he never talks about the benefits of being black.
He should say, “If you are black and do well in school, you are much more likely to get a college scholarship than someone who is white. You are much more likely to get admitted to a college than a white guy with the same grades. You are much more likely to get a government grant to do a study or a loan to start a business than a white guy, and if you start a business, you are much more likely to get a government contract. All things being equal, as a racial minority, you are much more likely to be hired by a business over the guy who is lily white. Companies get credit for hiring a minority, any minority. They get no credit for hiring a white guy. So go out there and work hard in school. Achieve. Stop whining. The sky is the limit! You can even be president of the United States.”
Now that would be leadership, but a leader, sadly, Obama is not.
NewsBusters Blogger Has Never Watched Colbert's Show, Criticizes Him Anyway Topic: NewsBusters
As we'velearned, it's not a requirement that Media Research Center "researchers" actually watch or read the things they criticize.
We see this again in a July 20 NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer, who starts off by denouncing Stephen colbert as an "alleged comedian" who's a comedown for the network that hired him, CBS. Blumer is especially upset at the little stunt Colbert pulled at the Republican National Convention:
So on Monday, Colbert, dressed like a dolt, and took to the stage to conduct a mock convention opening.
Colbert's stage crash, which appears to have taken place several hours before scheduled fesitivities began, given that few if any seats in the arena were occupied, received a smattering of cheers from those present.
The video below appears to capture only a portion of Colbert's appearance:
Transcript:
STEPHEN COLBERT: He has formed an alliance with Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
(pause)
Sorry, I blacked out there for a moment.
So it is my honor, to hereby launch and begin the 2016 Republican National Hunger for Power Games!
(security intervenes)
Look, look. I know I'm not supposed to be up here. Honest. Neither is Donald Trump.
As seen after Colbert was forced offstage, the person taking the video, or someone standing very close, thought that his stunt was hilarious.
Given that those on hand at that point would have primarily been party officials, security personnel, and some members of the media, I wonder (no, not really) who thought Colbert's crassness was funny? Perhaps some of them were even employees of a formerly serious news operation called CBS News.
If Blumer had bothered to have ever actually watched Colbert's show, he would know that Colbert is not merely "dressed like a dolt"; he's dressed as an expy of Caesar Flickerman, an emcee character from "The Hunger Games" movies, a character Colbert has been making use of for months to critique the presidential primary process.
If Blumer had bothered to have ever actually watched Colbert's show, he would know that the name of Colbert's Flickerman segments is called the "Hungry for Power Games" -- not "Hunger for Power Games."
And if Blumer had bothered to have ever actually watched Colbert's show, he would have known that the Flickerman RNC segment he's bashing had run the night before he wrote his post, and he could have linked to the segment itself instead of relying on some random person's cell phone video of an out-of-context part of the segment. Certainly even hard-hearted, media-bashing Blumer might be able to find a chuckle at Colbert yelling at NBC's Chuck Todd, "Have Matt Lauer washed and brought to my tent!" And he wouldn't have botched Colbert's parting dig, where he actually said: "I know I'm not supposed to be up here, but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump."
But Blumer's not one to let his ignorance get in the way of his Colbert bashing. He chortled that Colbert's show has been "finishing at or barely above third in the 18-49 ratings to both Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel," then sneered: "Though Colbert got some of the attention he craved from Access Hollywood, it's hard to imagine that this will help his show's ratings."
Actually, Colbert did get a nice ratings boost from his live RNC shows, beating both Fallon and Kimmel.
Farah Claims The Financial 'Existential Threat' to WND Is Over Topic: WorldNetDaily
In early June, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah declared that WND faced an "existential threat" and begged for money from his readers. Well, apparently, the threat has passed for now.
At the end of June, Farah sent out another letter to WND's mailing list proclaiming the crisis over and explaining how hard it was to ask for help:
Earlier this month, I wrote a letter that was the toughest thing for me to do.
I knew our enemies would see it, too.
I hated to give them comfort. And, boy, did it ever.
But thanks to the amazing response from WND's most loyal readers, I can assure them that the imminent threat to our very existence and viability as America's most daring and courageous voice for liberty is behind us.
This letter is a lot easier to write, because you answered the bell. We're not completely out of the woods, but you have helped buy us some time, for which I am endlessly grateful.
Actually, we're pretty much the only ones who wrote about WND's financial issues (which we also did at the Huffington Post). Which means he has declared us his enemy. We're flattered.
Note that Farah does not mention how much money was actually raised from his begging effort, which would make it much easier for donors to judge whether WND's financial problems are, in fact, over. Such secrecy is not a good sign when you're begging for money from the public, but it's never a good thing if WND is apparently such a financial pariah that Farah can't find legitimate private investors or other conventional financing to keep it alive and must resort to public begging.
Farah then once again blames WND's woes on Obama:
All that, of course, is on top of the Obama economy, the ravages of which every reader is aware: The entire retail world is in turmoil. Digital advertising is way down. The book publishing world is topsy-turvy. All of these factors profoundly affect WND because they represent many of the ways we support what we do – which is to boldly bring you the unvarnished, not-always-pretty, but accurate and undistorted truth about what's really going on in this chaotic world of ours.
First, retail turmoil, digital advertising issues and a competitive book-publishing industry are not Obama's fault -- that's capitalism at work. (WND loves to blame Obama for capitalism working as intended.) As we've previously noted, online retail has been growing immensely overall, which means the more likely issue is that people don't want to buy what WND has to sell.
Second, Farah's claim that WND reports the "accurate and undistorted truth about what's really going on in this chaotic world of ours" is an undisputed lie. Just a few days ago, Farah told lies in his column. WND's lies are contributing to the chaos, not making things clearer. Again, Farah is weirdly proud of the fact that his website publishes misinformation, and even a press-release mill decided that WND was not “credible” enough to promote.
Farah followed that up with even more falsehoods about how it cares about the truth:
Despite the assault on our nation and world over the last eight years, I, like Donald Trump, still believe America potentially has a great future ahead – with the right kind of leadership and, even more importantly, with a return to God and the principles He set out for liberty and prosperity and blessing.
But for America to get there, it must hear the truth. And that's where WND comes in. Very simply, you cannot have a free country without a free press. It's not possible. Yet as you know, most of America's "big media" serve as little more than a government propaganda ministry. Even much of the "alternative media" are reluctant to cover some of the really consequential stories that – while absolutely vital to the nation – also come with a price tag for the news organization reporting them, in terms of threats, ridicule, boycotts, lawsuits and financial loss.
As I told you in my previous letter, we want to be around when Obama leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017, so we can be part of the national recovery process. And with the help you've already provided, we have more confidence we will be where we need to be.
Well, if WND didn't do things that cry out to be ridiculed -- for instance, employing falsehood-spreader JeromeCorsi, promote a bogus super PAC and refusing to admit its anti-Obama birther crusade was completely discredited -- Farah wouldn't have to fear ridicule.
Needless to say, Farah ends his letter with a plea for more money; he claims that a financiall stronger WND is "a blessing for America's future." Uh, sure.
Farah is blaming pretty much everyone but himself for the imminent failure of WND's business model with no evidence he's made any adjustments to it to compensate for WND's financial condition (except for the apparent elimination of WND's Jerusalem bureau, which died when Aaron Klein jumped ship to Breitbart).
Given that, any money readers send to WND is likely to disappear down a black hole without any accountability, not unlike that super PAC Farah promoted.
Everybody's Getting Their Bhuttos Wrong Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center really, really hates Chris Matthews, even when he's defending Donald Trump. So much so, in fact, they can't quite their facts straight.
The MRC's Curtis Houck devoted a July 21 post to complaining about Matthews saying that "the Republican National Convention (RNC) chanting “lock her up” concerning Hillary Clinton was akin to what one would hear in Buenos Aires, Argentina or Caracas, Venezuela."
This led Matthews to conclude the segment by invoking two Latin American countries and bizarrely and irresponsibly throwing in the assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (which he falsely asserted was male) as a consequence of such rhetoric:
I've never been to a convention — look, I’ve never been to a convention in Caracas or Buenos Aires, but I’m sure I’ve heard it down there...It is very Latin American. This is wild stuff. My opponent — and too, a lot of countries, they put away the guy who — how about — what is it, Benazir Bhutto? He loses an election, they hang him.
Matthews did get a fact wrong, just not the one Houck thinks he got wrong -- Matthews simply named the wrong Bhutto -- which makes Houck a little wrong too.
Benazir Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is the person Matthews was trying to think of. He was ousted as Pakistan's prime minister in a military coup (not losing an election, as Matthews claimed), then was arrested on trumped-up charges of murdering a political rival. He was found not guilty yet was sentenced to death. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 while seeking re-election to a third non-consecutive term as prime minister, which means her story wouldn't fit Matthews' analogy, as Houck suggested.
Can everybody just get their facts straight, please?
What Passes For A Fact-Slap At WND, Starring Scott Baio Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a July 19 WorldNetDaily article, under the headline "Scott Baio slaps MSNBC anchor with facts":
MSNBC host Tamron Hall lashed out at actor Scott Baio at the Republican Convention in Cleveland on Tuesday for what she clearly considers inappropriate social-media messages in the political arena, demanding to know whether they represent the “moral compass” that Baio wants to present.
But the confrontation clearly turned in an unwelcome direction for her when the “Happy Days” star cited President Obama’s “gun” quote.
That was in June of 2008, when Obama said, on the campaign trail, “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy.’ If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun, because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
Hall immediately denied Obama said that.
“That’s absolutely not true,” she claimed.
Baio had said, “You want me to be sweet and gentle to a man, a president, who says if they bring a knife to an argument, you bring a gun. That’s what President Obama said.”
He was right.
While Unruh repeats what Obama said as taken from a 2008 Politico article, that article conveniently omits the context of the statement. As FactCheck.org points out, the line -- obviously borrowed from the film "The Untouchables" -- was clearly made in the context of warning donors that the general election campaign against McCain could get ugly.
Of course, the whole point of Unruh playing up an eight-year-old, out-of-context quote by Obama is to distract from he delightfully underdescribed as "Baio’s tweet regarding Michelle Obama featured an unflattering image of her, with the reference to what Barack Obama wakes up to." Unsurprisingly, Unruh didn't supply a link to Baio's tweet or embed it in his article so his readers can judge what it really is:
Unruh offers no criticism of Baio's tweet, which we can assume to mean that he and WND approve of its message.
While Unruh couldn't be bothered to place Obama's statement in context, he makes sure to do so with one by Trump:
Hall retaliated with a Donald Trump quote.
“The person that you support, the person that you support – the person you support said, he could take a gun out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone in the head, and you would still support him. Is that true?”
Baio answered that Trump did say that, but then questioned Hall about Obama’s statement.
Actually, Trump’s comment, during a campaign rally in Iowa on the subject of how loyal were his supporters, was that he could “shoot somebody and not lose any voters.”
Then again, Unruh doesn't want to report facts -- he wants to distract from them. You can't slap facts you're trying to bury. No wonder WND has no credibility.