Before Ronald Kessler served as Newsmax's chief emissary for Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, before he sold out his previous loyalties to dutifully back John McCain in 2008, he was a huge supporter of Mitt Romney -- disturbingly so, given his creepy fawning over Romney's wife.
Kessler may still be carrying a flame for a Trump presidency, but he's also reviving his old love for Romney. Which brings us to Kessler's May 23 column, in which he declares that, according to American Conservative Union chairman Al Cardenas, "Mitt Romney is ahead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination."
Romney is not the only beneficiary of Kessler's fluffing; he also slobbers over Cardenas as well, touting how, as a child, "Cardenas and his family fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba with only the clothes on their back," that Cardena "essentially rebuilt the Republican Party in Florida, becoming its chairman and helping Jeb Bush win election as governor," and that Cardenas "was a mentor to Sen. Marco Rubio, who was a young lawyer in Cardenas’ Miami law firm."
That's largely recycled from Kessler's previous fluff job of Cardenas when he became ACU chairman, succeeding longtime Kessler fluffee David Keene.
WND Still Whitewashing Ousted Ivory Coast Dictator Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily, it seems, just can't get enough of its favorite African dictator.
A May 21 WND article by Michael Carl repeats claimsthat the Ivory coast "election late last year apparently won by a Christian candidate when the government found voter fraud in Muslim regions. But that result was overturned following intervention by the United Nations and the United States, who insisted that the Muslim candidate be given the office." In fact, as we've detailed, the constitutional council that declared Laurent Gbagbo (the Christian) the winner over Alassane Ouattara (the Muslim) was headed by a loyal Gbagbo ally, something Carl fails to mention.
Carl's star witness is an anonymous "missionary who asked to be called only Pastor Andrew" who claims that "has shut off the Internet and now likely is tapping the Christians' telephones." As happensso often with anonymous sources WND cites -- in defiance of WND editor Joseph Farah's dismissal of quotes from anonymous sources as "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better" -- Carl offered no reason why he granted anonymity to "Pastor Andrew."
Surprisingly, Carl did give space to a Heritage Foundation Africa analyst who said that "Ouattara won the election. I think that's been verified by a number of independent observers." But he went on to obsess of "Muslim-on-Christian violence" in the Ivory Coast while not mentioning that Gbagbo and his supporters have also been accused of human rights violations -- which WND has regularly failed to report.
MRC Unhappy That NY Times Reported The Truth Topic: Media Research Center
Clay Waters uses a May 23 MRC TimesWatch post to complain that the New York Times "did its best to paint Israel’s conservative, pro-security prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as being disingenuous and stubborn in the face of President Obama’s reasonable offer for Israel to give up land to the Palestinians."
And how did the Times do that? By pointing out that President Obama did not call for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders but, rather, established it as a starting point with adjustments to be made by mutually agreed land swaps, and that Netanyahu and American conservatives "ignored that nuance."
At no point does Waters contest the truth of what the Times stated -- he's just mad that it was reported at all.
Newsmax Twists Obama Adviser's Words Topic: Newsmax
A May 23 Newsmax article (credited only to "Newsmax Wires") twists the words of Obama adviser Samantha Power to claim that she "once declared that the United States might one day invade Israel to disarm it and support a Palestinian state along the very controversial lines Obama now embraces."
In fact, as the transcript Newsmax includes later in the article clearly states, Power was talking in terms of what needed to be done to avert a "move toward genocide" by either the Israelis or Palestinians. At no point did Power advocate disarming Israelis, nor did she advocate restricting Israel to its pre-1967 borders -- despite Newsmax's suggestion, Power did not even mention borders.
Newsmax did include some conservative praise for Power, but it's buried in the final two paragraphs of the 20-paragraph article.
WND's Klayman Lies About Obama's Israel Speech Topic: WorldNetDaily
Larry Klayman keeps up his anti-Obama jihad in his May 22 WorldNetDaily column:
Emboldened by increased popularity brought about by the killing of Osama bin Laden, Barack Hussein Obama, our first "Muslim" president, has joined with Palestinians to now knock off Israel. In a speech delivered not only to intimidate but also again embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just prior to his state visit to Washington, D.C., the "mullah in chief" demanded that Israel give back all the land it acquired in the 1967 war to the Palestinians, thus compromising the Jewish state's national security. This would mean ceding all of the West Bank, including but not limited to East Jerusalem, to the Palestinians, allowing Israel to be split in two in the event of a quick successful assault by Arabs to cut bifurcate the nation. It would also mean that Christian and Jewish holy sites, from the places where Jesus was crucified and resurrected to the sacred wailing wall, would fall into the control of Muslims hostile to our Judeo-Christian roots and culture.
This rank "chutzpah" by Obama is not isolated. Since the beginning of his presidency two and a half years ago, he has steadfastly unmasked his disdain for Jews and Christians, first by giving a pandering "Cairo" speech apologizing to the Arab world for American "atrocities," then bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia, canceling the White House National Day of Prayer celebration and instead feasting the Arab holiday of Ramadan, endorsing the Ground Zero mosque, and last but hardly least using the death of Osama bin Laden to effectively argue that al-Qaida's terror threat is over and that now we can have "healing" with the Muslim world – despite its having done nothing to bring the master terrorist to justice. It would appear that Obama identifies more with his father's Muslim faith than his own feigned and politically convenient alleged Christianity.
[...]
We need to mobilize Hollywood to tell the story of Israel and its importance for the nation. We need to preserve our our way of life. We need to protect our religious freedoms, which are under attack by our "Muslim" president and his fellow anti-Semites and anti-Christian haters.
Obama did not "demand that Israel give back all the land it acquired in the 1967 war to the Palestinians"; he merely continued in the footsteps of his presiential predecessors in establishing the pre-1967 borders as the basis for future negotiations and that any changes in borders must be mutually agreed to by Israel and the Palestinians.
Farah Arrogantly Insults Critics Of Corsi's Book Topic: WorldNetDaily
The release of Jerome Corsi's birther book has its publisher, Joseph Farah, even more thin-skinned than usual, so he's lashing out any anyone who criticizes or makes fun of the book.
In his May 20 column, Farah growled at Mark Warren, the author of a satirical post at Esquire magazine claiming that Farah and Corsi were withdrawing the book:
I'm sick and tired of spoiled little twits like Warren, perched in their comfortable offices in New York, firing salvoes on tireless, hard-working, committed journalists like Jerome Corsi and the rest of my team at WND without any accountability to standards of professionalism.
Who is Mark Warren? He's Harry Reid's collaborator. In other words, he's a liberal Democratic hack, not a newsman. Who else is he? His professional bio posted at Esquire says he has worked there since 1988. That's 23 years in the insular world of a New York girlie mag. And he is in charge of Esquire's political coverage. He's also an acolyte of Dennis Kucinich and Christopher Hitchens. Maybe you wonder where a guy like this cut his journalistic teeth? Actually, he has no journalistic teeth. He worked in local Democratic Party political campaigns and staff positions until plucked out of obscurity by Esquire in 1988.
And some actually scoffed when I suggested the distinct possibility that the White House may have been behind this dirty trick!
Warren is not the only writer Farah has personally attacked. After an Associated Press article stated that Corsi's book "akes false claims about Obama's purported ineligibility for the presidency," Farah went on a freak-out in his May 23 column:
Let me interrupt this incredibly unprofessional screed right here to draw your attention to the italicized conclusion to the previous paragraph. In the good old days of American journalism, there was an industry-standard requirement that any assertion by the reporter be backed up with hard-cold established facts. There was no room in news stories for reporters to express opinions – even those bolstered with facts.
That leads to the obvious question: What are these false claims about Obama's purported ineligibility for the presidency?
The "reporter," or intern, or editorial copy girl, or whatever she is and represents, doesn't give a hint.
We're just to take her word for it. Based on what? Has she read the book? I doubt it. But, even in the extremely unlikely event she has, her copy still exceeds the bounds of all standards and practices for reporting – especially for a news agency whose copy is prepared for hundreds of newspapers and radio stations and TV outlets around the country and the world.
This is just unbelievable to me.
This is advocacy journalism. This is commentary, not news. This is brazen edification of the status quo – hardly the journalistic ethic of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." This is an example of a poor excuse for a journalist attacking someone who actually works hard at the craft.
What a laugh. The vast majority of WND's "news" content is advocacy or commentary. As its repeated lies and biased coverage of the birth certificate alone demonstrate, WND regularly puts its anti-Obama agenda ahead of the facts.
And Farah dares to lecture others on how to cover the news? How arrogant.
Farah clearly can't handle criticism or understand satire. He has nothing to offer to the world of journalism except to serve as an example of how unprofessional it is to bully your critics with petty insults.
(P.S. Farah seems afraid to take us on, though -- perhaps because he knows that we know how he operates.)
Newsmax's Hirsen Ignores How His Employer Whitewashed Schwarzenegger Indiscretions Topic: Newsmax
A May 23 Newsmax column by James Hirsen offers up an interesting explanation for why Arnold Schwarzenegger largely escaped scrutiny for his affairs and mistreatment of women: Body-building magazines that Schwarzenegger served as editor of were purchased by the publisher of the National Enquirer, and with that came a hands-off policy on Schwarzenegger.
But Hirsen is ignoring the role Newsmax played in trying to distract from those allegations when Schwarzenegger ran for California governor.
An Oct. 5, 2003, article followed in the footsteps of the Media Research Center when the Los Angeles Times reported numerous instances of groping of women by Schwarzenegger -- downplay and distract by playing the Clinton card:
Nothing that Arnold stands accused of comes remotely close to the charge by Juanita Broaddrick, who was subjected to a thorough FBI investigation and vetted by NBC News for a full five weeks before the network would even consider broadcasting her account of a sexual assault by Mr. Clinton.
[...]
Arnold may have indeed groped and grabbed his way through his movie days, but his accusers' complaints pale next to Paula Jones' lurid account, not to mention the accusations of Juanita Broaddrick and the "young woman lawyer in Little Rock."
Newsmax pushed the usual misleading claims against Clinton, such as that Broaddrick "had five witnesses who corroborated her story." But as we've noted, there were actually only three, and two of them held a grudge against Clinton for commuting the death sentence of the man who murdered their father.
An Oct. 6, 2003, Newsmax article trumpeted how "LA Weekly has found plenty of holes in the rag's story Saturday about three more women accusing Arnold Schwarzenegger of sexual misconduct" and how "A thousand readers disgusted with the rag's extreme bias have canceled their subscriptions." Newsmax added, "The hacks at the Times still fail to give satisfactory explanations about why they attack Schwarzenegger so prominently for claims of mere groping but buried news of alleged rape by Bill Clinton."
Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy also played a role in downplaying and equivocating:
A liberal Democrat can be addicted to prescription drugs and we would be told to offer that person pity. Serial skirt-chasers in the Democratic Party never make it to the news.
While neither I nor NewsMax dismisses the seriousness of the allegations made against both Rush and Arnold, they are, at this point, simply unsubstantiated allegations.
I am not jumping to a conclusion about Rush or Arnold – not because they are Republicans – but because I am an American who believes in fair play. I want to hear all the facts first before making a judgment.
Ruddy parroted the usual media-bashing, grousing that "the Los Angeles Times has made clear to the world it is nothing more than a shill for the Democratic Party. It has sought to 'torpedo' Schwarzenegger’s campaign with last-minute allegations, some more than two decades old!"
Hirsen shouldn't pretend that his employer had no role in giving Schwarzenegger's indiscretions a pass.
WND's Mercer Loves Monarchy, Not Democracy Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ilana Mercer really, really doesn't like democracy.
In her May 20 WorldNetDaily column, Mercer declares that "If forced to choose between the mob (democracy) and the monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent," emphasizing her point by calling American revolutionary Thomas Paine "an 18th-century Che Guevara."
Mercer went on to praise the British royals' service in war, adding: "This is precisely what the Bush girls ought to have done in Iraq or Afghanistan, but didn't. Both the queen's grandsons, I venture, show more mettle than most members of America's pampered political dynasties."
Mercer also perpetuates a falsehood:
The democratically elected ruler has no real stake in the territory he trashes during his time in office. It was no mere act of symbolism for the Clintons' staff to have vandalized the White House on the eve of their departure.
In fact, as we've detailed, a GAO investigation could not find any evidence that Clinton's staff left the White House in any worse condition than the first Bush administration left the White House for Clinton, and a review by the General Services Administration determined that "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy."
Even WND's Allies Don't Buy Its Definition of 'Natural Born Citizen' Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily has hidden evidence that its definition of "natural born citizen" that requires both parents to be citizens as well -- which conveniently excludes President Obama -- may not be the most legally sound interpretation. WND still hasn't reported those contradictory legal interpretations, but it now concedes that two of its closest allies don't agree.
"There's nothing that I'm aware of that says you have to have two American parents," said Gary Kreep, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation. "My understanding of it is if you're born in the United States, you're a natural-born citizen, period."
Floyd Brown, head of the Western Center for Journalism who has actively sought the impeachment of Obama, told WND that he, too, considers someone born "on the soil" a natural-born citizen.
WND has hired the USJF to represent it in various legal actions over the years. WND editor Joseph Farah was co-founder of the organization Brown now heads, and WND and the WJC cooperated on a falsehood-ridden book agitating for Obama's impeachment.
What is prompting WND to go wobbly on what is essentially all they have left on the birther issue? Because WND's rigid definition also excludes two potential future Republican presidential candidates, Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio.
Kovacs also quotes the usual birther suspects backing up WND's two-parent definition, but the fact that two of its closest allies -- one a right-wing legal foundation -- aren't buying its definition of "natural born citizen" doesn't bode well for the success of that line of attack.
Newsmax Columnists Go On Tirade Over Obama, Israel Topic: Newsmax
Lowell Ponte kicks off his May 20 Newsmax column by mischaracterizing what President Obama said about Israel and the Palestinians, claiming that Obama "called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be based on Israel retreating to its pre-1967 borders, a boundary to be altered only by 'a few swaps' of land between the parties" and claiming that this was a "tectonic shift."
In fact, Obama's policy is keeping in line with previous presidents and even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who have stated like Obama that the pre-1967 borders are a starting point, not the end point, for future negotiations. It's not clear whom Ponte is quoting as saying "a few swaps," but it isn't Obama, who referenced "mutually agreed swaps" but did not suggest a number.
Ponte then went off into conspiracy land, claiming that Obama is eyeing "he mountain of cash an American president who turned against Israel might harvest from donors in oil-rich Muslim nations," adding, "In 2012, do not weep over how much Jewish money the president might have lost. Instead, watch to see how much Islamist and Muslim money Obama might gain by turning against Israel."
Ponte wasn't the only Newsmax columnist to go into freak-out mode over Obama's speech. Wayne Allyn Root dramatically began his column this way: "Mark the date — Thursday May 19. It’s the day the leopard showed his spots. It’s the day Obama stabbed Israel in the back." He went on to rant:
Obama wants to redistribute your taxpayer money to radicals who attack churches and murder Christians. He wants more foreign aid for Egypt, a country headed for domination by the Muslim Brotherhood, an ally of Nazis in World War II. That is who Obama has chosen to side with over a modern, capitalist, American-loving Israeli society with democracy, freedom and equality for men, women, gays, and Arabs.
[...]
Obama no longer speaks for the American people. Jewish voters will never again feel the same about Obama. And while Jews make up only 2 percent of America’s population, they provide a majority of the donations to Democratic politicians.
Obama lost many crucial Democratic donors on Thursday. But Obama’s biggest mistake was awakening a sleeping giant. It is Christian voters who elect presidents. And almost 100 million evangelical Christians who love Israel will now vote and donate to Obama’s opponents with a fervor and passion of a patriotic group on a mission to save America and Israel from destruction. And sadly, they will be right.
Root is also a birther, which may help explain his overheated rhetoric.
WND's Ethically Challenged Pollster Rails Against Bias Of (Other) Pollsters Topic: WorldNetDaily
Fritz Wenzel penned a May 13 WorldNetDaily column with the headline "Shaping opinion by skewing the polls." Well, he would know.
As we've detailed, Wenzel is a pollster with an ethically challenged past who has cranked out numerous polls for WND with questions skewed to generate a particular result its client was looking for.
Indeed, in the days before Wenzel wrote his column, he released results of WND polling that is demonstrably skewed. One poll on gay-related issues featured in a May 8 WND article included these questions:
Should American soldiers and sailors be required to bunk and shower with open homosexuals?
Should taxpayers be required – through Obamacare – to pay for transsexual 'sex-change' operations, that is, to pay for people's surgery to amputate and/or remake organs to resemble those of the opposite sex?
Many people complained about the recent male-on-male kiss on the primetime TV show 'Glee.' Do you think this negative reaction was based on an anti-gay prejudice or was it a healthy reaction against something unnatural and perverse?
Another Wenzel poll, featured in an April 26 WND article, included these skewed questions:
Do you believe elementary school children should be taught that homosexuality is a normal alternative lifestyle?
Is it appropriate to expose elementary school students to 'gay pride' and "Gay History Month' lessons that celebrate the lives of homosexual activists like Harvey Milk?"
Should students be taught how to perform gay sex acts as part of 'safe sex' lessons in school?"
Yet Wenzel did not confess to his own sins; rather, he endeavored to cast aspersions on others. He took offense to one Associated Press poll "in which Democratic respondents outnumbered Republican respondents by 17 percentage points!" He didn't note the explanation the AP provided:
The AP-GfK results were striking in that they found Obama with a higher approval rating than other recent polls that generally said he was in the low 50s. Polls often produce varying results because of differences in question wording and polling methodology. Also, during periods when public opinion about an issue is particularly volatile, and at times when the public is being presented with rapidly changing information, it is not uncommon to see wider variations across polls, even those conducted around the same time.
Some conservatives criticized the AP-GfK poll as heavy with responses from Democrats that skewed the results. AP-GfK polls use a consistent methodology that draws a random sample of the population independent of party identification. Such identification is not static and tends to fluctuate over time along with other political opinions. However, the change in party identification in the current AP-GfK current poll is not a statistically significant shift from the previous poll in March and could not by itself explain the poll findings.
Instead, Wenzel insisted that only "a sample of likely voters" offers accurate results on political matters because "barely half of registered voters cast ballots in presidential elections, about half of the sample of any registered voter survey includes the opinions of people who don't participate in elections. Who cares what they think about politics?"
He even complained that "There is noticeable skepticism on the political right that polling data is used by MSM outlets not just to report public opinion, but to shape it," even though that's exactly what he's doing with his WND polls.
Wenzel is not going to be skeptical about right-wing poll bias because creating biased right-wing polls is his job.
Kessler Still Pining Away For Trump Candidacy Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax was the chief cheerleader for a Donald Trump presidency, and the chief cheerleader at Newsmax was Ronald Kessler. Drawing on his decade-long relationship with the mogul, Kessler did what he could to pave the way for a Trump presidency, even helping to facilitate Trump's speaking slot at CPAC.
But with Trump's declaration that he wouldn't seek the presidency -- a week or so ahead of when Kessler said he would announce his decision -- presumably left Kessler as broken-hearted as his Newsmax colleague James Hirsen.
So Kessler tries to pick up the pieces in his May 19 column by still carrying a flame for Trump's presidential ambitions.
Kessler claimed that "The tipping point for Donald Trump came when Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, visited him in his office in New York and offered him $120 million to continue as the star of 'The Celebrity Apprentice.' The NBC offer was for two seasons at $60 million each. Until then, Trump had been planning to announce his presidential run a few days after this season’s finale, which airs this coming Sunday, May 22."
But that's not quite what Kessler originally claimed; he wrote (after two previous tries went away) that on the "Celebrity Apprentice" season finale, "Trump plans to say that he will be holding a press conference in the next few days at Trump Towers in New York," at which "sources close to the real estate titan tell me that at that press conference Trump will be announcing his candidacy for the presidency." But even that claim was shot down when an NBC executive reported that the finale was filmed months ago, before Trump began his presidential flirtation.
Kessler, though, is still keeping hope alive. Claiming that "Trump’s office has received thousands of letters and emails urging him to reconsider," and that he "is said to have had many high-profile business leaders and others encouraging him to reconsider, drop his NBC plans and make the bid." Kessler continues:
Despite his decision not to run, Trump is still in high demand to speak at Republican events. He has struck a chord with Republicans and independents who relish his straight-talking approach to the economy and foreign affairs. He is said to be personally satisfied that he has made his points and has moved the conversation when it comes to Obama and his policies.
Candidate or not, Trump is likely to remain a force in Republican politics.
Kessler, it seems, is going to remain an public relations agent for Trump.
Alyssa Farah, daughter of WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, has a notablehistory of bias and misleading claims, and she keeps up the family tradition in a May 19 article on the filibuster of judicial nominee Goodwin Liu.
Farah kicks things off by calling Liu "far left-leaning" while offering no evidence that this is the case. She also offers a highly unbalanced picture of Liu -- 12 paragraphs of attacks on him, compared with just two paragraph defending him.
The kind of factually deficient right-wing media bias WND peddles is genetic, it seems.
Corsi Thinks OCR Gobbledygook Is Secret 'Hidden Text' Topic: WorldNetDaily
First there was the layers in the PDF of Barack Obama's birth certificate (created in a conspiracy to make the document more readable). Then there was the U.S. government's questioning Obama's citizenship (Aaron Klein didn't reveal until the second-to-last paragraph that the feds concluded he was one). Now, WorldNetDaily may have hatched its most desperate -- and utterly ridiculous -- attempt yet to discredit the certificate.
Jerome Corsi actually wrote this in a May 21 WND article:
Recalling Dan Brown's bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code," computer experts have discovered strange anomalies in the Obama birth record released by the White House.
They include a different birth registration number that shows up in "hidden text," remnants of the short-form certificate apparently bleeding through the long-form and a "smiley face" in the registrar's stamp that does not show up on other recently issued Hawaii birth records.
Curiously, in a simple process run by Optical Character Recognition software that reveals hidden text, the registration number 10611 turns up, instead of 10641, the number displayed on the two birth records authorized for publication by the White House.
[...]
Is 10611 Obama's true birth registration number, the number on a document used by a forger or just a meaningless symbol beneath the text?
Corsi seems to be counting on the possibility that his audience of WND readers don't actually know how OCR software works. It's a way to convert scanned text on a printed page into a computer; while robust and well-trained OCR software will generally do a good job of doing such a conversion, it will fall short when the text isn't clear, and it will also attempt to convert non-text elements linke lines or dust spots into text as well, resulting in meaningless gobbledygook.
The number on Obama's birth certificate is clear to the naked eye as 10641, but because the copy Obama made public is itself a copy, enough of the "4" did not transfer over, causing the OCR software to read it as a "1."
For Corsi to treat this and other OCR gobbledygook -- generated when the software tried to interpolate non-text markings as text -- as secret "hidden text" is the height of absurdity.
Why should anyone who does such a thing -- and the "news" organization that publishes it -- deserve to be taken seriously?
NewsBusters Complains That Media Ignored Discredited Study Topic: NewsBusters
Must the media promote a discredited study? NewsBusters thinks so.
A May 20 post by Tim Graham touts a study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State University showed the stimulus bill saved 443,000 government jobs, but caused a net loss of more than a million jobs, complaining that "This is one of those studies only Fox News noticed."
Graham didn't mention that the study has been discredited. Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that the study "makes no effort to control for the differential effects of bubble and bust" and "uses odd variables on both the left and the right side of its equations," adding that it appears "the authors tried something that happened to give the results they wanted, then stopped looking."
Economist Dean Baker wrote of the study: "Their results depend on pulling out four private sector industry groups (lumped together) and measuring the stimulus against trend job growth in these industries. Even for these four industry groups , most of the results are only marginally significant. It is clear from their tables that if they took all private sector jobs, their results would be insignificant." Baker concluded, "In short, there are many unusual aspects to this analysis and very little effort to determine whether these quirks are driving the results."
Further, the study's results run counter to findings by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the White House Council of Economic Advisors, which found that the stimulus bill created as many as 3.6 million jobs.
Graham also claimed that "Our media only cites studies which estimate the number of jobs Team Obama 'saved or created,'" but it's clear that "his media" -- Fox News -- apparently only cites studies that claim the stimulus was a failure, regardless of the veracity of that claim.
Nevertheless, Tom Blumer piled on in another May 20 post, echoing Graham's complaint that "the establishment press has given the silent treatment" to the study. He also bizarrely claimed that a search of the New York Times website for the study turned up "Nothing relevant," completely ignoring Krugman's analysis. (Blumer did a search for the study authors' names, which Krugman didn't use in his analysis.) Like Graham, he avoided mentioning any criticism of the study.
Blumer adds, "Ignorance of published results can have consequences." So does ignorance of how published results have been discredited.
