New Article: Just Like Old Times
Topic: The ConWeb
A pair of new books allow the ConWeb to engage in a couple of its favorite activities: bashing the Clintons and failing to tell the full truth about the bashers. Read more.

The CNS Slant
Topic: CNSNews.com
More anti-liberal slant from CNSNews.com. From a June 8 story by Susan Jones about Bush judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown:

Liberals accuse Brown of being "hostile" to civil rights and many other elements of the liberal agenda.

The story mostly quotes a black conservative, Jesse Lee Peterson (we thought WorldNetDaily had a lock on running Peterson's press releases), but doesn't describe his praise of Brown as being supportive of a "conservative agenda."

Jones offers no elaboration of what this "liberal agenda" is, beyond the ruling that civil rights is now, apparently, exclusively a "liberal" cause, not a conservative one.

Back Into WND's Anti-Kerry Matrix
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Search for the words "Kerry form 180" in WorldNetDaily's archive, and you'll get back 15 stories, nearly all of them whacking John Kerry for not signing the Standard Form 180 to officially release his military records. Example: "It's way past time for my colleagues in the news media to join me in calling on Kerry to execute Standard Form 180," Joseph Farah wrote in a Aug. 16, 2004 column.

But now that Kerry has indeed signed the form and those records have been released, how does WND treat the story? It buries it. Why? Because nearly all of the records had already been released by Kerry.

Instead, in a June 7 story, WND focuses on another story that came out at the same time about Kerry's grades at Yale. The headline: "Kerry: Dunce is not enough." Buried in that story is the note: "[T]he military and medical records released appear identical to what Kerry has already released."

This continues WND's hate campaign against Kerry. It would much rather make fun of his college grades than apologize for spreading conspiacy theories about his previous refusal to sign the form.

Update: A Hillary-Basher and His Book
Topic: Newsmax
A June 7 NewsMax article recaps its June 5 "Insider Report" promotion and excerpt of Ed Klein's upcoming Hillary-bashing book. Conspicuous by its absence: Any mention of Klein's false claim, which was in the "Insider Report," that Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan never said Hillary Clinton's name during a speech at his farm announcing her candidacy for his Senate seat.

UPDATE: Media Matters finds more factual errors in Klein's book. And a June 7 column by NewsMax's John LeBoutillier fails to note Klein's errors, noting that "Ed Klein and I are friends" and insisting that "none of the dozens of biographies of Hillary Clinton have ever been as well-researched as this one."

Getting It Wrong: Downing Street Memo
Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax has gotten the orders from headquarters: Discredit the Downing Street Memo and anyone touting it. But would it hurt for them get their facts straight?

A June 3 article, headlined "Kerry Touts Bush Impeachment Memo," starts:

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann points out, there was no mention of impeachment in the story NewsMax claimed to pull its Kerry quotes from, a small paper in Massachusetts. From there, it appears that Al-Jazeera picked it up and amped up the alleged impeachment call -- which actually came from Ralph Nader in a May 31 Boston Globe op-ed cited elsewhere in NewsMax's article.

The story calls the memo "largely ignored in the U.S. outside of rabid anti-Bush Web sites like MichaelMoore.com."

Then, in a June 5 article, NewsMax faithfully reproduces the claim of Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman calling "the memo's claims 'discredited,' noting that at least two previous U.S. investigations have probed the claims that Bush fabricated pre-war intelligence."

But as Media Matters notes, the two investigations to which Mehlman was referring -- the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- addressed the issue of how the Bush administration used pre-war intelligence.

The story also dismisses the memo as a "third-hand account" being "touted by crackpot Democrats."

Getting It Wrong: A Hillary-Basher And His Book
Topic: Newsmax
A June 5 item in NewsMax's e-mail-only "Insider Report" not only forwards misleading information about Ed Klein, author of a new book called "The Truth About Hillary," an excerpt from Klein's book is factually inaccurate as well.

The "Insider Report" cites NewsMax's John LeBoutillier as saying that compared to other Hillary-related tomes, "none of the dozens of biographies of Hillary Clinton have ever been as well-researched as this one," adding: "Nor have any of them been written by a professional journalist with such impeccable credentials."

And what are those credentials paraded by author Ed Klein? LeBoutillier says that Klein "comes from the bastion of the liberal, so-called 'mainstream media.' Klein has worked for the most liberal publications in the United States."

NewsMax and LeBoutillier fail to note, as Media Matters does, that Klein left one of those "liberal publications" -- the New York Times Magazine, where he was editor in chief for several years in the 1980s -- under an ethical cloud in the wake of inaccurate reporting that occurred under Klein's watch. Additionally, Klein's books on the Kennedy family -- described by NewsMax as "well-researched books based on interviews with people who knew the principals involved" -- rely heavily on anonymous sources and questionable armchair psychoanalysis.

The NewsMax item also includes a preview of the book, an anecdote claiming that when Hillary announced her candidacy for the New York Senate seat of Daniel Patrick Moynihan at Moynihan's farm, he "never uttered Hillary's name -- not even once -- during this event."

That's wrong, too. Moynihan said her name several times, as Media Matters also notes.

New Article: Suddenly, Motives Matter
Topic: The ConWeb
The MRC was aghast that anyone would question the motives of Clinton's accusers. Now, it's equally aghast that Mark Felt's motives aren't being questioned enough. Plus: a rundown of the ConWeb's efforts to engage in Watergate revisionism. Read more.

Getting It Wrong: 9th Circuit Reversals
Topic: CNSNews.com
In a June 3 CNSNews.com commentary arguing that "It really doesn't matter what the subject matter is, the word compromise spells disaster for conservatives. ... 'Compromise' always positions to the left," Frank Salvato writes:

Here's a fact: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is loaded with some of the most liberal judges in the history of the US judiciary. Their verdicts are consistently the most overturned of any court in the nation, the size of their district considered.

Here's an actual fact: In the 2002-03 Supreme Court term, the reveral rate of the 9th Circuit was fifth lowest of the 13 federal appeals court circuits. Additionally, "the size of their district" is an irrevelant measure of a judicial district's reversal rates.

Another quote from Salvato's column: "Little Susie used to learn how to conjugate a verb. She is now learning how to apply condoms to cucumbers." Salvato did not provide an example of a school where grammar classes have been discontinued in favor of sex education.

AIM: Felt's Not Deep Throat
Topic: Accuracy in Media
From a June 3 column by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid:

History professor Joan Hoff of Montana State University, an expert on the Watergate scandal, finds it interesting that Bob Woodward is claiming that he had a close relationship with former FBI official Mark Felt, now identified as Deep Throat, when Felt suffers from serious health problems, including dementia, and can't deny it. "It's just like when he said he interviewed [former CIA director Bill] Casey when Casey was comatose," she says.

Kincaid goes on to impugn the motives of Felt and the Washington Post's Bob Woodward; alleges a "conspiracy behind the Watergate conspiracy"; cites another author, Len Colodny, co-author of a book called 'Silent Coup,' which Kincaid describes as being "about the 'removal' of President Nixon," and who also thinks Felt isn't Deep Throat; and quotes Hoff calling the naming of Deep Throat "an orchestrated publicity stunt on the part of the Post and Woodward" because Woodward plans to publish his own book on Felt.

Kincaid says nothing about the crimes that were uncovered in Watergate and the people who went to prison for them.

Just Askin'
Topic: CNSNews.com
Given that CNSNews.com has a reporter, Susan Jones, who repeated the false statement that "filibusters have never been applied to judicial nominations until President Bush took office" in two stories on the same day (and at least one other time), shouldn't CNS be going a little easier on Democratic strategist Donna Brazile for making minor errors in mathematics and the number of a Bible verse?

New Article: When You Assume...
Topic: CNSNews.com
New on ConWebWatch: CNSNews.com believes Democrats act only for purely political reasons, an assumption it refuses to make about Republicans. Read more.

Watergate Revisionism
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is leading the way in trying to gloss over and rewrite Watergate history in the wake of Mark Felt's admission that he is Deep Throat.

A June 1 MRC "Media Reality Check" insists that Watergate was all about "how to take down a Republican President for political gain and personal profit" and is upset that "the impeachment of Bill Clinton was routinely savaged by liberal reporters as a saga with 'no heroes.'"

June 1 articles at MRC sister site CNSNews.com attack Felt for allegedly being motivated by money and personal animus, followed up with attacks on Felt and/or defenses of Richard Nixon by Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Charles Colson and G. Gordon Liddy. None of these stories describes the crimes of Watergate, and the Colson article fails to mention that he served prison time for some of those crimes; the Liddy article does mention that he "was sent to jail for his role in the Watergate scandal," but doesn't say for what (4 1/2 years for conspiracy and contempt of court).

Look for a complete roundup of the ConWeb's Watergate revisionism next week on ConWebWatch.

Good News is No News, Part 2
Topic: The ConWeb
For the ConWeb, there is no such thing as good news regarding the Clintons, as ConWebWatch has noted.

Latest case in point: The clearing of former Hillary Clinton fund-raiser David Rosen on charges of underreporting the costs of a 2000 fund-raiser to federal election officials. NewsMax and WorldNetDaily devoted copious amounts of space to allegations against Rosen by convicted felons Peter Paul and Aaron Tonken, and CNSNews.com mentioned it in a May 9 article.

But when a jury acquitted Rosen on May 27, the ConWeb couldn't work up any original coverage. WorldNetDaily and CNSNews.com noted it only by using outside links, and NewsMax let an Associated Press article tell the story.

NewsMax did, however, quickly pound out some damage control the next day in a article quoting Paul paradoxically insisting that Rosen's acquittal doesn't mean Hillary isn't guilty. As has been the case with most original NewsMax articles about Paul, it fails to mention Paul's long criminal record.

Media Matters has noted the same phenomenon among conservative TV pundits.

The Truth: Better Late Than Never
Topic: CNSNews.com
Well, we were sort of wrong.

Back in December, we suggested that CNSNews.com would never note that a British court ruled that a report in a British newspaper that British politician George Galloway accepted a bribe from Saddam Hussein -- a report repeated by CNS in four stories -- was libelous and ordered the paper to pay him nearly $300,000 in damages.

It only took five months, but CNS did finally get around to noting it. In a May 12 article on yet another allegation of dealings between Galloway and Saddam's regime, this time by a Senate subcommittee, correspondent Mike Wendling notes the ruling:

Earlier this year, Galloway won $3 million in a libel suit against the conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper. The paper, citing documents found in Baghdad following the collapse of Saddam's regime, alleged that Galloway and his charity profited from the oil-for-food program.

The case is currently being appealed.

[...]

However, the subcommittee report stated that the documents it was based on "have no relation to those discussed in the Daily Telegraph ." After publication, the newspaper's source documents were found to be forgeries.

All of which begs the question that CNS refuses to address: If previous allegations against Galloway have been found to be false -- remember, the Christian Science Monitor also printed, then retracted, a similar allegation, which CNS has not reported at all -- what makes the current allegation credible?

WorldNetDaily and NewsMax also reported the original accusations against Galloway. Neither reported the Monitor's retraction and the British libel judgement at the time they occurred; NewsMax later ran an Associated Press article noting the libel judgement.

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.