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Friday, September 13, 2013
CNS's Perpetuates 'Obamaphone' Myth
Topic: CNSNews.com

Alissa Tabirian writes in a Sept. 3 CNSNews.com article:

The real problem with the Lifeline Program that provides free cell phones – commonly known as “Obamaphones” – to low-income individuals is not that it’s been abused, but that not enough low-income Latinos are using the subsidized phones, according to The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

[...]

When CNSNews asked for a comment on documented reports of fraud and abuse in the “Obamaphone” system, he replied, “From our perspective, it’s not that there’s too much use, it’s actually too little.”

But as Tabirian concedes later in her article, Obama has nothing to do with "Obamaphones":

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Lifeline assistance program began in 1985 to give “a discount on phone service for qualifying low-income consumers to ensure that all Americans have the opportunities and security that phone service brings.” It was expanded in 2005 to include “pre-paid wireless service plans in addition to traditional landline service.”

Despite proving that Obama has nothing to do with the program in question, Tabirian persists in perpetuating the myth that this was all Obama's idea by uncritically using the term "Obamaphone." 

Tabirian had a chance to tell the truth, but she decided instead to keep a lie alive.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:30 AM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome, Erik Rush Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Most observers have settled on the likelihood that it is his desire to redirect attention from his many scandals, Obamacare and immigration reform legislation that impels the president toward carrying out this attack. There is also a distinct possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood (whom he has supported worldwide and who have fighters among the rebels in Syria) is putting pressure on him to deliver after his failure to resist the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Q: How does Obama know what kind of weapons the rebels in Syria have?

A: He has the receipts …


I propose another scenario: It has been well-established that the Obama administration clandestinely provided arms to the rebels in Syria. (I say “rebels in Syria” rather than “Syrian rebels” because many of them are jihadis from other nations.) It is a pretty safe bet that this operation was at least part of the reason for the 9/11/12 attack on the American facility in Benghazi. I have contended for some time that President Obama himself either orchestrated the attack or was party to it. His motivation, I have asserted, would have been in perceiving a need to erase the evidence of the Benghazi operation – and perhaps even some of the personnel involved.

A subsequent revelation that Morsi provided military assets for the attack on the Benghazi compound does tend to lend credence to the notion that Obama was involved. After all, Obama was Morsi’s benefactor; indeed, there would have been no Arab Spring and no Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy in Egypt had it not been for Obama’s destabilization of the region.

Since it has been established that the Obama administration provided weapons to the rebels in Syria, and nearly a certainty these factions came to possess chemical weapons, is it then possible that Obama’s desire to strike Syria with all due speed stems from a need to erase the evidence of having provided them, and perhaps even other treasonous actions? It would certainly make the truth getting out with regard to Benghazi much more of a threat to Obama if evidence speaking to this being factual exists.

If this is factual, Barack Obama might ultimately be looking at occupying a noted place in history quite different from the one he currently occupies.

-- Erik Rush, Sept. 11 WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 12:43 AM EDT
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Newsmax's Dream Comes True As Peter King Calls Himself A Presidential Candidate
Topic: Newsmax

Greg Richter sounds very pleased and almost giddy in a Sept. 8 Newsmax article:

The first presidential candidate for 2016 has announced his run: Republican Rep. Peter King of New York.

King told a New Hampshire radio station that he was visiting the state last week "because right now I'm running for president." It was King's second of four scheduled visits to the state this year, the New York Daily News reports.

King earlier this year hinted at running, but the radio admission not only seemingly makes it official, it would also make King the first member of either party to official throw a hat in the ring.

Richter, however, didn't note one major conflict of interest: His boss, Christopher Ruddy, is the one who put the bug in King's ear about furthering his presidential ambitions.

It would seem important to not that King is Newsmax's candidate (du jour, anyway, depending on what longtime Newsmax presidential paramour Donald Trump decides), but apparently Richter disagrees.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:33 PM EDT
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Right Wing Watch catches WorldNetDaily just asking if President Obama is ushering in the Islamic caliphate.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:51 PM EDT
CNS Still Keeping Its Obama-Bashing Afghan War Body Count
Topic: CNSNews.com

Since President Obama took office, CNSNews.com has been obsessed with monthly body counts of the U.S. troops that died in Afghanistan, despite the fact that it did no such body count of troops killed in Iraq under President Bush.

CNS had abandoned the body count in recent months, but it's back with a vengeance with a Sept. 11 article by Dennis M. Crowley:

Twelve years ago today, nineteen al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

In the war that Congress authorized against al Qaeda only three days after that attack, the vast majority of the U.S. casualties have occurred in the last four and a half years during the presidency of Barack Obama.

In fact, according to the CNSNews.com database of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, 73 percent of all U.S. Afghan War casualties have occurred since Jan. 20, 2009 when Obama was inaugurated.

The 91 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan so far in 2013 are more than those that occurred in the first two full calendar years of the war (2002 and 2003) combined, when 30 and 31 U.S. troops were killed there.

In blaming Obama for the vast majority of Afghan troop deaths, Crowley mentions President Bush only once, to state that "569 U.S. military personnel were killed in and around Afghanistan fighting in Operation Enduring Freedom" under his presidency, and he makes no mention of Iraq at all, let alone the fact that the vast majority of the 4,000-plus U.S. troops killed in Iraq died under Bush.

Crowley also fails to mention the fact that there were far fewer troops in Afghanistan under Bush than there were under Obama, which accounts for the lower Bush body count. According to PolitiFact, the number of troops in Afghanistan under Bush rarely exceeded 20,000 and typically hovered around 10,000. By contrast, the Afghan surge under Obama topped out at around 90,000 troops.

Of course, CNS has typically ignored context in doing its Afghan body counts, so why would it stop doing so now?


Posted by Terry K. at 10:42 AM EDT
WND's Farah Lies About Existence Of 'Epidemic' Of 'Black Mob Violence'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah's Sept. 9 WorldNetDaily column is a response to a "devoted WND visitor" who is tired of WND's obsession with "constantly running stories about black-on-white violence." Let's break down Farah's response, shall we?

First he responds:

Are there heinous examples of white-on-black violence in America today? Of course. There are 350 million Americans. Are WND reporters and editors uninterested in covering white racial violence when it rears its ugly head? Of course they are interested, willing and eager to report it.

Note that Farah does not provide an example of "white racial violence" WND has covered recently.

Farah then goes into a full-tilit defense of WND's race-baiting campaign:

One of the many disturbing trends the rest of the media have ignored over the last two or three years is the rapid escalation of black mob attacks on whites. I would characterize it as an epidemic of violence – racially motivated violence usually involving multiple attackers.

Because other news agencies are not reporting these incidents, it is literally impossible for Americans – black or white – to understand the problem or to come to grips with the truth. There’s no doubt the absence of honest reporting by others spurred WND’s conscious decision to report the trend, and, more importantly, to illustrate it frequently with coverage of individual attacks, usually supplemented with video.

In addition, WND is publishing the book that brought this trend to our attention as well as to the attention of many distinguished black Americans who are as alarmed about them as I am. That would be Colin Flaherty’s “White Girl Bleed A Lot,” now available as an e-book and soon, for the first time, as a paperback with national distribution.

In fact, Neither Flaherty nor Farah -- let alone or anyone else at WND -- have ever provided any statistical evidence that there is an "epidemic" of "black mob violence" in the U.S. All Flaherty has done is cherry-picked anecdotal examples of "black mob violence" -- which, as we've noted, includes dogs and white people -- in order to create fear among WND's predominately white and elderly audience that blacks are scary and out to rob and/or kill them.

But Farah wasn't done defending WND's race-baiting:

Is it racism that motivates me to do this? Yes, but not my racism. We’re reporting on an outbreak of black racism and violence that others are afraid to recognize and report – probably in part because of the fear of being labeled racist. We don’t report it to exploit it. We don’t report it to sensationalize it. We don’t report it to fan the flames of racism. We report it because when cruelty and hatred and violence go unnoticed, they go uncorrected, unchallenged and unaddressed.

Is a white person who is victimized by violence motivated by black racism any less a victim? When we see a pattern of escalating racial violence of this kind, is it not justified and appropriate and even our moral responsibility to expose it? That’s the way we overcame white racial violence a generation ago, and I believe we will not overcome black racial violence unless we approach it the same way.

Farah is simply lying that WND doesn't "sensationalize" or "exploit" its race-baiting. Type in the word "black mob violence" into WND's search engine and see what comes up -- and see how sensational the headlines are:

WND doesn't "sensationalize" or "exploit" its race-baiting? Please.

The fact that Farah thinks he can get away with telling such a bald-face lie is yet another reason why nobody believes WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:47 AM EDT
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
NEW ARTICLE -- NewsBusted: The Pierre File, Catholic Edition
Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters' Dave Pierre is overly desperate to downplay any media mention of child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, while offering little more than lip service to its victims. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 10:29 PM EDT
WND Shockingly Doesn't Promote Its Trayvon Book With Story On Zimmerman Arrest
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If there's anything WND really hates beyond the mere existence of President Obama, it's news that contradicts its prevailing narrative. As WND has amply demonstrated with its birther obsession, anything that proved them wrong was generally ignored.

Which makes Chelsea Schilling's Sept. 9 WND article on the arrest of George Zimmerman on suspicion of domestic violence an exception to the rule. Why? Because WND has spent months portraying Zimmerman as a victim and Trayvon Martin as a one-man black mob who totally earned being shot to death by Zimmerman.

WND is also publishing a book by columnist Jack Cashill on the case, which contains in its subtitle "the railroading of George Zimmerman." But strangely, WND -- normally a self-promotion machine -- makes no mention of Cashill's book in Schiling's article, yet another failure to disclose a conflict of interest. Nor does Schilling seek out Cashill for a comment on Zimmerman's arrest.

Why did it fail to take advantage of this opportunity for promotion? Did the normally shameless WND recognize that there is such a thing as bad publicity after all and this was not the right place to promote Cashill's book? Perhaps. 

If Zimmerman continues to behave badly, that will put a crimp in Cashill's book. We assume Cashill is feverishly working to come up with an explanation for Zimmerman's actions that will blame anyone else but Zimmerman.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:22 PM EDT
MRC Upset Networks Won't Report Right-Wing Spin on Benghazi
Topic: Media Research Center

Geoffrey Dickens has penned the latest not-so-special report from the Media Research Center:

Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead, and sent the Obama administration scrambling for a cover story that the Big Three broadcast networks initially bought and were slow to unravel.

A similar pattern has emerged in 2013. As new information about the administration’s actions before and after the attacks have been revealed through congressional testimony, whistleblowers, and eyewitnesses, the Big Three have responded by censoring, breezing past or spinning politically damaging bombshells. 

Translation: The networks won't report our anti-Obama right-wing spin on Benghazi.

For instance, Dickens highlights how Fox News provided "bombshell testimony" from an anonymous "insider" whistleblower about how "the U.S. had highly trained forces just a few hours away" from Benghazi but did not send them. In fact, the "insider" sasid nothing that wasn't already known or hadn't been debunked; contrary to his claim, experts say that military assets could not have reached Benghazi in time to make a difference.

Dickens also touts a book claiming that officials immediately recognized the Benghazi attack as an act of terrorism, which supposedly "refute days of claims by the administration that the attack was sparked by Muslim anger at a U.S.-made anti-Muslim film." In fact, book co-author Samuel Katz said in a Sept. 7 Fox News interview:

KATZ: I don't think there was ever a denial that it was a terrorist attack. I think the confusion stemmed from the perspective of what was the motivation behind the attack.

[...]

But that morning throughout north Africa, there were spontaneous attacks [linked to the anti-Muslim video]. And in the morning, there were tens of thousands of protesters around the U.S. embassy in Cairo, and there's nothing that all the security in the world can do to prevent 25,000 people from storming a facility and killing people. So there was great concern in Washington that in Cairo, in Tunis and Rabat that there were attacks that were transpiring. So when word came down about Benghazi, the thought was -- because nobody knew who the people behind it were -- but the thought was that these were people related to theprevious demonstration, and only after the fact did we realize and learn that this was something a bit more sophisticated.

And so on.  Dickens is not offended that the truth is not being reported. He's offended that what's being reported lacks a right-wing ideological spin.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:31 AM EDT
Will Joseph Farah Repent His Sins Today?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've documented how Joseph Farah has been promoting his Sept. 11 "National Day of Prayer and Repentence" without any sign of him offering to repent for his many sins committed against President Obama.

Now, that day has arrived. Has he changed his mind about repentence? So far, no.

Farah's new column promoting his little "Day of Prayer and Repentence" includes a lot of blather, a lot of referencing ofBible verses, but no sign he will do any personal repenting:

Since making that heartfelt cry, I have been surprised by the number of American believers who have questioned whether my citation of 2 Chronicles 7:14 as the inspiration for this day is truly for our time and for our nation.

For those of you not familiar with the verse, it reflects God’s warning to Solomon following the dedication of the Temple and says, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

[...]

Do we want to continue down the road of judgment that began, as Rabbi Jonathan Cahn has shown in “The Harbinger” and “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” 12 years ago on this day?

Do we want to let nature take its course or rely on the wisdom of men to pull American out of the moral and spiritual gutter into which it has descended?

Or do we want to follow God’s prescription for renewal?

No amount of politicking could ever have more impact.

No amount of witty argumentation could ever have more impact.

No amount of hand-wringing could ever have more impact.

Today is that day.

It’s a promise specifically for all believers – “His people.”

It’s a promise for all times.

It’s a promise for all nations.

And it’s a promise for American believers today.

If Farah really was being as "heartfelt" as he claims he is, why won't he repent for his years of hatred and lies directed at Obama and beg him for the same kind of forgiveness he seeks from God?

Farah can't possibly be ignorant of his hurtful deeds. And as he offers repentence to God so that our land may be healed, he should be offering repentence to Obama so his damaged, amoral soul can be healed.

Without that repentence, we can expect the same toxic stream of hate to flow from WND as it has for the past five years -- and a continued dwindling of WND's audience to just the people who hate Obama and love conspiracy theories as much as Farah does.

Farah has brought this situation on himself. Does he have the faith and fortitude to make things right, or will he continue to reside in his sewer of filth and hate?


Posted by Terry K. at 12:41 AM EDT
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
MRC's Philbin Adds Native American Slurs To His Misogyny
Topic: Media Research Center

Matt Philbin, it seem, just can't stop making his Media Research Center bosses proud of him with his fits of misogyny against liberal women. Now, he's added mocking of Native Americans to the toxic mix.

On Sept. 8, Philbin sent out a series of tweets bashing Sen. Elizabeth Warren's speech before thet AFL-CIO. First, he declared, "Sen. Warren to #aflcio13: Our tatanka Cherokees' tatanka, our coup Cherokees' coup!"

Philbin then descended into fake-Indian babble: Elizabeth "Lies W/Injuns in Bloodline" Warren make heap big talk at #aflcio13 "Must spread tatanka meat around!"

Philbin continued that offensive mocking in another tweet: "Lizzie "Stands w/Hands in My Pockets" Warren talk to big #aflcio13 pow-wow. Smoke socialism pipe, bring big redistribution medicine."

As we said, the MRC must be proud of Philbin's misogyny and ethnic slurs. He still remains employed there, after all.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:38 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 11:40 PM EDT
'The Single Dumbest Idea Ever Published'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When we saw the headline "The Single Dumbest Idea Ever Published" on Joseph Farah's Sept. 6 column, we thought it was a step toward repentence.

Could he be talking about WND's Andrea Shea King claiming that Obama was sending secret signals to the Muslim Brotherhood by putting his foot on his desk? Or could he be talking about Vox Day's theory that the Aurora theater shootings were a "false-flag operation" committed by the Obama administration as a pretense for gun control?

Perhaps it could be Jerome Corsi's assertion that President Obama's ring says "There is no god except Allah" in Arabic. Or maybe it's Farah's own claim that Obama omitting "the Creator" in paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence is an "attempt at deicide."

Alas, it was none of these -- Farah has apparently exempted his own website in the search for "the single dumbest idea ever published," even it contains so many candidates for that honor. Farah devotes his column to ranting about another writer's argument that it's better for society if all children attend a public school.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:30 PM EDT
Newsmax's Ruddy Goes Contrarian, Backs Obama's Syria Intervention
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax's Christopher Ruddy has a troubling (if you're a conservative) tendency to put principle ahead of right-wing ideology -- see his befriending of onetime nemesis Bill Clinton or, earlier this year, his defense of moderate Republican Susan Collins.

Ruddy is at it again in his  Sept. 9 Newsmax column in which he agrees with President Obama's intervention in Syria:

Usually I write an article and then, in summation, offer the “bottom line” – the call to action.

So here is that bottom line to start: Congress should back President Obama’s plan to strike Syria.

But I offer one caveat. When the commander in chief speaks to the nation on Tuesday, he needs to offer clear and compelling evidence that the Assad regime, and no one else, used chemical weapons.

Polls show overwhelming opposition to the military strike. I believe a key reason for this is that the administration has not offered a smoking gun for the public, evidence that the Assad regime indeed used such weapons of mass destruction.

The president should follow the example of President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, President Kennedy addressed the nation, showing photographic evidence of Russian missiles just 90 miles from our shores – informing the Soviets they had crossed a red line unacceptable to the United States. The Russians had to remove the missiles and stop delivery of missiles, even if it meant war.

If President Obama can draw a page from President Kennedy in persuading the American people by offering solid evidence, he then deserves the legal authority to strike Syria in a punitive action.

Ruddy also engages in a little revisionist history:

I realize it is not popular to support President Obama and a strike on Syria.

But when I founded Newsmax back in 1998, I did so on the basis this media enterprise would always support the sovereignty and security of our nation.

Since then, we have had differences with both President Bush’s and President Obama’s policies, but the security of the nation remains paramount.

Funny, we thought the reason he founded Newsmax was to attack the Clinton administration.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:55 AM EDT
Nobody Believes WND, Syria Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Nobody believes WorldNetDaily, for good reason. And WND is always happy to provide regular reminders of why that is. Its coverage of the situation in Syria is rife with them.

A Sept. 5 WND article credulously repeats the claims of "A 100-page report on an investigation turned over to the United Nations by Russia" that Syrian rebels, not the Syrian government, are responsible for the chemical gas attack that killed hundreds. But Maloof didn't mention the important that Russia, which is on the side of the Syrian government, has a vested interest in portraying the rebels as the culprits.

A Sept. 8 article by Maloof begins: "Former U.S. intelligence analysts claim current intelligence analysts have told them Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was not responsible for the Aug. 21 poison gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, which killed 1,429 people, of whom more than 400 where children." Maloof cites this claim to an obscure group called "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Among the members of this group Maloof lists is "Larry Johnson, retired CIA and State Department official." If that name sounds familiar, that's because he's the guy responsible for promoting the "whitey tape" -- a purported recording of Michelle Obama using that word at Jeremiah Wright's church. No such recording has ever surfaced, making Johnson a highly discredited anti-Obama activist -- and, thus, cannot be trusted on anything. Maloof, however, seems to feel differently.

Meanwhile, Aaron Klein is continuing his anonymously sourced ways in a Sept. 9 WND article claiming that "On the eve of a critical Capitol Hill discussion on Syria and two days before his address to the nation, President Obama has offered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a way out of any U.S. bombing campaign." Klein's source for this claim? The usual unnamed "Informed Middle Eastern intelligence officials."Klein gives us no reason why we should trust his anonymous sources.

further, as he did for Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, Klein has a record of being a willing dupe for Syria's Assad regime, which makes his reporting even more suspect.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:45 AM EDT
Monday, September 9, 2013
MRC Tries to Bury Cuccinelli's Ethics Scandal
Topic: Media Research Center

The typical Media Research Center report fails to inform readers of its methodology for arriving at its predetermined conclusion that the media is liberal and treats conservatives unfairly. But surprise, surprise -- the MRC finally does so.

A Sept. 3 report by Rich Noyes examining coverage of Virginia gubernatorial candidates actually makes such a disclosure. And, well, it's kind of odd:

METHODOLOGY: MRC analysts tallied all statements from journalists and quoted sources that were explicitly pro- or anti- one of the candidates. If the total of these comments in a story were tilted in either direction by a greater than three-to-two margin, then the story was scored as either “positive” or “negative” for that candidate. Otherwise, the story was classified as “mixed” or “neutral.” Our analysts only examined comments about the candidates’ merits, and excluded judgments about the campaign “horse race,” i.e., poll standings or fundraising.

Noyes doesn't explain how he arrived at his conclusion that a "three-to-two margin" was sufficient to tag a story as tilted a certain direction, nor why he chose to exlude "horse race" judgments.

Further, Noyes admits that at least some stories were balanced or neutral, but at no point during his report does he state how many there were -- he only compares positive vs. negative coverage.

But the point of Noyes' report is not to demonstrate how well (or, in this case, how poorly) the MRC follows accepted standards for research. It's to try and defuse criticism of the Republican in the race, Ken Cuccinelli.

Noyes predictably complains that "Cuccinelli has received far more negative coverage than his rival," Democrat Terrry McAuliffe, and "despite ongoing ethical questions surrounding Terry McAuliffe, these newspapers have collectively run twice as many pieces talking about Cuccinelli’s ethics than those of his Democratic competitor."

Which ultimately gets us to the nub of this -- whitewashing Cuccinelli's ethics problems. And Noyes does his best to do that:

Controversies swirled around both candidates, but ethical questions surrounding Ken Cuccinelli drew twice as much attention from these newspapers as those involving Terry McAuliffe. From June 12 through August 31, 91 news stories (34% of the total) and 61 editorials and columns (44% of the total) mentioned or discussed Cuccinelli’s ethics, most prominently questions surrounding his belated disclosure of gifts from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams (accounting for 119 of the 152 stories talking about Cuccinelli’s ethics).

In contrast, 48 news stories (18%) and 27 opinion pieces (19%) talked about McAuliffe’s ethical problems, chiefly his stewardship of GreenTech Automotive, currently the subject of a federal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Overall, readers saw 152 stories about Cuccinelli’s ethics, vs. just 75 about McAuliffe, a greater than two-to-one disparity.

Cuccinelli’s name was frequently brought up in stories about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who is currently being investigated for receiving far more in gifts and loans from the same businessman. A July 18 report by Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring, a Democrat, cleared Cuccinelli of wrongdoing in failing to disclose his gifts until April 2013, when the investigation into McDonnell was underway, but the positive report did little to stem the flood of coverage.

Noyes fails to highlight one possible difference in the treatment of the two alleged scandals: Cuccinelli accepted gifts from a political donor while in office, which creates the appearance of impropriety and of a politician who can be bought. McAuliffe is a businessman and former Democratic Party official who has never held elective office.

Noyes also seems to think that a Democrat-led investigation that "cleared Cuccinelli of wrongdoing in failing to disclose his gifts until April 2013" is some sort of exoneration and somehow makes Cuccinelli look less bad for accepting the gifts in the first place. But Noyes doesn't note that Cuccinelli has refused to pay back all of the gifts because, he claims, some of them were intangible -- an airplane flight, a free dinner, and supplements.

Noyes' boss, Brent Bozell, reinforced the report's spin in a Sept. 6 column, making it abundantly clear that the purpose was to whitewash Cuccinelli's ethics problems:

Cuccinelli admitted error in failing to disclose gifts from Williams, then asked a Democrat to investigate the matter, who absolved him of impropriety. The End. McAuliffe continues to use the Clinton playbook – dodging, weaving, denying, even lying about charges dealing with massive fraud. Yet Cuccinelli’s “problems” get twice the coverage of his rival.

Since when did Bozell become the judge of what should be "the end" of examination of Cuccinelli's ethics?


Posted by Terry K. at 11:49 PM EDT

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