Topic: WorldNetDaily
After years of avoiding describing right-wing Jewish extremists as, well, extremists, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein is suddenly tossing the word around. Read more >>
Thursday, October 16, 2008
New Article: An Extreme Reversal
Topic: WorldNetDaily After years of avoiding describing right-wing Jewish extremists as, well, extremists, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein is suddenly tossing the word around. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:42 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:44 AM EDT
Corsi's Defense: Fake But Accurate
Topic: WorldNetDaily Jerome Corsi peddles another dubious document in an Oct. 16 WorldNetDaily article, this time claiming that "when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Kenya on a "fact-finding" trip in 2006, he was carrying out part of a secret election strategy that also included exploiting divisive tribal tensions and ultimately taking advantage of rioting that left 1,000 dead." Corsi links to a "strategy document" and asserts that he "has confirmed the authenticity of the strategy memo." But the link Corsi provides to the memo goes to a page on a public message board called Network 54. The page -- an expanded version of a document he previously cited as evidence that Obama gave "nearly $1 million" to Raila Odinga -- is entirely in HTML, which means that it cannot possibly be an original document, which he claims was "reported to have been smuggled out of ODM offices by Christian former-ODM officials." It is impossible to authenticate an HTML document that began life as a "smuggled" hard-copy piece of paper. Corsi offers no evidence that the HTML page is authentic, nor does he explain who posted it or why it was posted on a public bulletin board. Further, given that the original version of the "strategy memo" Corsi posted is clearly a fake re-creation, he can't claim authenticity for that version either. As in his previous Obama-Odinga articles, all sources are anonymous. Remember what Corsi's boss, Joseph Farah, has to say about anonymous sources: that they're "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better." Corsi does take a stab at refuting evidence that an email purportedly written by Obama -- contrary to Corsi's claim that it shows Obama "backed ruthless foreign thug" Odinga -- showed that, according to Politico's Ben Smith, it "appear[s] not to have been written by a native English speaker." Corsi asserts that "a second similar e-mail WND published ... should not occasion any linguistic quibbles." In fact, it does. The text of the second email read, "Thanks for contacting me about Mr Lippert through email. Contact him through mark_lippert.obama.senate.gov." The message is missing a period after "Mr" -- that missing period is standard British English -- and the email address lacks a "@" symbol. Further, as with his other documents, Corsi offers no evidence of the authentication he claims. Corsi is essentially saying is that his documents are fake but accurate. Remember too that WND was on the side of the folks who who raised doubts about documents used by CBS to back up claims about President Bush's National Guard service. Indeed, an October 2007 article by WND columnist Craige McMillan declared that media outlets should adopt a consumer bill of rights, one suggested provision of which is, "'Fake but accurate' reporting has no place in our news room." Apparently, it has a place in WorldNetDaily's newsroom.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:35 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, October 16, 2008 2:34 AM EDT
'Reality Check' Unreality: MRC Ignores Schieffer's GOP Ties
Topic: Media Research Center An Oct. 15 Media Research Center "Media Reality Check" -- unbylined, but apparently written by Tim Graham, who has posted it under his name at NewsBusters -- asserted that CBS' Bob Scheiffer "clearly did not take pains to appear objective before" the the Oct. 15 presidential debate for which he will serve as moderator. The so-called evidence: Schieffer called Sarah Palin an "attack dog." It's not explained how that arguably accurate description of her role in the McCain campaign is not "objective." The "Reality Check" also asserts that "Schieffer also failed the fair-and-balanced test in a review of the debate he moderated in 2004," adding: "It's easier for a pundit to call the Democrat the winner when the moderator’s questions lean strongly to the left." Graham (or whoever wrote this) conveniently fails to mention Schieffer's Republican ties -- namely, that Schieffer has a personal relationship with Bush and his brother was a former Bush business partner. And, as TPM reminds us, Schieffer defended John McCain when Gen. Wesley Clark said that McCain's experience as a prisoner of war didn't qualify him to be president.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:04 AM EDT
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Exclusive: Corsi's Kenyan Document Is A Fake
Topic: WorldNetDaily We've reported on the holes in Jerome Corsi's Oct. 14 WorldNetDaily article accusing Barack Obama of donating "nearly $1 million" to Kenya's Raila Odinga. Here's the biggest, blackest hole of the entire piece: Corsi is repeating a long-ago-discredited chain email. From an April 18 PolitiFact item:
PolitiFact even has its own copy of the "internal document" Corsi has (here and here) -- and it looks nothing like Corsi's version. The PolitiFact version -- which it says it obtained from the originators of the chain email, Celeste and Loren Davis, who "lived and worked in Kenya for the past 12 years" -- appears to have been run through a fax machine a few times, making the type fuzzy, while Corsi's version is clean and in an completely different typeface and format, and it appears to introduce a typo or two. In other words, If the Davises' document is to be considered original, Corsi has a recreated copy. Remember that Corsi said at the outset of his trip that he was going to visit "Christian missionaries." Would that be the Davises? PolitiFact toes on to write about the document:
If the Davises' document is "fraudulent," that means Corsi's document is too -- even more so, since it's a recreation. PolitiFact concludes that the whole Obama donation deal is "Pants on Fire wrong." That goes for Corsi as well -- and his other purportedly incriminating Obama email.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:28 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 8:50 PM EDT
WND Suckered By Fake Michelle Obama Interview
Topic: WorldNetDaily An Oct. 14 WorldNetDaily article claims that "Michelle Obama placed a surprise call to an African news agency to protest its coverage of WND investigative stories about her husband – characterizing the source of the material as "racist" and Jerome Corsi as 'evil.'" Just one problem: it is rather obviously fake. From the Huffington Post:
Among them is WND, which fully bought into it, complete with an email message from a representative from the alleged news agency (which appears to be nothing more than a blog):
WND has a habit of letting its biases get in the way of its news judgment. This is not the first time that WND has treated a fake news story as real -- in 2005, WND treated an April Fool's item on the blog Defamer that Terri Schiavo's husband had sold the rights to his story for a TV movie was real. On the other hand, WND thinks those Obama-smearing emails Jerome Corsi brought back from Kenya are real too.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:02 PM EDT
Red Alert: The Holes In Corsi's Latest Attack on Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily What's wrong with Jerome Corsi's assertion in an Oct. 14 WorldNetDaily article that Barack Obama donated "nearly $1 million" to the campaign of "foreign thug" Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga? Let us count the ways:
To summarize: Corsi is basing his current attack on Obama on anonymous sources and unverified, fraudluent-looking "documents."
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:29 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 7:05 PM EDT
Newsmax Gets Amnesia About McCain's Flip-Flops
Topic: Newsmax An Oct. 14 Newsmax article by Rod Proctor carries the headline: "Obama's Long Record of Flip-Flops Exposed." Mentioned nowhere in Proctor's article: John McCain's even longer record of flip-flops. It's not that Newsmax isn't aware of this. Indeed, Ronald Kessler wrote of McCain in July 2007:
Kessler hasn't written a thing about McCain's temper for months now. Wonder why that is ...
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:28 PM EDT
Quote of the Day
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Oct. 7 WorldNetDaily article promoting the WND-sold book "Nephilim Stargates," in which author Thomas Horn claims that "the growing trend of hedonism may be supernaturally motivated." Horn states: "Is a psychological or supernatural force behind the growing flood of debauchery? Are we seeing evil supernaturalism in the birth pangs of a new occult Dionysianism?" Richard Bartholomew has more on the multiple visions of Armageddon WND is peddling.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:41 PM EDT
Your WND Obama Lie of the Day
Topic: WorldNetDaily Yes, it's another Obama-related lie at WorldNetDaily. This time, surprisingly, the lie isn't about Barack Obama himself, and it can be plausibly argued that the culprit is general stupidity and shoddy reporting rather than the outright malice that colors most of WND's anti-Obama coverage and causes it to disregard basic concepts of truth in reporting. An Oct. 14 article rewrites a blog post by an anonymous (of course) person claiming to the parent of a student in Racine, Wis., whose son allegedly had a eighth-grade literature textbook that "laud[ed] Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's "change" theme and highlighting his 2004 Democratic National Convention as an example of good literature."WND repeatedly calls this section of the textbook an "article." In fact, it appears to be a segement of Obama's 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention. The picture of the first page of the speech segment on the blog post indicates that the speech is in the textbook for analysis purposes by students. One text segment is called "Focus on Form"; another asks, "What words or prhases help you know that this is a speech?" But WND never bothers to specifically identify this text as Obama's speech. Instead, it baselessly claims that the textbook publisher is "promot[ing] Obama's 'literature'"and it uncritically quotes the anonymousmother smearing Obama:"Honestly, what has Obama really done to be included in this book?" The article doesn't get around to mentioning until the 12th paragraph that according to the textbook's publisher, "the Obama article was included because of "an editorial decision" that was made before Obama announced his candidacy, and it was deleted from versions of the book after that announcement." And it not until another five paragraphs later that WND vaguely hints at the larger purpose of the textbook by stating that the publisher "makes available on its website a CD featuring his speech in 2004. The CD also has speeches from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton and Laura Bush to teach children about public speaking, 'both when it's effective and when it fails.'" WND never bothers to explore the actual purpose the textbook. From the publisher's page on it:
Sample pages from the book include the classic O. Henry short story "The Ransom of Red Chief," which is used to examine the literary device of conflict and resolution, using an shot from a Road Runner cartoon to illustrate the story's concept of things not going according to plan. Another invokes "Back to the Future" to examine movie plots, settings and visual techniques. In other words, the textbook attempts to invoke popular culture as a way of engaging students in the study of literature. The Obama speech is likely in there as an example of a good speech that is worth examining for its structural elements. Remember -- most, if not all, of the employees of WorldNetDaily either homeschool their children or send them to private Christian academies. They have never encountered a modern textbook used in public -- er, "government schools" except for purposes of cherry-picking purportedly offensive passages, as is done here. WND, with its obsessive Obama-hate, will never concede that near-universal opinion that Obama gave an excellent speech in 2004 and will never accept the idea that it was added to the textbook for any reason other than to "promote" Obama. And as a capper, the WND article adds:
WND, of course, fails to mention that Cashill's "documented evidence" is a joke. But then, so is the rest of this article.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:38 AM EDT
Noel Sheppard's Premature Defense
Topic: NewsBusters In an Oct. 14 NewsBusters post promoting David Frum's accusation that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has been "intensifying the ugly tone that exists in politics today," Noel Sheppard sought to counter Maddow's claim that a member of the audience at a McCain Palin event shouted, "Kill him" in reference to Barack Obama. "For the record, Patterico on Tuesday debunked the leftwing claim that the person in the crowd at the McCain-Palin event in question was shouting for Obama to be killed," Sheppard wrote; the right-wing blogger Patterico asserted that it was "unambiguously a call to kill [William] Ayers, not Obama." So, somehow that makes it OK? It appears both Sheppard and Patterico may have spoken too soon. From a Scranton Times Tribune blog post on an Oct. 14 speech by Sarah Palin in the city:
Wanna find a way to explain this away, guys?
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:06 AM EDT
Caruba Again Falsely Claims Earth is Cooling
Topic: CNSNews.com In an Oct. 13 CNSNews.com column, Alan Caruba repeat his previous claim that "there is NO global warming. Nada, zip, nunca, niete! None! The Earth has been in a cooling cycle now for a decade." As we pointed out the last time Caruba claimed this, British meterological experts and researchers point out that "[t]emperatures are continuing to rise" and states that "[a] simple mathematical calculation of the temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1° C per decade." Further, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that "[t]he eight warmest years in the [global] GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990."
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:58 AM EDT
Kincaid's Obama-Hate Reaches Orgasmic Heights
Topic: Accuracy in Media You know how in various forms of addiction, the addicted person must resort to greater and more intense doses of the substance they are abusing -- drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. -- to reach the same high? That's where Cliff Kincaid is right now, as we saw coming. Thus the headline on his Oct. 14 Accuracy in Media column: "Was a Communist Obama’s Sex Teacher?" That's right -- Kincaid has fully merged two obsessions -- Barack Obama and Frank Marshall Davis -- with sex. You think Kincaid aroused himself a little by writing that headline and by describing Davis as a "Communist sex pervert"? (And is being a "Communist sex pervert" better or worse than being a regular sex pervert?) Kincaid goes on to happily tout that "the tabloid National Enquirer has seized upon the Frank Marshall Davis story in its October 20 issue. It glosses over his Communist Party membership and focuses instead on his role as sex pervert, pedophile, pornographer and mentor to Obama. This 'exclusive' was actually broken wide open by my group America’s Survival, Inc. weeks ago." One wonders if Kincaid served as the undisclosed source for the Enquirer story -- and how much the Enquirer paid him. Kincaid insists that the Enquirer story "is definitely true," which means that Kincaid must also accept that the Enquirer's claim that Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband's former business partner is also true. But he won't, since he's too busy sending his imagination into fevered overdrive about what he thinks happened between Obama and Davis:
Get a room, Cliff.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:12 AM EDT
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Ponte Unleashes More Dubious Smears on Obama
Topic: Newsmax Lowell Ponte has unleashed a new series of Obama smears at Newsmax. In an Oct. 10 column, Ponte bizarrely asserted:
Ponte continued:
Ponte also rehashes numerous horror stories about "vote fraud involving Obama’s ally ACORN" while failing to mention the inconvenient facts that 1) fraudulent voter registration forms virtually never lead to fraudulent votes being cast, 2) ACORN is required in many states to turn in all registration forms it collects, even those it suspects are fraudulent, and 3) ACORN regularly cooperates with authorities by flagging potentially fraudulent registration forms. In an Oct. 13 column, Ponte tries to parse his previous assertions about Obama's links to ACORN (which we've previously debunked) against the Obama campaign's denials in a desperate effort to make them kinda-sorta true. For instance, Ponte had claimed on Oct. 6 that Project Vote was "ACORN’s voter mobilization entity" at the time Obama worked for the group in 1992. In fact, as the Obama campaign pointed out, it was not a part of ACORN in 1992. But the only attempt Ponte makes at trying to disprove that claim is when he quotes the Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum -- who has his own accuracy issues on the subject.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:58 PM EDT
Cashill Keeps Building His Obama Conspiracy
Topic: WorldNetDaily Jack Cashill is starting to sound like conspiracy-obsessed Richard Mellon Scaife (but without the bottomless barrel of cash). Just as Scaife insisted that Vince Foster's death was the Rosetta Stone of the Clinton presidency -- and threw millions of dollars at people to smear Clinton with conspiracy theories about Foster's death -- Cashill (who has penned his own Clinton conspiracy book) is clinging to the idea that nautical references are the Rosetta Stone to his otherwise unsubstantiated claim that William Ayers ghost-wrote Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father." Cashill asserts in an Oct. 14 WorldNetDaily column that "A newly discovered anecdote from Bill Ayers' 1993 book 'To Teach' solidifies the case that he is indeed the muse behind Barack Obama's 'Dreams From My Father.'" This blockbuster evidence: Both books anecdotally reference the tidal nature of the Hudson River. That's it. Really. Nevertheless, Cashill declares:
Remember: Cashill is the same guy who spent a seven-part series for WND in 2002 "proving" that anti-abortion extremist James Kopp didn't murder abortion doctor Barnett Slepian and weaving a grand conspiracy that Kopp was framed -- a few months before Kopp confessed to the killing.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:31 PM EDT
Krugman Derangement Syndrome
Topic: Media Research Center There's a case of some very sour grapes at the Media Research Center over Paul Krugman being awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. In an Oct. 13 NewsBusters post, Mark Finkelstein took great pleasure in the folks at MSNBC's "Morning Joe" treating the award as a joke, then mocked Andrea Mitchell for trying to set people straight:
Finkelstein then sneers: "According to the official Nobel announcement, Krugman was awarded the prize for "his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity." Right." Then, in an Oct. 13 appearance on Fox News' "Your World," the MRC Business & Media Institute's Dan Gainor was in a similar sneering mood, eager to delegitimize the award because it isn't given to people Gainor likes. From an Oct. 13 NewsBusters post by Nathan Burchfiel (the video of Gainor's appearance wasn't functional at the time of this writing):
Ouch. They'll get over it eventually. Then again, Tim Graham still hasn't gotten over that macaca thing...
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:14 PM EDT
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