Intra-Birther Smackdown! Trump vs. Corsi Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's big birther scoop is turning into a war of words between Donald Trump and WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi.
A May 24 WND article by Bob Unruh touted how Corsi, author of the dubious birther book "Where's the Birth Certificate," claimed that Trump 'reached out" to him "with a long list of questions about where the [birth certificate] issue is, and where it seems to be going":
Corsi said Trump specifically wanted to know what will happen next in the campaign to reveal the truth about Obama.
"He asked, 'aren't you discouraged?'" said Corsi.
"But why should I be discouraged? There's breaking news about Obama's eligibility, the book is selling well," he said.
[...]
"I told him he needs to publicly say that the document in the vault, the original long-form birth certificate, needs to be exposed and examined independently," Corsi said. "The doctor's records, the Kapiolani records of Ann Dunham to corroborate she was in that hospital."
"I told him if you don't press these issues you can't be surprised if there are those who think you're working with Barack Obama [on the dispute]," Corsi added.
WND embeds a YouTube video of a Corsi radio interview in whichhe made the claim, but curiously does not identify whose radio show it was. Perhaps because it was on the radio show of Alex Jones, an even bigger conspiracy-monger than Corsi.
Why is WND afraid to credit Jones with the interview? Are they afraid that associating with Jones will make him look even more discredited than he already is?
This was followed up the next day with an unbylined article claiming that, "in a telephone call to WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.," Trump "says he believes the 'birth certificate' released by the White House is forged," adding that "Trump told Corsi his own computer expert told him at the release that it was a computer-generated document."
Then, one little problem surfaced in Corsi's story: Trump denied Corsi's version of events. Trump issued a statement to Mother Jones:
I am proud of the fact that I was able to get President Obama to release his birth certificate. President Clinton couldn’t do it, Senator McCain couldn’t do it—no one else could do it! Frankly, many people were surprised that it took so long for this to happen. Is his birth certificate legitimate? I hope it is for the good of the country, but that’s for experts to determine—not me. I have not read the book written by Jerry Corsi nor did we discuss whether or not the birth certificate was computer generated or in any way fabricated. I merely asked him how his book was doing and wished him good luck.
WND has responded to this exactly the way you'd expect them to: by getting all pissy about it.
A May 26 WND article notes Trump's claim not to have read Corsi's book "despite having his staff sign a non-disclosure agreement to get the book three weeks before it was released May 17."
The article also states: "Corsi says Trump repeated a conversation he had weeks ago in a conference call with WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah in which the building magnate said he is concerned about the validity of the document released April 27 by the Obama White House. Farah confirms Trump questioned the authenticity of the birth certificate and said others around him do as well."
Wait -- wasn't Farah denying that he had ever spoken to Trump just a few weeks ago (despite previously stating that he had)? Yes, he was.
WND then goes off on a conspiratorial tear:
Farah wonders aloud why Trump would ask for a copy of a book he had no intention of reading – even going to the extent of having his organization sign a non-disclosure agreement to get an early electronic copy.
"If he wasn't going to read the book, why go to the trouble of requesting a PDF copy and having your representative sign an NDA for it?" asked Farah. "Was his intent all along to violate the NDA and give it to someone else? Was his intent other than what he represented to us – to go to school on the eligibility issue? Trump needs to explain himself to someone other than Mother Jones. That doesn't sound like good faith to me."
Farah and Corsi say Trump talked about a golf course designer he works with – someone Trump described as a "genius" on the computer – who shared with him his expert opinion that the birth certificate was a fraud. Trump said he was considering renewing his calls for Obama to establish his eligibility, but wanted more to go on.
"He kept urging us to hold press conferences – assuring us he'd be right behind us, holding our coats, so to speak" said Farah. "When I pushed him to join us, he quickly backed off – saying he couldn't jump back into the issue right now. I have strongly begun to suspect that Trump had other motives than seeking the truth about Obama. I think he was pumping Corsi for information for some other purpose than being on the right side of history."
This actually falls in line with how the Alex Jones crowd promoted Corsi's interview with him. An article on Jones' Infowars site sums it up by noting that in his interview with Jones, "Corsi sensationally accused short-lived Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of 'working with Obama' to neutralize the birther controversy."
Who's telling the truth here? We have no idea -- neither Trump nor Corsi are famous for their truth-telling, and Farah can't keep his story straight either.
As we've noted, WND is essentially betting it all that the birth certificate Obama released is forged, and it's going to some absurd lengths to keep that angle alive. Trump was a somewhat credible ally for WND to have on the issue.
With Trump bailing on them, WND seems to think it's more important to get in a pissing match with him rather than act like a real news organization. Then again, that's pretty much how WND has always operated.
CNS Instructs Right-Wing Media On How To Make Obama Look Bad Topic: CNSNews.com
A May 24 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones noting that President Obama "as sent his "deepest condolences" to the people in tornado-devastated Joplin, Mo." while he "heading to London for a visit with the British royals" begins with a curious editor's note:
According to the White House Web site, President and Mrs. Obama will take part in an arrival ceremony at Buckingham Palace Tuesday at 7:20 a.m. Washington time. They will then have lunch with Her Majesty the Queen. At the same time, the morning news shows in the U.S. will continue their live coverage of the devastation in Joplin, Mo., which could make for jarring side-by-side images of royal pomp in London and dreadful circumstance in Joplin.
It's as if CNS was sending marching orders to Fox News and other right-wing media to start creating those "jarring side-by-side images." There's no reason for CNS to point that out other than to prompt its ideological allies to make Obama look bad.
CNS was only slightly less obvious in its marching orders in a May 25 article by Jones in which she actually complains that the media isn't portraying Obama as a " blundering fool" over a couple minor gaffes during his visit to Britain:
Imagine the newspaper headlines if President George W. Bush had written the wrong date in the Westminster Abbey guest book; or if he had continued toasting the Queen of England after the British national anthem started playing.
Obama did both of those things on Tuesday, and while media outlets reported the incidents, there was no suggestion that he is a blundering fool.
Is this sort of thing really the job of a "news" organization? Not that we're aware of.
Newsmax Columnist: Obama Statement on Israel Like Giving Hitler the Sudetenland Topic: Newsmax
Add Herbert London to the list of Newsmax columnist who are in freak-out mode over President Obama's stance on Israel, and he takes it up a notch by going all Godwin on us:
This statement by Obama has the odor of Munich about it. Just as the Sudetenland was sacrificed to Hitler “for peace in our time,” the contention that Israel return to the ’67 borders may have the same toxic effect. An Israel with a width of nine miles would not be in a position of defending itself. Pre-emption would be its only option. A Hamas terrorist with a Stinger over his shoulder can shoot down any commercial aircraft landing at the Tel Aviv airport.
President Netanyahu responded by noting, “Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israel and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.” Alas, the echo of the 1930s fills the corridors of contemporary history.
It is difficult to know if President Obama is serious about his proposal. Afterall, he did engage in subsequent backpedaling at the AIPAC meeting. But even so, it seems as though he either doesn’t understand what Israel is up against or doesn’t care.
[...]
There is an Orwellian quality to the speech since freedom is embraced on the one hand and crushing imposition on the other hand. Obama has found his voice on the freedom agenda, but there is the nagging Chamberlain apparition that haunts his perspective.
London, of course, doesn't mention that Obama's endorsement of the pre-1967 borders as a start for negotiations with Palestinians is pretty much the same policy the U.S. has always had.
In September 2006, [James] Frey and publisher Random House reached a tentative legal settlement, the terms of which mandated refunds for readers who felt that they had been defrauded by Frey's book.
In January 2009, that same publishing house signed a deal with Obama [for a young-adult edition of "Dreams From My Father"] to defraud hundreds of thousands of new readers, little ones, likely with no choice in the matter but to be defrauded.
At some point, Bill Ayers has got to blow the whistle on this despotic bit of literary child abuse.
One feature that marks a totalitarian regime is media that serve as the government's information service. TASS, Radio Berlin, Voice of Hanoi – these were all government entities that conveyed what the dictatorship wanted. The handout comes, the handout is published. The real danger point arrives when propaganda no longer rankles, but flows naturally. That's when authority carries more weight than evidence, and peer pressure suppresses independent thinking. It's also when captives become subjects.
Watching our free, First-Amendment-protected media react to the surprising release of President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate, I have to wonder: What exactly is the difference?
Never forget that the No. 1 mantra of the left is that the end always justifies the means. As left-wing radicals are fond of saying, in revolutions, innocent people get killed. In other words, the deaths of innocent bystanders is just one of those things – an unfortunate sacrifice for the greater good. That said, if the left isn't bothered by the deaths of innocent people, why would Obama care about Osama bin Laden getting a bullet through the eye?
[...]
Those who now give Barack Obama a favorable rating for supposedly ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden still don't understand that Obama is the Master of Distraction. The whole event was simply a distraction from his ongoing destruction of the American economy.
[...]
The Master of Distraction knows how important it is that he continue to distract the pudding heads who are anxious to give him a boost in the polls every time he makes a smart-aleck crack about tea baggers or moats or alligators. The truth is, he doesn't give a damn about Osama bin Laden – or anyone else who isn't integral to his revolutionary goals.
If it takes a bullet in someone's eye to distract the American public, so be it. That said, I'd like to propose a national moratorium on the gushy applause for Chairman Obama for his "gutsy call." Please, enough already with the naiveté.
I am so grateful that for the first time in American history, and surely the first time in Mr. Obama's life, he was told no. Bibi will not sell out his country, Israel, as Mr. Obama is willing to do with America. Netanyahu drew a line in the sand and refused to budge. Netanyahu turned protocol upside down, lectured a sitting president in the Oval Office and then clearly refused to take a presidential directive.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Oval Office during the meeting. The subsequent photo op was tense, to say the least. America wants to stand with her friend, Israel, and Netanyahu reminded the child president of that reality. Our nation will stand by the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Obama rolled into town and has spent virtually all his time, when not playing golf or on vacation, changing the country and the world to suit his view. Not only that, but he acts with an attitude of entitlement that enables him to make decisions for everyone, everywhere.
Barack Obama came to American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, on Sunday and declared that the U.S.-Israel relationship was ironclad. I was there and heard him say it, but it did not reassure me. I am dubious about Obama's promise. After all, he caused fright and worry amongst freedom-loving peoples when he endorsed the 1967 Auschwitz borders for Israel, and he did not dispel that concern at AIPAC.
[...]
The money quote of the day was, "If there's a controversy, then, it's not based in substance." Oh, really? I vill gaslight you and you vill like it.
Obama didn't break the color barrier for America, he broke it for elitist liberals like Marsh. And you can bet, if he hadn't gone to Harvard, wasn't pro-homosexual, or pro-Margaret Sanger's systematic extermination of blacks and the poor, or a pro-Alinskyite spawn of a Marxist Kenyan and a communist, [May Anne] Marsh and her kind wouldn't be championing him. She and her ilk objected to a decent (although clearly misguided) black Democrat like Harold Forde [sic] and mercilessly attacked every conservative black appointed to office or who won office.
President Barack Obama is not suffering a mild bout of geographical nostalgia. He's simply our first anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian president. How stupid of us Jews to wallow for decades in the post-Holocaust pity of the world and the world's admiration of Israel's military prowess, and never give a thought to the possibility of such a thing. An open enemy does not necessarily mean an honest enemy. This one lies.
Donald Trump decided not to run for president. I have mourned and have moved on. Herman Cain is now my favorite. Why? Because he's not a politician. He is a human being capable of understanding what people want and need. He understands that we have been pushed around for the past four years and cannot take it anymore. Cain has beaten cancer, and now he'll take on America's sickness, Obama – and I believe he'll be two for two after the 2012 elections.
-- Chrissy Satterfield, May 25 WorldNetDaily column
Aaron Klein Hides Behind More Anonymous Sources Topic: WorldNetDaily
The unverifiable hits just keep coming for WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein.
Klein's May 23 WND article claims that "Dennis Ross, Obama's Middle East envoy, has exchanged messages the past few weeks between Israel and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad" with the purported aim on "an Israeli surrender of the strategic Golan Heights." Klein cites only anonymous and purportedly "informed Israeli and Arab officials" to back up his claim.
This is just the latest in a long line of articles -- 31 in the first four months of 2011 alone -- in which Klein cited anonymous, unverifiable sources in support of major claims. At least one of those claims proved to be utterly false, which raises questions about the reliability of his sources.
Noel Sheppard expressed his annoyance in a May 23 NewsBusters post that Howard Dean said that right-wingers "hate Muslims, they hate gays, they hate immigrants." Sheppard huffed: "Honestly, is this the kind of talk Comcast and General Electric should tolerate from someone on their payroll?
Sheppard might have a point if his fellow MRC employees weren't busy living up to at least one of those characterizations.
Indeed, just an hour before Sheppard's post went up, a NewsBusters post by Tim Graham was complaining that the Washington Post ran an article on a homeless shelter for gay and transgender youths."You know you’re reading the liberal Washington Post when a story rejoices in the D.C. government offering 'a measure of freedom she has never had' to 'slip on a flower-print blouse and shave her face,'" Graham snarked.
Graham went on to grouse that the article was "typically all sympathy and zero skepticism for the politically correct cause" and "all who fail to accept their moral choices are bad," even complaining about "all the raging inaccuracy of pronouns -- where the transgendered person in question gets to define which sex they are regardless of the biological realities."
Is this not the exactly the kind of thing Dean was referring to? Or is Sheppard simply being nice to his fellow MRC employee by not holding him to the same standard he's holding Dean?
Graham's post wasn't the only fit of gay-bashing the MRC was engaged in as Sheppard complained about Dean's remarks. A May 24 TimesWatch post by Clay Waters complained there were too many New York Times article on gays:
So much for objective journalism; in recent weeks the Times has embraced gay advocacy. The May 16 front page carried a complimentary profile by Dan Barry (normally the "This Land" columnist for the paper) of Rick Welts, president of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, coming out as a gay man, "Going Public, N.B.A. Figure Sheds Shadow Life."
[...]
On May 8, reporter John Branch praised NHL "enforcer" Sean Avery of the New York Rangers under the headline "In Rarity, a Player Speaks Out for Gay Rights."
Not such a rarity apparently, given that Branch followed up on May 14 with "Two Straight Athletes Combat Homophobia."
The front of the May 17 Metro section was dominated by former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned and outed himself in a memorable press conference in 2004: "Out of Politics and Closet, McGreevey Pursues Dream to Join Clergy."
The trend culminated with the paper’s online multi-media feature "Coming Out," datelined Monday. Sarah Kramer introduced it with a post "Gay Teenagers, in Their Own Words," a placeholder for a selection of 30 stories from "L.G.B.T. youth," with more to come. Kramer’s story was pure advocacy with not a dash of skepticism or disagreement.
Yeah, five gay-themed stories out of the hundreds the Times published over the time period Waters is complaining about is obviously too much.
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.
