A Feb. 20 FrontPageMag article by P. David Hornik runs to the defense of right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman by whitewashing Lieberman's controversial statements.
Hornik states that while he has "reservations" about Lieberman because "has been under police investigation for a decade," used a campaign slogan that "smacks of bigotry," and "joined—and saved—the feckless Olmert government at a time of mounting public protest over the failed war in Lebanon," he defends Lieberman over claims that he is "racist and fascist" in his positions on Israeli Arabs, calling his position is not "necessarily reprehensible." But in doing so, Hornik joins in Lieberman's demonization of Israeli Arabs and fails to note Lieberman's most inflammatory statements, nowing only that "his rhetoric has once or twice gone over the top."
Hornik fails to detail any of those "over the top" statements, such as his likening of Israeli Arabs in the Knesset to Nazi collaborators and calling for the execution of any Arab Knesset member who meets with Hamas.
Hornik also claims that Lieberman's support of a loyalty oath for Israeli citizens "obfuscates more than it illumines" but that it "is a legitimate response to a very real problem and danger that Israelis live with."
Last May, we noted one particularly desperate guilt-by-association attack on Barack Obama by WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein -- a claim that the new pastor at Obama's former church in Chicago paraphrased a line from a rap song that also included explicit lyrics, which the pastor did not reference.
You'd think that such a obviously desperate smear would disappear into the ether, right? Wrong.
The Discover the Networks profile of that pastor, Otis Moss, approvingly cites Klein's attack:
In another sermon, Moss quoted a song -- titled "Wrong N-gga to F--k With" -- by the rap artist Ice Cube. ("If I was Ice Cube," said Moss, "I would say it a little differently -- 'you picked the wrong folk to mess with.'") This song contains the following lyrics:
"Down wit the niggaz that I bail out I'm platinum b-tch and I didn't have to sell out F--- you Ice Cube, that's what the people say F--- AmeriKKKa, still with the triple K Cause you know when my nine goes buck it'll bust your head like a watermelon dropped from 12 stories up Now let's see who'll drop"
LIke Klein, at no point does Discover the Networks offer evidence that Moss citted the offensive lyrics.
Apparently, David Horowitz is just as desperate to smear Obama as Klein is.
In a Feb. 17 FrontPageMag column, Paul Kengor writes: "Before he was elected president, Senator Barack Obama was ranked the most liberal member of a very liberal U.S. Senate by the respected, non-partisan National Journal, which is famous for its rankings of members of Congress."
Kengor fails to mention that National Journalconsidered just 99 votes in its survey and that the publication admitted that its previous surveys' methodologies had been flawed. Moreover, a separate study that used all 388 non-unanimous Senate votes during 2007 produced a different result, placing Obama in a tie for the ranking of 10th most liberal senator. Further, National Journal similarly declared John Kerry the "most liberal senator" before the 2004 presidential election, only to acknowledge later that its methodology in doing so was flawed.
Kengor has also apparently decided that the election of Obama is evidence that Americans are stupid:
Can we trust the American public to vote rationally? That may seem harsh, even condescending, but it is an inescapable consideration given the data.
The data is particularly a jolt to Reagan Republicans. Ronald Reagan frequently declared that you can always trust the American people to make the right decisions. Of course, that assumes a knowledgeable, well-informed public—educated by schools and media that are genuinely balanced in exposing a wide variety of points of view. It also assumes a citizenry that votes according to ideas or ideology.
Apparently, for many Americans, those things did not happen on November 4, 2008.
That sounds a lot like how WorldNetDaily reacted to Obama's election, by declaring Obama voters to be immature.
FrontPageMag Still Falsely Attacking Teresa Heinz Kerry Topic: Horowitz
During the 2004 election, FrontPageMag managing editor Ben Johnson issued an attack booklet, "57 Varieties of Radical Causes: Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Charitable Giving," which contained numerous false claims: It linked her to causes to which she has not donated money, ascribed donations to her personally when she was merely one of several trustees of the donating group, and insinuated that she bought the endorsement of a major environmental group for her husband, Sen. John Kerry.
Even though the 2004 election is long over, Johnson felt the need to make more baseless allegations against her. He's coming out with a new booklet, "Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Radical Gifts."In a Feb. 12 interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Bill Steigerwald (reprinted Feb. 13 at FrontPageMag), Johnson rehashes old smears and creates new ones.
Johnson repeats his attack on the Tides Center, suggesting that Heinz Kerry's donations to it went to "radical causes." As we pointed out back then, the Heinz-linked donations were earmarked to specific environmental causes in Western Pennsylvania, and none were donated to "radical causes."
Johnson follows up with another distortion: that Heinz Kerry "brought a wing of the Tides Center to Western Pennsylvania specifically to fund projects in the area, but they give 10 percent of their income to local radical organizations." As we also detailed, that 10 percent is actually an administrative and overhead fee, not a donation to "radical causes."
Johnson also came up with some new smears as well. He described the Three Rivers Community Foundation as a nest of "far-left radicals – not simply liberals or liberal Democrats, but, in fact, many of them are socialists or explicitly communist anti-Americans." In fact, among the causes the Three Rivers Community Foundation supports include:
The Latin American Cultural Union a project that "encouraged and supported youth and family responsibility and leadership."
YouthPlaces, "a youth and community-driven program designed to serve minority, low-income 12-18 year old at-risk youth in public housing communities."
Chain of Hope, "a self-help group for the mentally ill."
The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburg, which "received a grant in 2001 to increase the center's ability to communicate with sight- and hearing-disabled members of the GLBT community."
Yeah, real anti-American. Nevertheless, Johnson adds that "Among those grass-roots organizations" that the Three Rivers Community Foundation supports "is ACORN, the voter-fraud organization."
Needless to say, Steigerwald was merely serving up softballs and had no intention of holding Johnson accountable for his false claims.
FrontPageMag Misleads On Union Bill Topic: Horowitz
A Feb. 11 FrontPageMag article by John A. Sparks repeated the false claim that the Employee Free Choice Act would "do away with traditional secret-ballot elections which are now used to determine whether or not employees in an enterprise want to be represented by a union."
In fact, as we've detailed, the EFCA does not eliminate the right to a secret ballot; it adds the option of a "card check" and makes the choice to have an election the employees' instead of the employer's.
Sparks also claims that the current system keeps union-formation issues "free from the pressure of either the employer or the union." In fact, employers regularly pressure employees against union membership under the current system. The number of complaints filed by the National Labor Relations Board against employers for committing unfair labor practices far outweigh those filed by the NLRB against union organizations, and one survey found that found that 25 percent of employers fired at least one worker for union activity and that 51 percent of employers told employees that their plant might close if workers unionized.
FrontPageMag Peddles Falsehoods on Illegal Immigrant Criminals Topic: Horowitz
A Feb. 9 FrontPageMag article by Alyssa A. Lappen makes the wildly fraudulent statement that "Illegal aliens account for most federal prison inmates, too, according to many studies." Lappen's source for this is an article in the right-wing City Journal that doesn't directly make that claim.
In fact, as we've noted, statistics from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics show that 6.4 percent of all state and federal inmates at midyear 2005 were "noncitizens." In case it's unclear to Lappen, that number is nowhere near "most."
Lappen also writes: "Immigration cases made up 57% of 'all new federal criminal cases brought nationwide' in March 2008, according to Syracuse University-affiliated analysts. They include hundreds of thousands of criminals[.]" While the first claim is true, according to the New York Times article she quotes, the second is decidedly not: the Times reports there were 9,350 new immigration prosecutions in March 2008, not "hundreds of thousands."
Horowitz Repeats False Right-Wing Talking Point on Guantanamo Topic: Horowitz
In a Jan. 23 post on his FrontPageMag blog, David Horowitz mouths the right-wing canard that "Sixty-two terrorists (that we can identify) have already returned to their war against the United States after being freed from Guantanamo." In fact, the Pentagon has confirmed that only 18 -- not 62 -- have "returned to the fight."
Horowitz goes on to rant that "This would not have been possible without the support of the entire political left, led by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, two organizations that support the agendas of the terrorists and while verbally distancing themselves from their methods in practice, do everything in their power to get them released when they are caught." Really? "The entire political left" wants to establish sharia law in Muslim countries, which involves things like stoning adultresses, and to create an Islamic caliphate? That's part of al-Qaeda's agenda.
These are the kind of ridiculous generalities that disqualify Horowitz from being taken seriously as a political commentator.
FrontPageMag Falsely Impugns AP Photographer Topic: Horowitz
The case of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was a cause celebre among right-wingers a couple years ago. Some of them still haven't gotten over it.
One of them is David Paulin, who uses a Dec. 12 FrontPageMag article (which also appears at American Thinker and his own blog) to express dismay that Hussein was given an International Press Freedom Award after spending two years detained by the U.S. military in Iraq without ever being charged.In the process, Paulin repeats unsubstantiated claims about Hussein.
Paulin asserted that Hussein "hobnobbed easily with pro-Saddam loyalists and al-Qaida terrorists," which purportedly gave him "the uncanny ability to show up just as an attack occurred." No evidence is offered to support the claim. Paulin added that "To some, Hussein's photos raised troubling questions about the AP's hiring practices and objectivity." Paulin does not say who "some" are.
Paulin added:
But anti-war liberals and media elites saw things differently. Hussein was a dedicated photojournalist doing his job – getting all sides of a story – only to be unjustly imprisoned without formal charges. One AP lawyer, apparently unaware Iraq was not a peaceful democracy but at war, even complained that Hussein was being denied “due process.”
It was a common complaint among liberals: Hussein had been denied “due process.”
Paulin does not mention why "due process" was a "common complaint": Hussein was never charged with a crime during his time in custody. Nor does Paulin explain why he apparently believes Hussein should have been denied "due process" and why he thinks it's acceptable to imprison a journalist without charges for two years.
Paulin also writes: "After two years in prison, he escaped the possibility of a criminal trial when he was freed under a general amnesty that took effect seven months ago." That's misleading; according to Hussein's attorney, Scott Horton: "When we say 'amnesty,' it’s usually an executive act. This was a judicial amnesty based on a review of the complete court record."
An Iraqi Judicial Commission reviewing his case took ten days to reach a conclusion: No basis existed for the terrorism-related charges which had been brought against him. The conclusion was a sweeping repudiation of accusations U.S. military figures have brought against him, backed by no evidence, but by a handful of strangely motivated American wingnut bloggers.
Paulin then snarked:
Hussein, during his live comments, also noted that Iraq was one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists. He was certainly right about that. More than 180 Iraqi journalists and media workers have died during the war – many targeted for asking too many questions or simply because they worked for Western news organizations. Obviously, none worked in the risk-free environment that Hussein did.
Again, Paulin offers no evidence that Hussein faced no risks in his photography, or that his relationship to terrorists is any more chummy that that of, say, Aaron Klein (whom we don't see Paulin ranting about).
Oddly enough, Paulin claims to be a journalist. You wouldn't know it from this little factually deficient attack.
Horowitz Debunks Blaming CRA for Crisis, But His Writers Promoted It Topic: Horowitz
We've previously noted David Horowitz's attempt to talk some sense into conservatives by pointing out the unassailable fact that the Community Reinvestment Act did not cause the current financial crisis. So why did Horowitz's FrontPageMag publish writers who claimed it was?
To be sure, many economists dispute that deregulation is the principal cause of the current crisis. They cite the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which stipulated that banks had an “affirmative obligation” to make loans to low-income borrowers of dubious creditworthiness; the role of government-sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fanny May [sic]; and the activist interventions of the Federal Reserve in financial markets as the driving forces of the financial turmoil.
It was the left - the "liberals" or "progressives" - who led the charge to force lending institutions to lend to people whose credit history made them eligible only for "subprime" loans that were risky for both borrowers and lenders.
It started way back in the Carter administration, with the Community Reinvestment Act, and gained momentum over the years with legal threats from Attorney General Janet Reno and thuggery from ACORN, all to force lenders to lend where third parties wanted them to lend. Now we have a bad stomach ache - and now the left wants to start amputating the market.
Q: Are the subprime credit crisis and the stock market’s swoon and the dollar’s drop in value symptoms of a deeper, larger, broader problem?
A: Well, no, they are simply the problems that they are. The government has brought on the housing problem, partly by these very low interest rates, which encouraged many people to go way out on a limb. They’ve brought it on by highly restrictive building policies, which have caused housing prices to skyrocket artificially. And they’ve brought it on by the Community Reinvestment Act, which presumes that politicians are better able to tell investors where to put their money than the investors themselves are. When you put all that together, you get something like what you have.
-- Interview of Thomas Sowell by Bill Steigerwald, Feb. 4
Meanwhile, Horowitz is still strugging mightily to impose reason on those birth-certificate-obsessed right-wingers:
If this were to come to pass, the principles could not be enforced. In the second place, conservatives need to recognize and accept that they lost the election and it is important for Americans to accept their new president. He may do things, AS PRESIDENT, that will cause them to oppose him, and that is fine. But first they need to accept him as President, because that is the way our constitutional system works. And it is the only way it works.
And judging by the comments, it's going about as well as his previous attempts.
Right-Wing Myths Shot Down By ... David Horowitz? Topic: Horowitz
David Horowitz normally takes a back seat to no one in passing along right-wing talking points, particularly about Barack Obama (witness his pre-election Obama-bashing.) So it's a bit of a shock to see Horowitz shoot down one prominent right-wing Obama myth, as well as another falsely blaming the financial crisis on Democrats.
Horowitz devoted a Dec. 1 blog post to shooting down various right-wing attacks on Obama, starting with the birth certificate:
Is Obama a legitimate president of the United States? Well, let me put it to you this way: 64 million Americans voted to elect Barack Obama. Do you want to disenfranchise them? Do you think it's possible to disenfranchise 64 million Americans and keep the country? And please don't write me about the Constitution. The first principle of the Constitution is that the people are sovereign. What the people say, goes. If you think about it, I think you will agree that a two-year billion dollar election through all 50 states is as authoritative a verdict on anything as we are likely to get. Barack Obama is our president. Get used to it.
And what could conservatives be thinking when they push this issue as though it were important (as The American Thinker did last week)? Do we want to go challenging the legitimacy of an election that involved 120 million voters? Have we become deranged leftists like Al Gore who would attack the one binding thread that makes us a nation despite our differences? The mystique of elections is the American covenant. Respect it. Barack Obama is the president of the United States. Get used to it.
But Horowitz's readers didn't take too kindly to that notion, so he responded to them the next day:
Among the many attacks on my previous blog both abusive and not, one common theme seems to stand out. This is the claim that I have slighted the Rule of Law in favor of some misguided principle of democracy, which is not a conservative idea -- or so my critics would argue. My error is to have elevated the principle of majority rule over the rule of law.
[...]
The people voted for Obama. Assuming for the sake of the argument that Obama is not a natural citizen of the United States, the question is: what are the consequences of having 9 appointed justices -- or more likely 5 of 9 justices -- tell 64 million voters that their votes don't count? Would our constitutional democracy survive such a conflict, and then would our Constitution? Ultimately, the answer to these questions lies with the people. They are the ultimate authority not some abstract Rule of Law because the Rule of Law is in any case ajudicated and enforced by (highly political) men and women, while the people in its majority have it in their power to destroy the Rule of Law if they so will. The Constitution itself recognizes this fact by giving the people the right to amend it by a two-thirds vote. This is itself a recognition that the Rule of Law is an institution of men and women.
[...]
At bottom, the problem with all these comments is that the people who make them haven't accepted the fact that we lost the election. We lost the election. Get used to it. That's the necessary condition for thinking clearly about the next step.
His readers still weren't buying it, so Horowitz repeated his contention the following day, but added:
Consider the bitterness, the pathological hatred of Bush, the sabotage of America's war effort by Democrats who believed that his election was illegitimate. Consider the 2 month delay this caused in the transition to the new administration and how that affected our inability to prevent 9/11 (the comprehensive counter-terrorism plan commissioned by Bush arrived on his desk on 9/10). We are fighting wars on two fronts. The attack on Mumbai is a reminder that the same could happen here at any moment. Do we have the luxury of a fratricidal conflict within our borders?
In fact, the the controversy over the 2000 election did not result in a "2 month delay"; the election was held on Nov. 7, and Gore conceded on Dec. 13. Further, Horowitz offers no evidence that the election controversy kept Bush from commissioning a counterterrorism plan any earlier than he did, which might have been delivered earlier than Sept. 10.
But the criticism continued, which prompted Horowitz to slip into victim mode in a Dec. 4 post, declaring that "It seems like I've taken on the thankless task of keeping conservatives from behaving like liberals, acting like unpatriotic sore losers and attacking the legitimacy of the new commander-in-chief." He then decides to ratchet things up more, invoking "another issue on which conservatives have bent themselves out of shape, refusing to accept their share of responsibility for the financial crisis that is upon us. Contrary to conservative mythmakers, the subprime credit is not the cause of the current crisis and the Community Reinvestment Act is not its trigger."
Horowitz then copies-and-pastes are Federal Reserve report pointing out that "the long-term evidence shows that the CRA has not pushed banks into extending loans that perform out of line with their traditional businesses" and that "only a small portion of subprime mortgage originations are related to the CRA."
That didn't go over too well either. In a Dec. 6 blog post, Horowitz added a restatement of the origin of the financial crisis by another writer, adding, "I didn't write the following, but I'm not going to identify who did and open him to the kind of ad hominem attacks that I myself have been subjected to. Suffice it to say he knows more about the economy than anyone posting to this threat [sic]." Horowitz also reiterated his claims on the birth certificate brouhaha:
The continuing efforts of a fringe group of consrvatives to deny Obama his victory and to lay the basis for the claim that he is not a legitimate president is embarrassing and destructive. The fact that these efforts are being led by Alan Keyes, an unhinged demagogue on the political fringe who lost a senate election to the then unknown Obama by 42 points should be a warning in itself.
In a Dec. 7 post, Horowitz played the victim again in answering his critics:
I have become accustomed to the fact that when it comes to political issues people are averse to complexities and messy facts and prefer to argue ideological simplicities instead. Thus I am lectured by many that the Constitution matters, that it can't be subordinated to politics, etc., etc. Then I am told that I have gone ideologically soft, that I am Obama Republican and that I am not a conservative. All because I have pointed out what should be some obvious truths.
First, the issue is not whether the Constitution should be subjected to the whim of an electoral majority. It should not.
Second, the issue is whether an election that has been decided by nearly 120 million people should now be thrown into the laps of 9.
[...]
The attempt by some so-called conservatives to declare the winner of this election illegitimate and to deny Obama his office is a radical assault on our constituional framework and system of law.
Will this end the saga? Don't count on it -- the truth means nothing to these people. After all, WorldNetDaily has continued to distort and lie about Obama's birth certificate, even after first reporting the truth.
FrontPageMag Tosses More Softballs at Ziegler Topic: Horowitz
John Ziegler gets the softball treatment again at FrontPageMag, this time for his smear-job-in-progress on Obama. Since it's all about softballs, Jamie Glazov asks Ziegler questions like "Why do you think the media is so much infiltrated and dominated by the Left?"
Of course, Glazov makes no mention of Ziegler's treatment of interviewers who aren't as sycophantic as Glazov, let alone the factually questionable, agenda-driven questions in the Zogby poll he commissioned with the goal of portraying Obama voters as idiots.
A Sucker's Bet from David Horowitz Topic: Horowitz
For a while now, in an effort to boost sales of David Horowitz and Ben Johnson's book "Party of Defeat," Horowitz's FrontPageMag has been offering $500 "to any critic of the war -- who has written for a reputable publication -- to write a critique of the book and its main thesis." That thesis is summarized in the book's subtitle: "How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and After 9/11."
The problem with this is that it appears to be a sucker's bet. It's not clear whether payment of the $500 is contingent on disproving the book, but it is clear that Horowitz and Johnson -- who appear to be the only judges -- will never concede (publicly, anyway) that it has been disproven, even if it actually was.
Typical is Horowitz and Johnson's exchange with Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff. He writes that Horowitz and Johnson "claim that Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's convicted chief of staff, never leaked the identity of Joe Wilson's wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame. Actually, he did - to Judith Miller of the New York Times over breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel on July 8, 2003." They respond:
Isikoff takes us to task over the leak of Valerie Plame’s name to Robert Novak. Scooter Libby was not the source of this leak; rather antiwar Realist Richard Armitage was. He then told no one and let the president’s enemies in the Democratic Party and the media call him a liar for several years. Still, Isikoff’s co-author, David Corn, has tortured logic to somehow link Armitage’s inadvertent leak to the White House.
Horowitz and Johnson—having been caught in their mistake about Scooter Libby not having leaked Valerie Plame’s CIA identity—subtly reshift their argument to instruct me that Richard Armitage was actually the “source” of the leak. Thanks for the info, guys. The news that it was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who first leaked Joe Wilson’s wife’s identity to Bob Woodward and columnist Robert Novak was revealed to the world in Hubis, the book I co-wrote with David Corn. Horowitz and Johnson criticize what they call Corn’s ‘”tortured” logic (a Freudian slip that?) regarding the White House connection. I don’t know what tortured logic they’re talking about. But as we painstakingly laid out in the book, Armitage’s role does not change the fact that Libby and Karl Rove (completely independently) leaked the same information for their own political reasons—to discredit Wilson for his criticism of the White House’s use of the phony Niger yellowcake story.
Horowitz and Johnson responded with further parsing:
We were not “caught” in a mistake about Libby: our book’s focus was on the leak to Robert Novak – the leak that sparked the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald -- in which Libby had no role.
Horowitz and Johnson really aren't interested in a serious debate on the issue -- they just want something they can contort into self-affirming evidence they were right all along. That's how the Horowitz crew rolls; another Horowitz co-author, Richard Poe, tried to do the same thing to Media Matters. (Poe plays the victim over this on his blog, whining that Media Matters "sought to discredit and silence me" four four years, ruefully calling it a "cheerless anniversary." Of course, Poe will never admit that he discredited himself.)
FrontPageMag Falsely Claims Palin Africa Story Is 'Hoax' Topic: Horowitz
In a Nov. 13 FrontPageMag article discussing criticism of Sarah Palin, Jacob Laksin noted the claim that Palin "did not know that Africa is a continent and not a country" and writes: "Palin has said that her comments about NATO and Africa were quoted out of context. The Africa charge turns out to be a hoax."
Wrong. In fact, the "hoax" in question was the assertion that purported McCain policy adviser "Martin Eisenstadt" made in an appearance on MSNBC that he was the person who first leaked the Africa claim. "Eisenstadt" and the related "Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy" are the creations of a pair of hoaxsters who have taken in MSNBC, among others, over the years.
Indeed, the AP article Laksin cited to back up his claim specifically contradicts him: "While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony."
Since Richard Poe went all drama queen on us when Republicans lost control of the Congress in 2006, we thought we'd check in with his personal blog to see how he reacted to the more devastating (to him) loss of John McCain in this election. He lacks the flourish of his previous citation of St. Jerome, but he gives it a shot, promoting a Human Events article in which he is quoted and asserting, "George Soros is Obama’s principal patron. He created Obama. An Obama presidency will be a Soros presidency."
In a comment, Poe goes on to throw out some baseless speculation:
Soros’ long-standing support of Hillary was one of the factors which led me to write, “The Fix is in for Hillary“, back in January.
After all the time, money and energy Soros had invested in Hillary, I could not understand why he would suddenly turn around and support her opponent. For that reason and others, I presumed that Obama’s candidacy must be some sort of ruse or decoy — a ploy to give people the illusion that Hillary faced real opposition.
Now I’m not sure what to think.
If you'll recall, Poe labored for several years at various David Horowitz operations -- which are heavily funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and other conservative philanthropists -- so his concern about billionaires having too much influence in politics is more than a tad hypocritical.
In an Oct. 30 FrontPageMag article taking Christopher Hitchens to task for endorsing Barack Obama and criticizing Sarah Palin, David Horowitz repeats numerous false claims about Obama.
-- Horowitz references "Syrian criminal Tony Reszko [sic], who gave him his house." Rezko did not "give" Obama his house; he purchased the vacant lot next door, the sale of which was a condition of Obama being able to purchase the house.
-- Horowitz writes: "It was in [William] Ayers’ living room that Obama launched his campaign for Alice Palmer’s left-wing seat." In fact, Obama formally announced launched his campaign at a Ramada Inn, and numerous home gatherings, like the one at Ayers' home, were held around the same time.
-- Horowitz writes, "it was Ayers himself who hired Obama to spend the $50 million Ayers had raised to finance an army of anti-American radicals drawn from ACORN and other nihilistic groups to recruit Chicago school children to their political causes." In fact, "Ayers himself" played no apparent role in hiring Obama as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Further, actual educators have said that the CAC's work actually "reflected ... mainstream thinking among education reformers," not the views of "nihilistic groups."
-- Horowitz writes: "When his benefactor Alice Palmer changed her mind about passing him her senate seat, he refused to give it back. When she and two other black candidates attempted to challenge him in the primaries, he went to court to prevent them from running at all. He preferred to disenfranchise their supporters than win in an election." In fact, Obama challenged the petition signatures to put Palmer and the other opponents on the ballot -- a common procedure used to combat electoral fraud, which is supposed to be a big deal to people like Horowitz when ACORN is allegedly engaging in it.
When he isn't lying about Obama, Horowitz is engaging in a lengthy anti-Obama screed. But if Horowitz can't get basic facts right, why trust him on his ranting?
