WorldNetDaily lovestopromote meaningless polls when they report results that further its political agenda. It does so again in an April 6 article by Drew Zahn, which touts a CNN opt-in poll showing a majority of respondents opposing the idea of Michelle Obama running for president in 2020.
While Zahn describes the poll as "unscientific," he fails to elaborate on what that means. In fact, such opt-in polls are virtually meaningless as an accurate reflection of public opinion because they are susceptible to multiple votes by respondents and organized campaigns to skew the results.
NewsBusters touted the results of this meaningless poll as well. While Matthew Balan pointed out in an April 6 post that "it is not a scientific poll," he nevertheless insisted that "these results may mean that “America’s unofficial royalty” have some obstacles to overcome before any political dynasty could become a reality."
An April 6 Newsmax article touts how a new Pew poll shows the gap between support for President Obama among Democrats and Republicans means that Obama "has succeeded in widening the political gulf among Americans more than any other president in modern history" -- a contention summed up in the headline: "Obama: Most Polarizing President Ever." But Newsmax ignores other factors that put the poll result in context.
Nonetheless, measurements of the partisan split in support for the President, as Pew Research has done here (they found a record partisan split in Obama's approval ratings, with 88 percent of Democrats but just 27 percent of Republicans approving of Obama's performance) are not quite as straightforward as they might seem. This is because partisan identification is at least somewhat fluid. The Republicans, in particular, have lost quite a bit of support over the past several years; those persons who continue to identify as Republicans are a hardened -- and very conservative -- lot. Just 24 percent of voters identified as Republican when Pew conducted this survey in March, which is roughly as low as that total has ever gotten.
We see some evidence of these effects in the comparison of Obama's numbers to those of George W. Bush's at a comparable point in his presidency. Obama and Bush had roughly the same level of support among members of their own party (88 percent for Obama, 87 percent for Bush) and roughly the same level of support among unaffiliated voters (57 percent for Obama, 56 for Bush). Bush, however, had more support from the opposition party (36 percent of Democrats versus 27 percent of Republicans). And yet Obama, not Bush, had the higher overall approval rating, because Democrats are a significantly larger constituency than Republicans.
Barbara Simpson is in a particularly whining mood, and one of slinging misinformation as well, in her April 6 WorldNetDaily column:
While speaking in France, you said America has "shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe.
There you go again – groveling and apologizing for your country. Is it your genes, your religion or were you brought up that way?
Is demeaning your country a way to gain respect?
Of course, Simpson fails to note that Obama also criticized the anti-American attitudes of some Europeans.
Simpson also writes:
As for the gift to the queen? An i-Pod loaded with show tunes, videos of her prior D.C. visit and Obama's speeches.
P.S., she already had one.
To cover that fiasco, CBS reported the queen requested that gift.
Does anyone believe that?
Well, yeah, unless Simpson has any evidence to the contrary, which she doesn't.
Simpson further wrote:
First, Tony Blair's gift to the White House of a bust of Churchill was summarily returned to the British embassy. Obama didn't want it so he returned the gift?!?!?
In fact, as we've previously explained, the bust was on loan to the White House, not a permanent gift.
Sheppard: Don't Hold Beck Accountable For His Inflammatory Rhetoric Topic: NewsBusters
If a conservative says it, it's not controversial.
That appears to be the conclusion Noel Sheppard has come to in an April 5 NewsBusters post declaring that "prominent left-wing bloggers" in their "vitriolic postings" have come to the "disgusting conclusion" that Glenn Beck should take responsibility for his anti-Obama rhetoric in light of Richard Poplawski's shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh.
Sheppard doesn't bother to tell his readers what Beck said that the "prominent left-wing bloggers" found so offensive -- specifically, Beck has hyperbolically asserted that gun rights are under fire, and friend of Poplawski claimed that he feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" -- yet he asserts that it is "hateful" and "unfounded" to conclude Beck's words had any effect whatsoever on Poplawski.
Sheppard loves to defend right-wing rhetoric -- a couple weeks ago, as we noted, he insisted that Bernard Goldberg had no inspiration on a man who allegedly killed two people in a Tennessee church shooting, even though the man specifically said that "Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate + House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book."
This also dovetails with the refusal of his MRC bosses to criticize Ann Coulter no matter what offensive thing she says.
UPDATE: Sheppard was rewarded for his defense of Beck with a guest spot on Beck's show.
Is Newsmax Mouthing PAC's Talking Points? Topic: Newsmax
We've noted that Newsmax has failed to tell its readers about the role of the National Republican Trust PAC in New York's special congresdsional election between Republican Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy, even as Newsmax published a column by PAC director Scott Wheeler touting Tedisco without disclosing Wheeler's position or election largesse -- the PAC has spent well over $800,000 in support of Tedisco.
The election is over but ended in a virtual tie, which means the National Republican Trust PAC is spending more money sending emails to Newsmax readers -- which seem to reflect Newsmax's own reporting.
In an April 1 email from the PAC, Wheeler stated: "The media spin on this result has been amazing. But here’s the truth -- it’s a stunning blow to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the Democrats."
That dovetailed nicely with the assertion made in Newsmax's March 31 article by David Patten: "The election, though, seemed to produce one clear loser: President Barack Obama." Jim Meyers followed up in an April 1 article uncritically quoting Dick Morris -- who has a relationship with the PAC that Newsmax has yet to mention to its readers -- asserting that the election's result means that Obama is "in trouble." (As we've noted, Meyers failed to mention that a month before the election, Tedisco held a double-digit lead in polls that Murphy was able to erase by election day.)
Wheeler, meanwhile, kept up the spin in an April 4 email sent to Newsmax readers:
Can you believe that Barack Obama suffered a terrible setback this week -- but the media practically ignored it?
It's no surprise. The major media simply are not revealing the truth to the American people about this man.
But we will.
[...]
But this race was not about New York.
It was about Barack Obama.
About his radical stimulus plan.
About his radical tax plan.
About his radical healthcare socialization plan.
About his radical plan to back Hamas-controlled Gaza with almost $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer aid.
About his radical plan to appease Iran, one of the world's most dangerous regimes.
And New York voters -- among the most liberal in the country -- who backed him just five months ago, voted against him -- and big time!
Needless to say, in none of his emails does Wheeler mention the fact that Tedisco blew a double-digit lead -- possibly because of the ads his PAC ran on Tedisco's behaif.
So, is the PAC stealing talking points from Newsmax, or is promoting the PAC's views in "news" articles part of Newsmax's advertising fee?
WND Tees Up Gay-Bashing By Its Readers Topic: WorldNetDaily
Alyssa Farah concludes her April 1 WorldNetDaily article looking disdainfully at the dating site eHarmony for launching "a matching service for homosexuals" (as the result of a lawsuit by "Eric McKinley, a homosexual, who alleged eHarmony's heterosexual-only matching service violated the state's anti-discrimination law") by asserting, "There are currently thousands of homosexual dating sites available on the Web. "
According to who? Farah doesn't tell us. What does she define as a "homosexual dating site"? She doesn't say. Are they all like the one eHarmony set up? we doubt it.
Farah seems to be broadly, if clumsily, framing the issue to claim that eHarmony shouldn't have been forced to create the "gay" (their scare quotes) dating service in the first place. Indeed, the top response to WND's related poll is,"Given eHarmony's Christian beginnings, the owners should have shut it down rather than agree to promote homosexual behavior." (Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy FTW!)
Judging by the comments, it seems that the real purpose of this article and poll is to give WND readers an excuse to engage in gay-bashing. Sample comments from the comments thread on the poll:
And by the way why do people call them gay, why not refer to their lifestyle as it really is queer! I disapprove of it and think eHarmony Which now is called eHOMOny should shut down!
With this in mind, why would ANYONE think this is an appropriate lifestyle much less promote it as eharmony has done. Please people, get the facts, homosexuality KILLS young people. If a person was going to commit suicide by sleeping pills, many people would try to stop them, and nobody would question that. When anyone tries to stop suicide, by homosexuality they are called politically incorrect and homophobic. What gives?
People make free choices in life and they are not all mentally ill. I call it Moral Decay. These people like the excitement of the forbidden. They use to keep it behind closed doors but now they like to flaunt their life style for all to see. These people funtion and hold down jobs.
Agree with you 100%. The gays agenda is to infiltrate as many christian places as possible so they turn around and proclaim "See, see all the acceptance, see even the christians accept us". That's why they went after eHomony. It would not have accomplished anything to start their own gay dating service, they already have them. They don't need to start new things, they need to invade the one's they are not in to prove their acceptance.
The gays are more than spoiled brats.... they can correctly be called the Pink Swastika movement... They want nothing less than a total embrace of their filthy, sick, immoral and unhealthy lifestyle. [...] That sound you hear is the prancing of Gucci jackboots.
the homosexuals are cancer on a society that cannot be cured except for complete eradication and that isn't going to happen...not now in the world we live in that is why God said donot conform to this world. but we sure have to suffer through it. even so hurry your ass up jesus!
Obama wants his own youth corps to brain wash and the gays want to corrupt our children into an ungodly homosexual lifestyle. If we allow this to keep happening this world will be full of a bunch of ungodly freaks doing anything they want. They don't care who they contaminate because they are like a bunch of dogs in heat. I am tired of these perverted reprobates trying to destroy the true meaning of the word Love. It is not Love that they feel it is Lust and it is from the pits of hell.
And there's even a bit of old-fashioned racism mixed in as well:
You're using fallacious reasoning. The bible makes abundantly clear that people are to marry/procreate within their own race (which is natural). Half of the entire bible is in regard to both the spiritual AND ethnic/racial purity of the Hebrews. Just because Moses sinned in taking a Cushite wife (which was for political/strategic reasons), doesn't nullify the numerous biblical teachings and precepts against race mixing. Your logic is faulty. Since Moses committed the sin of miscegenation, then everyone can now? Poor logic.
President Barack Obama is getting generally positive reviews from the purveyors of conventional wisdom for his performance at the London G-20 summit and in France during a joint appearance with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. An admiring news story in The New York Times, for instance, all but hailed Obama for setting “a new tone for the alliance with Europe.” Unfortunately, the new tone consists mainly of Obama apologizing for those times “when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward its European allies.
But the Examiner plucked Obama's statement out of context, failing to mention that Obama also stated that immediately after the part of the speech it noted, Obama said: "But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad."
Reagan Makes Baseless Claim, Hurls Nazi Smear Topic: Newsmax
In his April 2 Newsmax column -- also published by the Washington Examiner -- Michael Reagan writes of "Barack Obama and his sorry conglomeration of far-out liberal confederates" who are "now polluting the government":
America’s industrial heartland, the storied fruited plain, is about to become the world’s largest ghost town as many of the nation’s most talented and wealthiest citizens contemplate fleeing for the hills — or in this case, other nations where they will be greeted with welcome arms.
[...]
Growing numbers of Americans are going to be pulling up stakes and fleeing to more accommodating areas of the world, taking their factories and businesses and wealth with them.
Reagan offers no evidence that this is, in fact, the case, nor does he name anyone who is purportedly contemplating such a move. But then, he's more interested in demonizing Obama than relating facts, joining his fellow right-wing brethren in hitting the button on Godwin's Law:
The prospect of paying $50 for a loaf of bread no longer is a potential nightmare, but a certainty. As the dollar loses its value, the cost of the goods it will buy soars. That’s just economic reality.
And when it happens, good old Dr. Obama will be there with the snake oil remedy that sold so well in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
The Apt Pupil Returns: WND Lets Von Campe Hurl More Nazi Smears at Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
When you pride yourself on hurling Nazi smears at Barack Obama, as WorldNetDaily appears to do, it makes sense to make use of actual Nazis in the process -- after all, they learned at the feet of the master how to smear political opponents.
Thus, Hilmar von Campe, the self-proclaimed former Hitler Youth who has made a new career out of smearing Obama, puts his childhood training to use once again in his latest WND masterpice, an April 4 column:
Lenin and Hitler used the national and economic disasters in their countries to ride to political victory. Conquest in a time of disaster! I believe the United States is in the midst of a similar development, spearheaded by Barrack Hussein Obama.
[...]
Watching him in his speech to enthusiastic naïve youngsters, I recalled the times when I saw Hitler in the same position in front of masses of enthusiastic people who adored him. There is much similarity between Hitler and Obama, both being adored by millions. Both have an agenda that declares the march into slavery to be a march into a better future. If you look at the front cover of my recent book, "Defeating the Totalitarian Lie," and take the photo of Hitler out and put Obama's in, it would look real.
Von Campe also demonstrates his exalted place at WND by repeating some of WND's greatest Obama lies. In addition to repeating the WND lie that Obama "has not produced proof that he is legally eligible to be president of the United States," he wries:
Obama wants $6 billion for this plan in the next three years. Earlier he had called for a National Civilian Security Force. Whatever name they give this scheme, it is an attempt to control the youth of our nation and indoctrinate them with socialist lies at the expense of the taxpayers. Obama has copied Hitler who created what was called "Arbeitsdienst" (Service to Work). It was a mandatory six-month membership before being drafted into the armed forces and part of the Nazi national structure for indoctrination, which nobody could escape.
This would be another example of Nazi ideology here in America. The bill, approved by the House, 321-105, would forbid any participant engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization. That means no church attendance or witnessing. The majority of the House has reached the level of Nazi godlessness.
In fact, the "National Civilian Security Force" has nothing to do with indoctrination (as we pointed out the last time von Campe claimed this), and given that the bill in question is about expanding AmeriCorps and other federal volunteer programs, it makes no sense to make religion a component of that -- which, anyway, would violate First Amendment provisions regarding the separation of church and state. It does not ban participants from going to church, as von Campe seems to suggest.
It appears that von Campe has learned to smear and lie like his mentor, Adolf Hitler. Far from appearing as ashamed of that as he ought to be, he's reveling in it. Apt pupil, indeed.
We've documented how Newsmax was one of the most vociferous defenders of Bernard Kerik from "leftist" attacks following his 2004 nomination as homeland security secretary, until a tidal wave of allegations of corruption finally forced it to reel its enthusiasm in. Now, Newsmax has decided it's time to rehabilitate Kerik's reputation.
A March 29 Newsmax article, headlined "Bernard Kerik Wins Round in Court," touted how Kerik "won a victory in court last week when a judge threw out several of the charges in his federal indictment." But the article obfuscates on the number of counts dismissed and the number remaining. In fact, the AP reports that a judge "dismissed one count of the 15-count corruption and tax fraud indictment against Kerik" and "removed some elements of a second count."
Now, an April 3 article by Jim Meyers cranks up the rehabilitation, calling Kerik a "highly decorated former New York City Police Commissioner" in the first paragraph. Meyers also writes that Kerik "was President George W. Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security before he withdrew his name from consideration," but fails to mention the charges he faces on, as the previous Newsmax article noted, "wire fraud, mail fraud, and making false statements."
But then, Kerik is serving a more partisan purpose for Meyers, who uncritically quotes Kerik as endorsing the renewal of the Patriot Act.
A March 30 WorldNetDaily article by Drew Zahn uncritically repeated misleading claims WND had earlier reported in 2007 about compact fluorescent lights, referencing "a Maine woman quoted $2,000 for cleaning up a broken CFL in her home."
As we detailed, WND editor Joseph Farah, who write the earlier article, didn't tell his readers that, according to experts quoted in the news article upon which he based his report, it's not necessary to spend $2,000 to clean up a broken CFL. Farah's misleading scare tactics even got him enshrined at the urban legend-debunking website Snopes.
Zahn also touted how the Maine Department of Environmental Protection "studied the dangers of broken CFLs and the adequacy of recommended cleanup procedures," and then issued"eight new recommendations for usage and cleanup of CFLs." Zahn does not note that the Maine DEP study he cites also reported that "The pre-study cleanup guidance was generally found to be sound." That would be the guidance that Farah mostly ignored in his 2007 article.
Further, Zahn, like Farah before him, curiously omits mentioning amid the scare tactics they peddle the one essential -- and simple -- thing recommended to lower levels of mercury released by a broken CFL: venting the room where it was broken. As the Maine DEP stated, "A short period of venting can, in most cases, significantly reduce the mercury air concentrations after breakage."
Note to Colleen Raezler: Topic: Media Research Center
The more you feel the need to repeat that "the loss of human life is a tragedy," the more you raise suspicions that you secretly believe the deaths of the head of "California's largest for-profit abortion provider" and his family in a plane crash are not.
"Hip" is how rapt reporters referred to the iPod the president and first lady gave the queen of England. Thanks to his fawning friends in the British and American media, Barack Obama got away with giving another foreign dignitary a vulgar gift.
Shades of the reality show "Cribs" …
[...]
The queen might have preferred a rare recording of the great cellist Pablo Casals performing at the Kennedy White House. Jacqueline Kennedy was a cultured lady with impeccable taste.
Sheppard Wants All Journalists to Insult Obama Topic: NewsBusters
Remember when Noel Sheppard hypocritically claimed that, unlike liberal media watchdogs who wdant "complete and total elimination of all opinion and viewpoints that are not in complete and total lockstep with their own," whereas he just wants "a fair and balanced media"?
What are we to make, then, of Sheppard's enthusiastic approval of a British journalist who called President Obama's appearance at the G-20 summit a "disappointment" and a "bore"?
The only possible takeaway is that he wants all journalists to insult Obama like this guy did.
An April 1 Newsmax article by Jim Meyers uncritically repeats Dick Morris' contention that Republican Jim Tedisco made "a teriffic showing" in the essentially tied New York special congressional election against Democrat Scott Murphy:
“This is a seat held by a Democratic congresswoman in one of the bluest of the blue states, 70 days after a president was overwhelmingly elected who’s a Democrat.
“Let’s remember that 57 percent still approve of what Obama is doing, and the fact that Tedisco came so close that the absentee ballots might put him over the top I think was an extraordinary showing…
At no point does Meyers or Morris mention the fact that a month before the election, Tedisco held an double-digit lead in polling -- a lead that was completely erased by Election Day -- let alone explain how that happened. Nor do they mention that registered Republicans heavily outnumber registered Democrats.
Meyers also wrote that, according to Morris, Tuesday’s result shows that President Barack Obama is already "in trouble": "But the issue is not why didn’t the Republican win, but why didn’t the Democrat win by a lot."
This is surprisingly shot down by Newsmax reporter David Patten, who himself has been caught spinning the Tedisco-Murphy race. In an April 2 article, Patten quotes political analyst Larry Sabato:
Weary of pundits claiming the election would have great symbolic importance for the Obama administration, Sabato added, “In a way, I’m glad it’s a dead heat. Special elections like this one are given entirely too much prominence. In isolation, and so far from a general election, they really don’t tell us much, or anything, of lasting importance.”
Patten, however, didn't highlight Morris' previous remarks declaring that the closeness of the race meant that Obama was "in trouble."
