NewsMax Stands By Its Favorite Crazy Person Topic: Newsmax
A March 30 NewsMax article defended Andy Martin's evidence-free claim -- made in a March 28 NewsMax column -- that Barack Obama has "locked ... away" his white grandmother "in his racist closet", calling him "one of the most racist politicians in America today" and accusing him of trying to hide his white heritage.
Nowhere does NewsMax note Martin's history of mental illness and anti-Semitism that call into question Martin's veracity on ... well, on anything, really. Nor does NewsMax explain why it would run a column by a person with such a history.
Klein Finally Notes Months-Old Israeli Rape Scandal Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 29 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein is not notable for its main subject matter -- allegations of resume-fudging by Israeli politician Shimon Peres. Rather. what's notable is that it's the first time Klein has mentioned (though not until the final paragraph) the months-old "rape scandal" involving Israeli president Moshe Katzav.
Why is resume-fudging more important to Klein than rape allegations against a high-ranking official, you ask? As we've noted, this is likely because Katzav belongs to the conservative Likud party, which Klein loves, while Peres is a member of the center-left Kadima party, which Klein hates.
First, it was Melanie Morgan co-author Catherine Moy who fell for actual mentally ill person Andy Martin's ravings about Barack Obama. Now, NewsMax has posted a March 28 column by Martin claiming that Obama has locked away his white grandmother, in "one of the cruelest and most mendacious political kidnappings this nation has ever seen," in order to downplay his whiteness. Media Matters has more.
What is it about the ConWeb and demonstrably certifiable whackjobs? Remember, NewsMax (along with the Horowitz empire) was infatuated with Melrose Larry Green, too.
Attorney-Firing Defense of the Day: Carter Did It! Topic: NewsBusters
A March 29 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston makes the following declaration:
Of course, we on Newsbusters know that the ginning up of this "scandal" is all smoke and mirrors meant solely as an attack on president Bush, to weaken him and to further destroy the GOPs chances in 2008.
We also all know that every president has the Constitutional right to fire any or all the U.S. Attorneys just like Clinton did.
But whether the Bush administration had the right to fire U.S. attorneys is not the issue. And Bush did not fire those eight attorneys "just like Clinton did," as we've detailed.
Then, Huston throws out a defense that may be even more lame than the Clinton-did-it defense: Carter did it!
But, it wasn't just Clinton, apparently. Even Jimmy Carter while in the White House fired an attorney that was making things too warm for one of the members of his party, making the action purely political in nature. And he lied about it to the people.
Huston's source for this claim is a March 27 Human Events article featuring the assertions of David Marston, who was removed as a U.S. attorney in Philadelphia in 1978. But a 1978 Time magazine article on the controversy reveals something that neither Human Events nor Huston noted: Marston is a Republican. Time further described Marston as "an outright political appointee who hunted headlines as vigorously as he hunted official corruption in both parties."
The article also quoted then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill calling Marston "a Republican political animal" who took office "with viciousness in his heart and for only one reason -- to get Democrats."
The Carter-did-it defense is just the latest in an ever-shifting line of Bush administration defenses proffered by NewsBusters.
A March 28 NewsBusters post by Justin McCarthy repeats the latest false meme about the eight fired U.S. attorneys -- that they were dismissed for legitimate causes.
After taking Rosie O'Donnell to task for confusing judges and attorneys in her criticism of the firings, McCarthy adds: "As previously noted, there were plausible and very defensible reasons for the firings of at least three U.S. attorneys," linking back to a previous post on the subject, in which he claimed that fired U.S. attorney Carol Lam "did not aggressively prosecute illegal alien criminals," which "concerned even Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein." But as we noted then, Lam was never confronted by anyone at the Department of Justice about her alleged record on prosecuting "illegal alien criminals" before she was fired.
Perhaps that's why McCarthy tried to peddle a new sub-talking point -- that "ne reason for Carol Lam’s dismissal was her failure to prosecute gun crimes." But given that, according to the link he supplies as evidence, this claim was made by Justice officials at the same time they accused Lam of being lax on immigration, there's a pretty good chance that it's just as bogus. Indeed, as TPM Muckraker notes, when the FBI's bureau chief in San Diego was asked about the given rationales for her ouster (that she pursued corruption cases to the detriment of gun and border prosecutions), he responded, "What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?" (Lam prosecuted ultra-corrupt congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.)
The Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy Confirmed Topic: WorldNetDaily
As if timed to support our new article about the ConWeb using the depiction-equals-approval fallacy to declare that anyone who isn't anti-gay must be pro-gay, a March 28 WorldNetDaily commentary by Matt Barber is headlined "Pro-'gay' bullies pick up the pace. Besides trafficking in hateful rhetoric (i.e. "left-wing storm troopers") and stereotypes, Barber makes this bizarre assertion about what a "hate crimes" statute would do:
All things being equal, this means that if your 5-foot-2-inch grandmother were attacked in her home and a 6-foot-4-inch homosexual linebacker who likes to wear lipstick and high-heels were attacked by the same assailant, the "gay" linebacker would be treated as more valuable to society, and the crime would officially be considered more egregious.
A "homosexual linebacker who likes to wear lipstick and high-heels"? What the hell is Barber talking about?
The Clinton-hate revival continues at NewsMax with a March 28 interview by Phil Brennan of. R. Emmett Tyrrell, author of "The Clinton Crack-Up." Here are some of the leading slowpitch-softball questions Brennan tossed Tyrrell's way:
-- You paint a picture of a thoroughly despicable human being in describing Bill Clinton. Reading the first two chapters makes one feel as if he were in a cesspool. How accurate a depiction is that?
-- In regard to his wife, are we going to see her ruthless, or Bruno, side or will that remain behind the scenes?
-- Most Democrat candidates today are essentially socialists, but Hillary embraces the fascist political philosophy - the mixed state pioneered by Benito Mussolini, doesn't she?
-- Given the Clinton modus operandi, do you expect that Hillary's people will go to work on Obama behind the scenes and he'll never know where it's coming from?
(That last question ignores evidence that the opposite may be true -- that right-wing operatives are smearing Obama and pinning the blame on Hillary.)
For his part, Tyrrell responds by claiming Bill Clinton is "on a par with Anna Nicole Smith" for being a celebrity "because of his wrongdoing" and adding, "I did compare [Hillary] to Mussolini in the book. At least she has nicer hair."
This is part of NewsMax's promotion of Tyrrell's book, which seems to contradict NewsMax publisher Christopher Ruddy's assertions that he's not as anti-Clinton as he used to be.
New Article: The Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy Topic: The ConWeb
Does mere description of something -- like, say, homosexuality -- without condemning it constitute endorsement of it? The ConWeb seems to think so. Read more.
WorldNetDaily columnist Janet Folger, in a March 27 column, thinks that we should take the word of convicted killers. Arguing against hate-crime laws, she claimed that Matthew Shepard wasn't killed because he was gay:
And guess what? Both killers have now confessed that their motive in attacking Shepard wasn't any animosity for his sexual behavior, they killed him for…money for drugs. What do you know? The poster child for "hate crimes" wasn't even the victim of one. Funny how that never came up in the 13,500 "Mathew Shepard" news stories, massive TV coverage, two major Hollywood specials, three TV movies, and a play.
In fact, as we've detailed, it takes not only a hefty chunk of conservative revisionism that fits a template conservatives eagerly want to believe, but a certain willful ignorance of the court record, to believe that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson killed Shepard over "money for drugs":
McKinney and Henderson have a long record of lying.
The hate-crime aspect was corroborated at trial.
McKinney attempted a "gay panic" defense during his trial.
Then again, the folks at WND have a bad habit of placing their trust in convicted felons.
Folger is founder and president of the anti-gay, anti-abortion group Faith2Action, so she clearly has an interest in keeping this particular meme alive; after all, it helps in dehumanizing process to smear Shepard as a druggie. But is it really worth her placing trust in unreliable convicted killers to do so?
WND Mum on Op-Ed Writer's Place on WND Board Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 27 WorldNetDaily column by Richard Botkin ends with no blurb whatsover describing who he is. So, who is this mysterious man? He's a member of the WND board of directors.
Botkin's most recent WND op-ed prior to this, in November 2005, includes a bio stating that Botkin "leads a small group of dentists and physicians to Cambodia each November for a two-week mission" but not his position on the WND board. Otherprevious Botkin op-eds do mention his WND board membership.
In a March 27 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd gives the ol' college try to resusitating a dead Republican talking point: that the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys is the same thing as President Clinton dismissing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration -- something Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush also did.
After noting that Time's Karen Tumulty stated that the U.S. attorney story deserved "a massive commitment of journalistic resources," Shepard added:
In 1993, Time magazine didn't show the same interest in blowing up the Clinton/Reno firings into a story the public would care about.
MRC/NB's Tim Graham did some digging in Time magazine's coverage as archived by Nexis and found anything but "massive" coverage from Time. In fact, the magazine practically surpressed yawns over possible political calculations behind the firings:
Of course, as we've detailed, the 8-equals-93 analogy is highly flawed.
A March 27 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones on the estate tax quoted only an opponent of the tax, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, so we can assume that this all came from a press release somewhere. So devoted was Jones to regurgitating the press release that she unquestioningly repeated a false assertion by Blunt: that the 55 percent top rate the estate tax would return to in 2011 if no congressional action is taken in the meantime is "unprecedented."
In fact, that rate has much precedent: 55 percent was the top rate before legislation was passed in 2001 to gradually lower the rate over the next nine years, dropping to zero in 2010.
Further, that 55 percent was/will be the maximum estate tax rate, yet Blunt and Jones portray the it as if it was the only rate; no other rates are mentioned. Blunt and Jones also fail to mention that most people do not pay an estate tax; currently, the first $2 million of an estate is not taxed, meaning that estates worth less than $2 million pay no estate tax at all.
NewsMax is promoting its latest opt-in poll, in which 68 percent said Newt Gingrich was their candidate for president in 2008. While NewsMax does describe the poll as an "Internet poll" and "unscientific," it misleadingly claims that an "overwhelming number of Americans" support Gingrich, which contradicts real polls, which show only a small minority who support Gingrich.
NewsMax, if you'll recall, justloves its meaningless polls, which it "will provide the results of this poll to major media and share them with radio talk show hosts across the country" despite their meaninglessness.
Bogus U.S. Attorney Talking Point of the Day Topic: NewsBusters
Now that the 8-equals-93 argument is no longer operative (not to mention totally bogus), NewsBusters has latched onto a new -- and similarly bogus -- defense for the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys: Even the liberal Dianne Feinstein was concerned about one prosecutor's record.
From a March 23 post by Justin McCarthy cheering on Bill O'Reilly's similar defense:
The mainstream media hinted that the administration fired San Diego attorney Carol Lam for prosecuting former Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. What they failed to report is that Ms. Lam did not aggressively prosecute illegal alien criminals. Her lax approach concerned even Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein.
Ken Shepherd repeated that talking point in a March 26 post:
Largely left by the wayside in mainstream media reporting have been legitimate deviations the fired attorneys exhibited from Bush Justice Department priorities, such as immigration enforcement -- for instance, San Diego-based attorney Carol Lam's prosecution of immigration cases reportedly bothered the decidedly unconservative Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) -- and pushing for the death penalty in capital cases.
That link in Shepherd's item goes to a March 25 Associated Press article that noted Feinstein's concern about Lam's record on immigration cases. But it also includes a line that Shepherd didn't pass along to his readers: "Feinstein has said her concerns on that front were subsequently satisfied and that it's 'bogus' to use her letter as evidence supporting Lam's dismissal."
Indeed, if the Bush Justice Department was concerned about Lam's record on immigration cases, it didn't show it. Similarly unmention by either McCarthy or Shepherd is a March 14 AP article noting that when Feinstein contacted the Justice Department with her concerns about Lam, she received a reply from associate deputy attorney general William Moschella, in which he described Lam's immigration smuggling caseload as rising "favorably" in 2006.
So, if Lam's immigration caseload was rising "favorably," that seems to undercut the argument advanced by O'Reilly, McCarthy and Shepherd that Lam was fired for lax immigration enforcement.
UPDATE: TPM Muckraker details Lam's record on immigration and the Justice Department's apparent lack of discussion of the issue with Lam before firing her -- thus further undermining the talking point.
Catherine Moy -- co-author with radio host and WorldNetDaily columnist Melanie Morgan of a Cindy Sheehan-bashing book -- seems to be enamored with sensational claims that are poorly sourced or not sourced at all.
We see that an article she wrote for her blog on Morgan's website, repeated on the website of Gathering of Eagles, a group that led a counter-protest of sorts during a recent anti-war protest, repeats the claim that there was a "30,000-strong crowd of pro-troop supporters" taking part. But as Sadly, No! points out, despite Gathering of Eagles' claims and suggestions to the contrary, the National Park Service no longer offers official estimates for crowd gatherings on the Mall in Washington, and evidence suggests that the total number of Eagles who did show up is someewhat less than 30,000.
Earlier this year, Media Matters caught Moy taking the word of a genuine crazy person ranting about Barack Obama. Given that, plus Moy's promotion of an unconfirmed (and unconfirmable) attendance number, we can only wonder how solid the claims in her and Morgan's anti-Sheehan book are.
