WND Throws Wash. Times Under the Bus Topic: WorldNetDaily
That's a fine way to treat a former business partner!
After days of being silent about the goings-on at the Washington Times -- depsite immediately reporting on the demise of a publisher of "homosexual newspapers" -- a Nov. 20 WND article cites "reputable sources within the paper" to claim that the Times "is set to lay off much of its editorial and production staff."
But then, shockingly, WND starts hammering the Times:
It points out that it "reportedly has lost billions of dollars in its 27-year history."
It reported that paper founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 2002 "told an assembly he was the messiah and the Second Coming of Christ, charged with fulfilling Jesus' unfinished mission," adding that he said at the occasion of the Times' 20th anniversary, "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."
It noted that now-ousted editor John Solomon last year "announced it would stop using terms such as 'illegal aliens' and 'homosexual,' complying with the same standards of political correctness found at most other daily news organizations."
It references editorial page editor Richard Miniter's discrimination lawsuit against the paper, noting that "Miniter says he was 'coerced' into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony in which a mass wedding was conducted by Moon."
WND has had a previous business relationship with the Times and related publications, as we've detailed, including a content-sharing agreement with now-defunct newsmagazine Insight and the appearance of Joseph Farah's column in the Times' weekly national edition. WND columnist Les Kinsolving even defended the paper by asserting "the fact that the Washington Times was founded by ex-convict and cult leader Sun Myung Moon should not detract from the fact that this daily newspaper has become one of this nation's most influential, and on Capitol Hill, most widely read daily newspapers." Farah did at one point work up the courage to bite the hand that feeds him by criticizing Moon's "coronation ceremony" in a Senate office building. But that was an anomaly until now.
WND's tone here is much different from a May 2007 article fawning over the Times on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, calling it "the major alternative to the mainstream Washington Post, and under the leadership of Wedley [sic: Wesley] Pruden, editor-in-chief, and Managing Editor Francis Coombs, pursues the news of the day with high journalistic standards." No mention of its money pit status or Moon's wackiness.
Despite the broadsides apparently aimed at Solomon's leadership -- after all, "illegal alien" and "homosexual" are still crucial parts of the WND stylebook, though Farah has yet to explain why -- WND is still protective in the Nov. 20 article. At no point does WND describe the Times' political leanings as conservative (it didn't mention it in 2007, either), nor does it mention the Confederacy-revering, white-supremacist-leaning ties of Pruden and Coombs (not to mention Robert Stacy McCain).
Klein Too Busy Smearing Obama to Correct His Reporting Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how the arrest of West Bank settler Yaakov (Jack) Teitel on numerous terrorism charges, including the detonation of a pipe bomb outside the house of Israeli professor Zeev Sternhell, contradicts the previous reporting of WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein, who uncritically reported a claim by a settler leader that the Israeli government planted the bomb "to demonize West Bank Jews."
It's been a week now since Teitel's arrest, and Klein has not seen fit to update or correct his reporting -- indeed, Teitel's arrest has been reported nowhere on WND. Klein has, however, found time to write up an article on a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party calling Obama a "racist."
It seems that for Klein, advancing his anti-Obama agenda is more important than telling the truth.
CNS Reporter Still Misleading on Judicial Nominee Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's Christopher Neefus goes all in on smearing judicial nominee David Hamilton, using a Nov. 19 article to repeatedly brand him as a "former ACORN fundraiser."
What Neefus fails to report: Hamilton worked for ACORN for only one month out of college.
Neefus has previously refused to tell his readers the full truth about Hamilton and ACORN.
New Article: Ellis Washington's Savage Sycophancy Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Ellis Washington is now Michael Savage's "authorized biographer," and you know what that means -- acts of literary fellatio likening Savage to Prometheus and even Jesus Christ. Read more >>
WND Still Lying About Klingenschmitt Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 18 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh continues WND's history of lying about Gordon Klingenschmitt, calling him a "former U.S. Navy chaplain who was removed from the service after he exercised his right to pray 'in Jesus' name.'" As we've detailed, Klingenschmitt was court-martialed for disobeying an order, not for praying in Jesus' name.
Unruh also uncritically repeats statements by Klingenschimitt and others at a rally protesting a hate-crimes bill that covers sexual preference that misinterpret the bill, statements that claim the bill prohibits merely being criticial of homosexuals. In fact, the bill provides penalties for those who incite violence against homosexuals, not merely reading from the Bible as Klingenschmitt and others did.
Futher, as WND has frequently failed to do, Unruh fails to mention that the bill specifically states that "Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the Constitution," which would include the First Amendment protection for freedom of religion.
Barry Farber, in his Nov. 18 WorldNetDaily column, fills his head with right-wing anti-Obama talking points, then hits "puree":
Can you imagine any White House before this one bulging with lovers of Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, teenage homosexual activity, trees and animals having lawyers to sue humans, the ridiculing of free speech (from a stalwart of the FCC, no less), even polygamy?
And then he goes completely off the rails:
What exactly does CNN mean when it says it's not an American but rather an international network? And are we sure we know what Mike Wallace was saying when he insisted that, as a combat correspondent, he would not tip off American troops even if he learned of an enemy ambush? Maybe we don't want to know.
We would like to beg you, our readers, to nominate ConWebBlog in the 2009 Weblog Awards. Since there isn't a media category per se and we're not quite poltical, we're going to aim for the Best Large Blog, defined as having a Technorati authority rating of between 301 and 500 (we're at 440).
ConWebWatch is listed in the comments as a nominee (which is where the shameless self-promotion comes in), so what you need to do is click on the "+" icon in that particular comment to indicate your preference.
The nomination phase ends Nov. 20, so act quickly! We appreciate your support.
We already know that Sarah Palin's memoir is filled with falsehoods and distortions, so it's not a surprise to see that it appears a Palin defender is resorting to the same tactics.
A Nov. 18 Newsmax article by Dan Weil features Matthew Continetti's "The Persecution of Sarah Palin," about which he writes:
Continetti said the mainstream political media spread one falsehood after another about Palin including that she:
Had been a member of the separatist Alaskan Independence Party (New York Times)
Had been a supporter of Pat Buchanan (MSNBC)
Faked giving birth to Trig Palin, who was supposedly her grandson (Atlantic Monthly)
Well, let's see:
The Times' source for the claim that Sarah Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party was the head of the party. The Times issued a correction after the party chief changed her story.
MSNBC's source for Palin being a supporter of Pat Buchanan was ... Pat Buchanan.
So these claims were not invented out of thin air, as Continetti and Newsmax suggest.
As for the claim about Trig Palin, that's largely the work of Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan, not the entire Atlantic Monthly. And as Sullivan points out, he never actually disputed Trig's parentage, but merely "asked her and the campaign to provide easily available proof that she indeed was the biological mother of Trig after her bizarre and incredible stories about her pregnancy and labor. She has failed to produce any such evidence. And she clearly never will."
That's rather ironic given that Newsmax has signed on to demanding that Barack Obama release further proof of his birth.
WND Misleads on Pink Slip Campaign Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily offers unsurprisingly positive coverage of its own press conference in which it and Faith2Action's Janet Porter manage to get a few Republican members of Congress to endorse their "pink slip" campaign (and overlook WND's conspiracy-laden website). That means, of course, WND won't tell you the full truth.
The "pink slip" campaign, as we've detailed, features factually inaccurate right-wing talking points sent to all 535 members of Congress.
The WND article touts how the number of pink slips sent "have surged past 5 million," paraphrasing one congressman as saying the number is "staggering, because they weren't from people who were answering a telephone poll and participating in a survey," and that "There is a person behind each one of the slips." But that's misleading too. Divide 5 million by 535, and you get 9,345 -- the number of people who have paid WND $29.95 to do this. That's a far less impressive number than 5 million, so don't expect WND to bring it up.
WND chief Joseph Farah, meanwhile, is still pretending he's really not an activist by promoting the campaign:
"One of the questions I get from colleagues is why a news agency would involve itself in a political advocacy campaign like the 'pink slips' effort. The answer is that I am an American first and a newsman second. I don't want to see the foundations that made this country great and that made the notion of a free press possible destroyed. And that's why we got behind this campaign," he said.
Of course, the more logical -- and more truthful -- answer is that WND has never been a news organization and has always been a political advocacy group, as its eagernesstolie about President Obama amply demonstrates. Further, if WND were an actual news organization that cared about facts, it would not have issued a "pink slip" with such obvious factual errors.
President Obama is dropping another O-bomb on America with the decision to try the masterminds of the shocking attack of Sept. 11, 2001, in a New York courtroom.
That’s right: Obama is trying to reduce the Sept. 11 act of war to a law enforcement issue. So our wartime enemy is going to face a civilian trial in New York City. It’s another O-bomb on American leadership.
[...]
America going on a witch hunt and prosecuting those who kept this country safe from people like Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, as Obama has announced he intends to do, sets back our moral authority. America turning her back on the jihad against women, Christian, Jews, and non-believers has set back America’s moral authority. America electing a radical for a President has set back America’s moral authority.
America electing an America-hater for president vanquished our moral authority.
[...]
This is yet another vile chapter in the Obama presidency. As long as he is president, the man will never stop punishing America for being so foolish as to elect him.
A Nov. 17 CNSNews.com article by Christopher Neefus details how "epublican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday he plans to filibuster President Obama’s first judicial pick, Judge David F. Hamilton."
At no point did Neefus note that Sessions' position is a reversal from the one he held in 2003, in which he said of filibustering judicial nominees: "People on both sides of the aisle have understood it to be wrong. They have understood it to be in violation of the Constitution. . . . Mr. President, these nominees are entitled to an up-and-down vote. If a Member does not like them, he or she can vote against them. But it is time to move these nominees."
Neefus made no apparent attempt to contact supporters of Hamilton to respond to Sessions' criticism. Instead, Neefus' article is nothing more than right-wing anti-Hamilton talking points, right down to stating that Hamllton "began his career, as a fundraiser for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)" without mentioning that it was only for a month right after he graduated college.
Does Joseph Farah Apply Psalm 109:9 to Obama Too? Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Nov. 17 WorldNetDaily column asserting America is getting what it deserves with the election of Barack Obama, Joseph Farah invokes Psalm 109:8: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office."
We have to wonder: Does Farah support the verses of Psalm 109 immediately following verse 8 as a desire of the fate he would like Obama to see?
(9) May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
(10) May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
(11) May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
(12) May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
(13) May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.
(14) May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
(15) May their sins always remain before the LORD, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
Is Farah wishing death upon Obama, just like his birther buddy Wiley Drake?
I wrote a book years ago anticipating just where America would be in 2009. It was called "Taking America Back: A Radical Plan to Revive Freedom, Morality and Justice." The bad news is that, to date, only about 75,000 Americans have read it. The good news is that most of those have purchased it in the last two years – as they were finally awakened to the reality of the predictions I made in that book.
The man's not modest, is he? Nor, it seems, is he equipped with a sense of shame.
Why Does WND Care That Homeschoolers Allegedly Being Denied Flu Vaccine? Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily haslongfearmongered about flu vaccines. So why does it care that homeschooled students are allegedly being denied a vaccine?
A Nov. 13 WND article uncritically rewrites a press release by the Home School Legal Defense Association that officials in "two locations in Virginia" -- not specifically identified beyond their general location in the state, even though the HSLDA identifies one of the communities involved -- allegedly denied homeschooled children flu vaccines in line with being "target group identified by the federal government." WND made no apparent attempt to contact Virginia health officials, or any other officials the HSLDA claims it contacted, to corroborate the HSLDA story.
Supporting vaccinations is not only contradictory to previous WND policy, it's apparently out of line for the HSLDA as well, as indicated by the statement at the end of its press release: "Many parents have good reasons to not vaccinate their children. But for those who want it, they can now expect their children, as members of a target group, to have equitable access when the vaccine is available at public health departments." Indeed, HSLDA's Congressional Action Program lists as part of its "impressive track record" lobbying for a 1993 "Defeat of Mandatory National Vaccination Initiative."
But WND's flip on the issue is more interesting -- maybe it understands that vaccines do, in fact, save lives. But this kind of common sense is unusual for WND. Look for a big scary article in the near fugure to make up for it.
NewsReal Ignores How Stewart Busted Fox News Topic: Horowitz
A Nov. 16 NewsReal post by Paul Cooper bashes outgoing White House communications director for noting that "Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central…That’s where you are getting fact-checking, investigative journalism these days," asserting that this statement means "Dunn actually believes The Daily Show is more legitimate journalism than FoxNews." Curiously absent from Cooper's post is any mention of the incident that prompted Dunn to make that claim.
From the Bloomberg interview of Dunn that Cooper references:
DUNN: I'll give you one fact -- actually fun fact from this week, is that the, you know, a opinion show on a certain news network was using edited footage to make it appear that a rally last week in political opposition to the president was much larger than it appeared. Some of you may have heard about this, that the people who went in and did the fact-checking on that and actually exposed this, this kind of spliced, edited video that was designed to make it appear that more people oppose the president than really do, the people who exposed this -- Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, OK? Well, that's where you are getting, you know, fact-checking, investigative journalism these days, folks.
It is a different media environment. And the reality is that, you know, let's face it, we're under no illusions about what the political agenda of certain news networks are.
Cooper also avoids repeating more inconvenient criticism of Fox, stating that Dunn "defends" MSNBC in the interview without noting that Dunn also pointed out that Fox News contributor Karl Rove "declared war on [NBC] during the previous administration, and you may recall that Fox actually applauded Karl for doing that."
Morris Falsely Claims Obama Opposes Fort Hood Probe Topic: Newsmax
In a Nov. 16 Newsmax column -- also published at FrontPageMag -- Dick Morris falsely claims that "President Obama told the media in Alaska that he opposes a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood massacre."
In fact, Obama has said there "should" be a congressional investigation, but has also noted that he has ordered a military and intelligence investigation of the massacre and that "all of us should resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater that sometimes dominates the discussion here in Washington."
