Topic: WorldNetDaily
Why did it take so long for WorldNetDaily to tell the full story of two imprisoned Border Patrol agents? And, now that it has finally told the other side, why is WND trying to bury it? Read more.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
New Article: Underreported, Indeed
Topic: WorldNetDaily Why did it take so long for WorldNetDaily to tell the full story of two imprisoned Border Patrol agents? And, now that it has finally told the other side, why is WND trying to bury it? Read more.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:29 AM EST
Monday, January 29, 2007
Clinton Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Newsmax We wandered over to the right-wing Family Security Matters. And what was the first thing we saw? A column by former NewsMax columnist Joan Swirsky calling Hillary Clinton an "abused wom[a]n" who is not fit to be president. And thus we have an indicator of what we knew would be coming as the result of Hillary's presidential bid: a resurgence of 1990s-style Clinton-hating. Nowhere, of course, does Swirsky actually support her suggestion that Bill Clinton physically abused her; instead, she drops a vague reference to "spousal abuse -- physical, mental or verbal." Swirsky goes on to claim that Hillary "couldn't stand up to her narcissistic husband" and thus will not "be able to stand up to the same kind of man in the world arena," adding:
Just as overheated are Swirsky's descriptions of Bill Clinton, which include "Uriah Heepish," "malignant narcissist" and "petty tyrant." Swirsky was also one of the contributors to a New Media Journal series on convicted felon Peter Paul's dubious accusations against the Clintons; as we detailed, she was all too eager to whitewash Paul's long criminal record for the sake of trying to make Paul into a credible anti-Clinton witness. Swirsky claims, in her Family Security Matters bio, to be a "clinical psychotherapist." Sounds like she could use a little therapy of her own to deal with her case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome. P.S. How far right is Family Security Matters? Its board of advisors includes not only disgraced, corrupt would-be homeland security secretary Bernard Kerik but also Clinton Derangement Syndrome sufferer and NewsMax columnist John LeBoutillier.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:31 PM EST
Updated: Monday, January 29, 2007 8:55 PM EST
Real, Actual Dialogue!
Topic: NewsBusters Here's a novel idea -- and one we'd like to see more of. NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard and activist Mike Stark have done something unprecedented (at least in the history of NewsBusters): had something of a dialogue on the Spocko/KSFO story. Sheppard and Stark asked five questions of the other about the story, then posted the answers on their respective websites -- Sheppard on NewsBusters, Stark on Daily Kos. We've criticized Sheppard for his telling of the Spocko story, but we commend him and Stark for lowering the hostile-rhetoric level on the issue by engaging in a fairly well-rounded dialogue. Hopefully we'll see more of this from NewsBusters in the future.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:31 AM EST
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Finkelstein Cheers 'Cheap Shot'
Topic: NewsBusters Mark Finkelstein has been in a serious liberal-bashing mood lately. This time, in a Jan. 28 NewsBusters post, he praises Fox News' Brit Hume for insulting John Kerry:
Ironically, Finkelstein spent an earlier post acting aghast that Hillary Clinton "went Mike Tyson on us" by issuing the "threat" that "When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent, and that is what I believe you do." Finkelstein appears not to have a sense of irony, for he has not noted that comments like Hume's are the kind of thing Clinton was talking about. What does all this have to do with "exposing and combating liberal bias"? Nothing. But apparently, the folks at MRC seem content to let NewsBusters devolve into a very well-funded Little Green Footballs (or Protein Wisdom, perhaps a more appropriate comparison since Jeff Goldstein was a NewsBusters blogger until the MRC powers-that-be presuambly figured out how much Goldstein likes to talk about his penis).
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:06 PM EST
Sheppard Embraces Convicted Felon
Topic: NewsBusters In a Jan. 27 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard took up the cause of Peter Paul, the corrupt businessman who's suing Hillary Clinton over alleged "campaign finance fraud." But oops! Sheppard makes no mention of the fact that Paul is a convicted felon awaiting sentencing for stock fraud. Or maybe not so oops! Sheppard used WorldNetDaily as a source for his post; as we've documented, WND has repeatedly whitewashed Paul's long criminal record. Sheppard went on to add: "Those looking for some background regarding this issue should read a comprehensive analysis of the subject published by the New Media Journal last March." But that seven-part March 2006 series, like WND's reporting, whitewashes Paul's history of criminality. In part two, author and NewsMax columnist Joan Swirsky enables the whitewashing, claiming that it's unfair for Paul to be "solely distinguished by his ethical and legal lapses, specifically two convictions and confession of securities violations." Swirsky quickly disposes of Paul's conviction on charges of cocaine posession this way: "Throughout the 1970s to the mid-‘80s, Mr. Paul was involved in various ventures, both legitimate and illegitimate – from working with undercover government operatives on an anti-Castro sting to getting indicted and serving prison time." And that allusion to "confession of securities violations" is the only mention of Paul's current troubles -- his guilty plea to $25 million stock fraud scheme (and related fleeing to Brazil to avoid charges, followed by a two-year extradition fight). Yet, somehow, to Sheppard this is "comprehensive analysis." An article in that series by Sheppard takes a similar whitewashing approach, then attacks the media for not mentioning Paul's criminality at the time of the 2000 fundraising event hosted by Paul that led to all of this: "[W]hy did its [New York Times] editors think that it wasn’t important to inform the public that it was hosted by a felon, or that the numbers being reported by the Clinton campaign to the FEC concerning its cost were suspect?" Wouldn't a better question be why Sheppard, Swirsky and WND are embracing a convicted felon for the sole purpose of slinging mud at the Clintons? Another Sheppard-penned article in the series laments the "smears and attacks" on Paul and goes on to compare Paul to Jack Abramoff: "[C]onsider the fact that no member of Congress is believed to have received from Abramoff anywhere near the dollars Hillary took from Paul, and the disparity in press coverage becomes all the more preposterous." In his NewsBusters post, Sheppard makes an even more preposterous comparison, this time to George Allen and Scooter Libby:
Of course, the target of Allen's "macaca" slur, S.R. Sidarth, is not a convicted felon (though Dan Riehl tried to falsely make him into something akin to one). And given that Libby's trial did not start until this past week, the media could not have given "almost non-stop coverage" to it in "recent weeks." Sheppard's emphasis in the final paragraph is curious. Is he tacitly admitting that Paul's allegations against the Clintons are without merit? Is he saying that it doesn't matter if Paul is telling the truth as long at it hurts the Clintons? It seems to show a certain lack of faith in his favorite convicted felon.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:32 PM EST
Saturday, January 27, 2007
More Political Attacks at NewsBusters
Topic: NewsBusters In a Jan. 27 NewsBusters post, Mark Finkelstein fires off another political attack that has nothing to do with NewsBusters' declared mission:
In other words, if Pelosi really cared, she would have repeated Republican talking points. The MRC folks do know that such partisan activism bumps up against what the MRC is allowed to do under its 501(c)3 status, right?
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:38 AM EST
Friday, January 26, 2007
Making D'Souza Look Sane
Topic: Horowitz You know Dinesh D'Souza's new book "The Enemy at Home" is way out there when the David Horowitz crew is attcking it. Two columnists at Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com have launched attacks on it thus far. D'Souza has also been the subject of an interview with FrontPageMag managing editor Jamie Glazov over the book. Normally known for tossing softballs at his interview subjects -- i.e., David Limbaugh -- Glazov, after a first softball-laden segment, gets aggressive with D'Souza and attempts the feat of attacking him from the right. This leads to inevitable results, like making D'Souza look reasonable by comparison. At one point, Glazov essentially defends Abu Ghraib because we didn't treat the prisoners as bad as Saddam would have (and reveals a slight obsession with women's underwear):
After D'Souza calls Glazov on it, pointing out that You cannot defend one kind of wrong by pointing to another kind of wrong, Glazov gets more indignant:
Glazov digresses into a long spiel about how he is "the child of Soviet dissidents" and how his family was terrorized by the Soviet NKVD, which purportedly shows his sensitivity to the issue of torture. Eventally he gets back on point: Later, Glazov launches into an anti-liberal screed:
Was making D'Souza look sane the point of Glazov's ranting? (UPDATE: Edits made for clarity and formatting.)
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:40 PM EST
Updated: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:17 PM EST
Graham: Don't Criticize Glenn Beck
Topic: NewsBusters Tim Graham doesn't like the Washington Post's profile of Glenn Beck. Why? Because the author quotes people who criticize Beck. From Graham's Jan. 26 NewsBusters post:
Is Graham really defending Beck's remarks to Ellison? Since the only appearance of "liberal critics" in the article -- an otherwise sympathetic piece about how he overcame his various demons to become a success -- is over those remarks, it appears so. Just because, say, CNSNews.com wouldn't have been so gauche as to note that Beck has said controversial things doesn't mean that the Post should do that too. Graham goes on to attack Segal for his other purported offenses against conservatism. Among them:
It seems that Graham does have it in for David Segal.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:20 PM EST
Sheppard Misuses 'Anti-Semitic' Accusation
Topic: NewsBusters In a Jan. 25 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard bizarrely suggests that stating certain facts in a CNN report "appeared to be rather anti-Semitic potentially in an attempt to deflect criticism for Carter himself expressing anti-Semitic views in his controversial book":
In fact, referring to Brandeis as "historically Jewish" is indeed accurate. From the university's website:
That "50 percent of Brandeis students are Jewish" at present doesn't undercut that description. That's like saying that, for example, Baylor University is not a "historically Baptist" university because less than half of its student body is currently Baptist. And given that Carter was speaking a "historically Jewish" university to discuss a book that is highly critical of Israel, logic would dictate that the audience would be heavily Jewish. Sheppard offers no evidence to contradict the claim. Even if you suspend reality and grant Sheppard's assertion that CNN's claims about Brandeis and Carter's audience are "not completely accurate," how are they "anti-Semitic" as Sheppard suggests? We don't know; he doesn't back it up with anything.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:31 AM EST
Thursday, January 25, 2007
WND Still Silent on Israeli President's Sex Scandal
Topic: WorldNetDaily As we've reported previously, Israeli president Moshe Katsav has been accused of numerous offenses, including rape -- a scandal WorldNetDaily Jerusalem reporter Aaron Klein has ignored, presumably because Katsav is a member of the conservative Likud party, even though he has reported numerous corruption allegations against (non-Likud) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Katsav has now been suspended from office for three months while prosecutors prepare a case against him. Still, neither Klein nor WND have offered an original article detailing the allegations. Meanwhile, at CNSNews.com, a Jan. 24 article by Julie Stahl reports on Katsav's suspension from office, but it fails to note that he is a member of Likud.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:29 PM EST
CNS Spins for FBI on Foley Report
Topic: CNSNews.com A Jan. 24 CNSNews.com article by Nathan Burchfiel on the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General report on how the FBI handled the Mark Foley matter took a strangely pro-FBI spin, burying or ignoring mistakes made by the organization. Here's Burchfiel's lead:
The article continued on that tack by describing exculpatory findings regarding the FBI. It's not until the 9th paragraph is it hinted that the report contains anything critical about the FBI's handling of the case. The Washington Post, meanwhile, led its article on the report with that criticism -- that the FBI should have taken "some follow-up steps" when it learned about the emails. Burchfiel's article, however, offers no mention whatsoever of the report's other major finding -- that anonymous Justice and FBI officials had falsely told the media that the group that first forwarded the Foley emails to the FBI, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), that the messages supplied by CREW had been "heavily redacted" and that the group had refused to provide further information. In fact, according to the report, the only thing removed from the messages was the identity of the person to whom the communications had been forwarded, and that the "redactions in the e-mail did not factor into the FBI's decision to decline to investigate the matter." Burchfiel also writes:
That's not quite true. In fact, the first public airing of Foley-related communications with pages came from ABC News, not CREW. According to a CNN timeline of the scandal, CREW did not go public with its Foley emails until the day after the initial ABC report, and CREW's first press release on the matter (from Sept. 29, 2006, the day after the ABC report), did not mention that it had been in possession of Foley-related emails. It was not until Oct. 2 that it disclosed that it had forwarded Foley emails to the FBI, which were different from the messages ABC reported on.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:33 AM EST
Riehl Mendacious (And Confusing)
Topic: NewsBusters We're still amazed that Dan Riehl is still allowed to post at NewsBusters after his S.R. Sidarth debacle, but hey, if they allowed only people who could present their arguments cogently and honestly, we'd be out of business. Which brings us to Riehl's Jan. 24 post, in which he, in a classic pot-kettle-black moment, calls Sen. Jim Webb "something of an obfuscater when it comes to the truth." As evidence, Riehl claims that "a poll Webb used to claim the military doesn't support the war actually favors increasing troop numbers, as proposed by Bush." Not exactly true:
Riehl later wrote:
We're not sure exactly what the heck he's trying to say here. His quote from the poll on more troops in Iraq doesn't support his claim that a majority of the military doesn't support the effort in Iraq is "untrue." And the poll has three questions that could conceivably be interpreted asking about "support" of "the effort in Iraq" that don't quite support Riehl's claim:
Riehl then claims that Webb is wrong no matter what because the poll disavows itself from being "representative of the military as a whole." But doesn't that mean that Riehl's claims are wrong, too? If all Riehl has to disprove Webb is a poll that doesn't claim to be accurate, why did he even bother to write this in the first place? We're so confused. And not just because NewsBusters continues to allow Riehl to post there.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:42 AM EST
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Mychal Massie's Word of the Day
Topic: WorldNetDaily In his Jan. 23 column, Mychal Massie blows his thesauric wad in the first paragraph, dropping the words "oleaginousness" and "viscidity." Nothing so exotic in the rest of his column, which complains that white people who died in recent winter storms didn't get the attention that the black victims of Hurricane Katrina did.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:19 PM EST
NewsMax Ignores Mancow's History of Stunts In Promoting His Anti-Stunt Initiative
Topic: Newsmax From a Jan. 24 NewsMax article:
Nowhere is it mentioned that Mancow has his own history of voyeuristic stunts, such has shutting down traffic on the San Francisco Bay Bridge so his sidekick could get a haircut or having live cows delivered to competitors' radio shows. (Not to mention his Playboy interview, which may not be a stunt but is totally voyeuristic.) As we've noted, NewsMax has a thing for Mancow.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:50 PM EST
Sheppard Shocked by Non-Shocking Event, Part 2
Topic: NewsBusters In a Jan. 24 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard purports to be gobsmacked that a conservative newspaper columnist would criticize Democrats. "Here’s something you don’t see every day: a columnist at a liberal newspaper saying bad things about Democrats," Sheppard writes. But the columnist in question, the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby, is a conservative and has been for years. He continues:
Jacoby has written for the Globe since 1994. It would be more shocking for the sun to rise in the morning. It would be even more shocking for CNSNews.com to follow in the Globe's footsteps and hire a liberal columnist to balance its conservative roster of commentators. Sheesh. Is this going to turn into an ongoing series?
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:01 PM EST
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