Coulter Kills the Messenger
Topic: WorldNetDaily
How does Ann Coulter respond to plagiarism allegations raised by the New York Post? By not addressing them -- and by attacking the Post.

Since WorldNetDaily is such a Coulterphile -- to the point where it restored something to one of her columns that her syndicated edited out -- does this mean it will follow Coulter's lead and refuse to address the plagiarism allegations, even though WND may be one of her victims?

The Return of the Clinton Body Count
Topic: The ConWeb
Ah, but it never really went away despite all the evidence that it was bogus, did it?

The Freepers and their fellow travelers are having a high ol' time reliving their Clinton-bashing glory days by tying the killing of an Arkansas urologist, David Millstein, to Clinton. The connection? Millstein's wife's first husband was Jerry Parks, a person with tangental Clinton ties who was murdered in 1993 and holds a prominent spot on the Clinton death list. But as we (and Snopes) noted, there are much more likely suspects than Clinton.

Well, as long as they're spinning their wheels on fevered speculation, they can't be plotting to harrass or kill New York Times employees, so there's an upside.

Coulter and Plagiarism
Topic: WorldNetDaily
In 2004, we noted that a passage in an Ann Coulter column was suspiciously close to a passage from a WorldNetDaily article that appeared a few days earlier. At the time, we leaned toward blaming WND for cribbing from Coulter, given WND's history of plagiarism.

We may have to rethink that. The New York Post has revealed Coulter's history of lifting quotes for her books and columns without attribution, and it appears that the syndicate that puts out Coulter's columns is going to investigate.

Hey, WND, how about weighing in on this: Did Coulter steal from you or not?

WND Writer Praises Book He Co-Wrote, Doesn't Disclose It
Topic: WorldNetDaily
From Jon Dougherty's July 5 WorldNetDaily column:

Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo's new book, "In Mortal Danger: The Battle For America's Borders and Security," should be required reading for every high-school student, public official, elected representative, judge and presidential candidate, as well as every citizen and prospective citizen in America. It is that important. It is that valuable. And were its contents widely digested, I have no doubt it would radically alter the political, cultural and social landscape of our country.

[...]

Pick up a copy of Tom Tancredo's book. As a political manifesto, it is a once-in-a-lifetime find. Such rational, cogent clarity of thought doesn't come along in our public servants very often. I'd hate for you to miss out on the most important message of our time: That America is indeed in mortal danger, but there is a leader who knows how to deliver us from evil.

Dougherty fails to note anywhere in the column that he co-wrote Tancredo's book, as evidenced by the WND Books website putting Dougherty's bio on its page for the book.

Also, Dougherty's tagline shows that he has a new gig, as a policy analyst for Oliver North's Freedom Alliance.

New Article: The Bush Administration Research Center
Topic: Media Research Center
As its promotion of a dubious WMDs-in-Iraq claim and its attacks on the New York Times demonstrate, the Media Research Center is much more interested in advancing White House talking points than engaging in media research. Read more.

Breaking: WND Admits Existence of Right-Wingers in Israel!
Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previously noted WorldNetDaily reporter Aaron Klein's aversion to labeling right-wing politicians in Israel as such. That may be changing: A July 4 article by Klein contains the following paragraph:

If Shas bolts, Olmert may then be forced to bring Arab parties into his government or form a coalition with the Knesset's right-wing bloc, which would likely only enter the government on condition a Judea and Samaria withdrawal is either cancelled or postponed.

This is a boilerplate paragraph Klein first used in a June 24 article on a dubiously slanted anti-Olmert poll (which he again cites in the July 4 piece). As far as we know, that's the first time Klein used the term "right-wing" to describe an Israeli politician or political party; he's usually whitewashing that sort of thing.

Congratulations, Aaron, on your ackowledgment of reality. Now, about your anti-Olmert bias...

NewsMax Attacks NYT for Running Story NewsMax Did Last Year
Topic: Newsmax
On June 30, NewsMax repeated David Horowitz's overheated blog post claiming that by running an travel-section article on Donald Rumsfeld's and Dick Cheney's summer homes, "The New York Times points cranks, radicals, al-Qaida operatives and would-be assassins to the summer homes of Cheney and Rumsfeld."

Will NewsMax tell its readers that the Times had Rumsfeld's permission to do it? Or that NewsMax itself had previously reported on Cheney's summer house?

We'll be watching.

Shorter Mychal Massie
Topic: WorldNetDaily
I find my freedom in hypocritically attacking people for behavior I myself have engaged in.

NewsBusters Nonsense
Topic: NewsBusters
-- Tim Graham dedicates two posts to Dana Priest's allusion to Bill Bennett's gambling habit. In the second post, he's shocked -- shocked! -- that a political radio host would take pleasure in an political attack. It's undercut a tad by the post's first commenter; he attacks Priest for bringing up a "personal insult not relevant to the conversation," then states: "Priest is a dyke lesbo."

-- Mark Finkelstein insists that Michael Smerconish, who thinks the United States is "a nation of sissies" where "limp-wristedness" is "compromising our ability to win the war on terror," is not a conservative but, rather, just a "middle-of-the-road Republican." Such mislabeling, Finkelstein further insists, "exemplifies the MSM's truth-in-packaging problem." Since this appears to be a concern, Finkelstein might want to have a chat about labeling with his NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard, who called Chris Matthews a "San Francisco liberal" with an "ultra-left, San Francisco Chronicle columnist side" despite 1) Matthews being from Philadelphia and 2) Matthews' history of bashing Clinton and saying nice things about Bush.

'Legitimate Media'
Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a protest designed mostly to be a conservative photo-op and mini-rally and to provide B-roll for TV news (CNN was there, along with a couple other obscure TV outlets and Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, as well as ex-Wonkette Ana Marie Cox), featuring a chant in which "Lichtblau" was rhymed with "Gitmo," I inadvertently provided the highlight.

Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid started taking questions, so I thought I would ask one: Given his criticism of Ann Coulter's inflammatory statements, did he think his own statement that the New York Times' stories on government surveillance programs were "comparable to interfering with police operations to investigate and arrest child killers" was similarly inflammatory? I started to ask it, but Kincaid tried to cut me off, declaring that he would take questions only from "legitimate media." I raised my voice, he raised his, I asserted my right to ask the question, and I eventually was able to do so. He answered it (in short: no), and steered things to one of his talking points.

Funny -- we thought Kincaid liked alternative media and opposed the idea of "legitimate media." Apparently, media is "legitimate" only if they're not challenging him.

As a special bonus, here's what passes for celebrity citings:



Michelle Malkin (right) records Free Republic's Kristinn Taylor (left, in suit).

Kristinn Taylor (left) and Cliff Kincaid.

Michelle Malkin and Hot Air crew member (behind her).

UPDATE: MyDD has more pictures, and TPM Muckraker wonders about the protester who thinks the NYT would have revealed Anne Frank's hideout.

Dubious Assertion of the Day
Topic: Accuracy in Media
"It's comparable to interfering with police operations to investigate and arrest child killers."

-- Cliff Kincaid, July 2 Accuracy in Media column asking, "What motivates the New York Times to publish information that helps the enemy kill Americans?"

On a related subject, in a little while we'll be here handing out this.

Update: Conservative Medicine
Topic: The ConWeb
Last year, we wrote an article about the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and how its right-wing agenda dovetails with the likes of NewsMax and WorldNetDaily. The Neurodiversity weblog has a new article that serves up much more detail about the AAPS' political agenda.

We Write Letters
Topic: CNSNews.com
A letter we wrote criticizing the Washington Examiner's embrace of Jered Ede as a poster boy for alleged conservative student censorship -- in which we recount Ede's factually dubious history as a CNSNews.com intern -- appeared in Friday's edition of the Examiner.

NewsMax Defends Coulter Again, Still Doesn't Find Alec Baldwin Funny
Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax takes Ann Coulter's side yet again, this time defending in a July 1 article her statement that her "only regret with [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

Coulter's statement is A-OK with NewsMax because critics of the remark "have yet to express outrage when left-leaning figures called for the killing of prominent Republicans." Mentioned is Alec Baldwin's 1998 statement that "we would stone Henry Hyde to death." That's a favorite statement for NewsMax and other conservatives to bring up, as we've previously noted.

NewsMax also brought up "Al Franken told Matt Lauer on NBC’s "Today” show that Karl Rove and Lewis Libby should be 'executed.'" Not exactly; Franken merely pointed out that the penalty for outing a secret agent, which Franken said Rove and Libby did to Valerie Plame, is death, and "they are going to be executed, it looks like." In other words, exactly what conservative radio host (and WorldNetDaily columnist) Melanie Morgan said about New York Times executive editor Bill Keller -- and we haven't seen NewsMax raise any objection to that.

If NewsMax is insisting that those offended by Coulter should be offended by Baldwin as well, shouldn't NewsMax lead by example by criticizing Coulter's remark as much it does Baldwin's?

Those Classy NewsBusters Commenters
Topic: NewsBusters
In response to a June 30 NewsBusters post by Tom Johnson noting a columnist who stated that "The First Amendment needs a Terri Schiavo moment" in order to bring awareness to the issue of freedom of the press, the very first commenter, "bigtimer," states: "I'd be all for that suggestion if we could put Helen Thomas in place of Terri Schiavo."

Gee, maybe we should change our Free Republic quote of the week to NewsBusters...