The tough tenor toward the missionaries from Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, was set by CNN alpha female Anderson Cooper. The activist anchor and his houseboys in Haiti had been exceedingly hard on the hapless group, whose aim it was to, first, whisk the children to the Dominican Republic and, next, help "each child find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ," as well as "opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family."

[...]

In fairness, Anderson is not working with much. He suffers from what Peter Brimelow, editor of VDARE.COM, has termed intellectual inertia. It infects most mainstream journalists. Put less politely, Anderson's stupid. How is he to know that a legal burden must be met before a manifestly ludicrous prosecution proceeds? Hopefully, a Haitian justice has taught Anderson a legal lesson (and some humility).

-- Ilana Mercer, Feb. 12 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:23 PM EST

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In a Feb. 12 Newsmax column, Ronald Kessler appears to be cribbing from Dana Perino's talking points regarding comparisons between alleged "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and shoe bomber Richard Reid:

Holder and White House officials have cited the fact that the Bush administration gave the same rights to shoe bomber Richard Reid as to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after his arrest in Detroit.

The comparisons are misleading. Reid was arrested three months after 9/11, before the Bush administration had established military tribunals and procedures for dealing with such threats outside of civilian courts.

In fact, the Bush administration placed numerous people in military custody before and around the time that Reid was arrested, which seemed not to have been hindered by the alleged lack of a military tribunal system.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:37 PM EST

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How desperate are the birthers at WorldNetDaily getting? They're turning against longtime right-wing allies that won't join their conspiracy.

In his Feb. 10 column, Joseph Farah lashed out at Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly for ridiculing his obsession, insisting that they're the real conspiracy theorists because they think President Obama benefits from such a fringe obsession.

This was followed, almost as in lockstep, by a Feb. 11 WND column by Farah's successor at the Western Journalism Center, Floyd Brown, who similarly bashed Beck and O'Reilly, then added Andrew Breitbart to the mix. Brown lovingly calls Farah "heroic" for pursuing this obsession.

But Brown also seems to be turning his back on the so-called investigation the WJC has done on the subject. Brown writes that a curiously unnamed investigator for WJC found  that "It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent's signature [to a Hawaiian birth certificate in 1961] to a form and mail it in." But this seems to contradict the WJC's previous claim that Hawaii would not issue a birth certificate for a child born out of state that claimed the child was born in Hawaii.

Further, just because something is theoretically possible does not mean it's likely, as Brown and the WJC seems to be suggesting regarding Obama. There's no evidence whatsoever that any member of Obama's family had any motivation to ensure Barack was designated as Hawaii-born if he was not.

This is the kind of conspiracy-mongering that is causing the likes of Beck, O'Reilly and Breitbart to remain at arm's length from birthers. But Farah and Brown would like to pretend otherwise.

Meanwhile, Farah still wasn't done ranting about it. In his Feb. 12 column,  he rails again at O'Rreilly and Beck, accusing them of flip-flopping on the subject.

Farah has devoted every column this week to the subject of birtherism. Is someone feeling a little defensive?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:18 PM EST

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Ever wonder why CNSNews.com won't use the word "gay" (and even censors it in its comments) and WorldNetDaily puts it in scare quotes, and both make copious use of the word "homosexual"?

A newly released CBS/New York Times poll found that 57 percent of Americans approve of "homosexuals" serving in the military -- but when "homosexuals" was replaced by "gay men and lesbians," support jumped to 70 percent. On the question of "serving openly," 44 percent were in favor when "homosexuals" was used, but 58 percent were in favor when "gay men and lesbians" was used.

The insistence on thte part of CNS and WND on using "homosexual" over "gay" seems to confirm that, as AmericaBlog notes, the intent in doing so is derogatory.

Perhaps the respective poohbahs at CNS and WND would like to explain their usage to their readers, just in case we're wrong.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:40 AM EST

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How desperate are the birthers at WorldNetDaily getting? They're turning against longtime right-wing allies that won't join their conspiracy.

In his Feb. 10 column, Joseph Farah lashed out at Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly for ridiculing his obsession, insisting that they're the real conspiracy theorists because they think President Obama benefits from such a fringe obsession.

This was followed, almost as in lockstep, by a Feb. 11 WND column by Farah's successor at the Western Journalism Center, Floyd Brown, who similarly bashed Beck and O'Reilly, then added Andrew Breitbart to the mix. Brown lovingly calls Farah "heroic" for pursuing this obsession.

But Brown also seems to be turning his back on the so-called investigation the WJC has done on the subject. Brown writes that a curiously unnamed investigator for WJC found  that "It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent's signature [to a Hawaiian birth certificate in 1961] to a form and mail it in." But this seems to contradict the WJC's previous claim that Hawaii would not issue a birth certificate for a child born out of state that claimed the child was born in Hawaii.

Further, just because something is theoretically possible does not mean it's likely, as Brown and the WJC seems to be suggesting regarding Obama. There's no evidence whatsoever that any member of Obama's family had any motivation to ensure Barack was designated as Hawaii-born if he was not.

This is the kind of conspiracy-mongering that is causing the likes of Beck, O'Reilly and Breitbart to remain at arm's length from birthers. But Farah and Brown would like to pretend otherwise. And WND's abrogation of the basic tenets of journalism by letting the first word about Tancredo's remarks on its website come in the form of Tancredo defending in a column WND is paying him to write is nothing less than appalling.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:42 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:56 AM EST

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A Feb. 10 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh is a veritable symphony of gay-bashing, baselessly portraying a bill by a "homosexual congressman from Colorado" as a power grab for favorite WND whipping boy Kevin Jennings to institute his "homo-genda" -- a phrase that, despite appearing in quotes in the headline, appears nowhere in the article, quoted or otherwise. As an authority for what the bill purportedly does, Unruh consulted rabidly anti-gay right-winger Linda Harvey, who even admits that she can't prove a thing she's saying.

Media Matters has more.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:01 PM EST

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CNSNews.com makes its contribution to Avatar Derangement Syndrome with a Feb. 11 article by Penny Starr detailing "Best-selling author and screenwriter" Andrew Klavan's attacks on "Avatar":

On the other hand, “Avatar” is blatantly critical of the United States and the military, he said. And even if Cameron has changed from touting his film as being one that reflects how America is waging the war on terror to one about environmentalism, the message is clear.

"Of course, it's anti-American and anti-military," Klavan said. "(The U.S. military) are sadists and killers. They are happy to march over the indigenous, native people to get their resources."

Ironically, Klavan says, the natural world inhabited by the peaceful blue creatures on the planet Pandora in "Avatar" is really filled with the technology and democracy that has made the world a better place: even if aviation is in the form of flying dragons, it is the trees that light up and have Internet-like connections to power and wisdom, and the female species are treated as equals to males.

In other words, Cameron has successfully blended fantasy with his ideological message.

"He hit the sweet spot of environmental irrationality," Klavan said.

Starr baselessly claims that "Klavan is an insider when it comes to understanding liberalism in popular culture, especially when it comes to Hollywood." She doesn't disclosejust how right-wing Klavan is -- he regularly posts videos on the the right-wing PJTV, and has appeared on Glenn Beck's radio and TV shows numerous times.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:58 PM EST

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As we detailed last year, WorldNetDaily initially sought to distance itself from the shooting death of abortion doctor George Tiller by Scott Roeder (despite having repeatedly labeled him as "Tiller the Killer" prior to his death), depicting Roeder as mentally ill and not a part of the anti-abortion movement (even though he was). So it's interesting that most recent mentions of Roeder at WND sought to condone his murderous behavior.

Jack Cashill defended the murder as a "frontier justice" necessity in columns on Nov. 12 and Jan. 14. And in a Feb. 3 column, Jill Stanek tried to have it both ways, claiming that she had "a problem with Scott Roeder murdering Tiller" while simultaneously lamenting that Roeder was not allowed to mount a "necessity" defense because it is "is anathema to both pro-aborts and the U.S. legal system thanks to abortion," going on to cite "Tiller's continued avoidance of justice."

Regarding the murder of abortionist George Tiller, she argues essentially that Scott Roeder's jury should have been allowed to find that stalking, ambushing and blowing out the doctor's brains wasn't murder because George Tiller was an abortionist.  Jill emphasizes that she is personally opposed to vigilante assassinations.  She says that she might not have voted to reduce Scott Roeder's offense to manslaughter had she been given that option as his juror.  But she then asserts that jurors should be permitted to consider the horror of abortion as a mitigating circumstance when deciding the fates of those who kill abortionists.  This chilling, "eye-for-an-eye" ethic is difficult to distinguish from the barbaric apologetic used by the "Army of God" anarchists who cheer on sociopaths such as Scott Roeder.  It is a license to kill.

[...]

Jill also endorses Roeder's failed attempt to establish that killing George Tiller wasn't murder because Tiller was allegedly committing illegal abortions for which he wasn't being brought to justice. George Tiller was never convicted of aborting unlawfully.  A very pro-life Kansas prosecutor named Phill Kline couldn't even nail him for what amounted to paperwork violations. And even if bias by other prosecutors protected Tiller from further pursuit, is a lynch mob really the proper antidote for prosecutorial corruption?

[...]

Jill concludes by lamenting that the babies were denied "their day in court" when the Roeder judge placed abortion off limits as a proper consideration in determining the defendant's guilt. But she has chosen the wrong forum for a fight over rights of personhood for unborn children. There are two issues here. The first is whether Scott Roeder did or did not murder George Tiller. The second is whether abortion should or should not be legal. The first is a criminal-justice issue, and the second is a public-policy matter. If those two questions are not resolved in separate arenas, the rule of law becomes the real victim.

This puts Stanek in a bit of a spot, since she previously praised Cunningham for writing an "absolutely fabulous, must read letter" in support of using graphic images of abortion during protests of President Obama's speech last year at Notre Dame; Cunningham had written that Notre Dame students who voted for Obama "must not be allowed to graduate in comfort" and called Obama a "serial-killer."

Interestingly, Stanek has yet to respond to Cunningham, either in her column or on her blog. Meanwhile, a similar letter by Cunningham to anti-abortion extremist Randall Terry got a much different response -- derision and scorn from another extremist, George Offerman.

So, any chance Cunningham can pen a letter to Jack Cashill?

Posted by Terry K. at 10:54 AM EST

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In the poem, Obama seems to be confronting Gramps with the realization that he is actually his father. Obama calls the poem "Pop," after all, not "Gramps."

"Under my seat, I pull out the 
Mirror I've been saving," writes Obama. Yes, the two look alike, they smell alike, they have the same ears, and Pop even has "the same amber
 stain on his shorts that I've got on mine." (I'll leave the last one alone.)

Obama is right. They do look alike. Obama does not, however, look like Barack Sr. – and, Abercrombie concedes, the grown-up Obama does not sound at all like him, either.

As Obama admits in "Dreams," Gramps hangs out in otherwise all-black bars and pals around with his communist soulmate and sex merchant, Frank Marshall Davis.

Did a black woman – perhaps a friend of Davis' – give birth to a child of Dunham's? Might that explain what Obama describes as "the complicated, unspoken transaction between the two men"? Or, another possibility, was Davis the father of Ann's baby, as he, too, matches the description of "Pop" in all salient details?

-- Jack Cashill, Feb. 11 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 9:03 AM EST

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A Feb. 10 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid keeps up his longtime censorship effort in trying to keep Al-Jazeera unavailable in America, denouncing it as an "Arab government-funded propaganda channel" that airs "anti-American programming designed to incite Arabs and Muslims to hate and kill Americans and Jews." But will Kincaid call out right-wingers who appear on it?

At the top of that list, interestingly, is WorldNetDailiy's Aaron Klein. He has appeared on Al-Jazeera at least five times in the past year.

If Klein has been aiding and abetting Al-Jazeera's mission of disseminating propaganda, shouldn't Kincaid denounce him for doing so? Or is his rage limited only to those who can be reliably pegged as liberal?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:06 AM EST

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Ronald Kessler asserted in a Feb. 8 Newsmax column: "In a Sept. 6, 2001, radio interview, Obama expressed regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t engaged in wealth redistribution."

Where have we heard that before? It's almost the exact same language Kessler used in a July 2009 column.

Unfortunately for Kessler, it's just as false now as it was then -- or any other time Kessler has asserted it. As we've detailed, Obama actually said that because the Supreme Court under Earl Warren did not address "redistributive change," it was evidence that the court was not as far-left as its critics have claimed. And Obama's "regret" was specifically aimed at the civil rights movement for overly relying on the court system to advance its agenda.

This lie, by the way, comes in the midst of an unsubstantiated attack on Obama by someone who, Kessler tells us, "now considers himself a conservative," purportedly had a discussion of Marxism with Obama while they were college students. Another alleged participant in the conversation won’t corroborate it, and a fourth person “did not respond to a request for comment.”

Posted by Terry K. at 3:16 PM EST

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Humor, theoretically, is funniest when based on the truth. But the WorldNetDaily "News! News!" segements by D.J. Dolce (aka Mrs. Molotov Mitchell), in addition to not being funny, can't get the truth part right either.

One of the "jokes" in the latest video is premised on the claim that "feminist monster" Nancy Pelosi "has cost American taxpayers over $2 million in transport costs for her and her brood, $101,000 of that was spent on in-flight food and alcohol." In fact, as we've detailed, that $2 million was actually spent on transport for congressional delegations arranged by Pelosi's office, not for her personal and familiy travel.Some of those passengers, by the way, included Republican members of Congress.

The Mitchells seemed to have picked up that lie from -- where else? -- WorldNetDaily.

Of course, we already knew that Molotov can't get his facts right in his supposedly "For the Record" videos for WND, so it was probably too much to expect his "humor" to be fact-based. Or, for that matter, to be funny.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:15 AM EST

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Did Noel Sheppard even watch the video he's claiming about? We have to wonder.

Sheppard devotes an entire Feb. 9 NewsBusters post to getting huffy over Stephen Colbert calling Sarah Palin a "f**king retard" -- even though he explains the setup for it by noting that Palin excused Rush Limbaugh's use of "retard" because it was satire.

Sheppard even quotes a good portion of the relevent Colbert transcript: "And Sarah Palin knows that it is okay to call someone a retard if like Rush you clearly don't mean it. Which is why we should all come to her defense and say, "Sarah Palin is a f**king retard." Get it."

But Sheppard gets the end of it wrong: "Get it" is not a declaration by Colbert, it's a question, as in "Get it?" Sheppard also conveniently failed to transcribe what Colbert said immediately after that: "You see? It's satire!"

Instead, Sheppard huffs: "And so, it's come this: it is now acceptable for members of the media to say anything they want about this woman no matter how vulgar. Can you imagine the outrage if anyone on television did this to a liberal woman regardless of the comedic intent?"

Sheppard, meanwhile, is silent about Limbaugh's use of "retard," satiric or otherwise -- or, really, anything else Limbaugh has said, no matter how vulgar.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:17 AM EST

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