WND Climbs In Bed With Another Dictator Topic: WorldNetDaily
Is there an authoritarian dictator WorldNetDaily won't rush to defend? First it was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, then it was Syria's Assad, now it's Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Michael Savage set the tone in a March 3 WND column, declaring that the "rebel forces" in the Ukraine are "fascists" and "spearheaded by Ukrainian neo-Nazis and Chechen Islamist radicals. Putin, by contrast, "is not the villain in this" because he's not killing Jews, and he was "forced to deploy military assets to Crimea" because "Russia cannot afford to let the Crimean region fall into the hands of the insurgents who are trying to take over Ukraine."
In a March 4 article, Michael Maloof uncritically repeats a claim by a Russian official that "ultra-nationalist Ukrainians could attack ethnic Russians" and that "the West has sided with the ultra-nationalist groups, which he calls neo-Nazis, resulting in the violent government takeover." Maloof also cited "A knowledgeable Ukrainian source in Stanford, Calif," who claimed without evidence that the "real power in Kiev and much of Western Ukraine today belongs to several rival neo-Nazi factions whose masked, well-armed adherents are busy looting abandoned properties and shaking down businesses for money to support their ‘revolution.'"
Neither Maloof nor Savage report any countervailing views on the Ukraine opposition. But Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid notes that Putin himself has made similar claims, and identifies it has part of a pro-Russian propaganda campaign. Kincaid also notes that an Israeli news agency has reported that a Jewish-led militia force that actually participated in the revolution in Ukraine.
The next day, Maloof claimed that "Russian troop movements on the Crimean Peninsula are permitted under a 1997 Partition Treaty signed between Russia and Ukraine, as long as there are not more than 25,000 Russian troops."
Maloof doesn't say where he got his information from, but elsewhere in the article he cites Russia Today -- presumably this article. Maloof doesn't mention that Russia Today is operated by the Russian government -- which is to say, Putin -- and its objectivity, particularly on Russian actions in Ukraine, has been called into question. Indeed, a Russia Today TV reporter resigned on air, criticizing the invasion and her network for whitewashing Putin's actions.
WND must have a huge bed for all the dictators it crawls in there with.
NEW ARTICLE: Bozell vs. CPAC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center chief has been spending much of the past several years at war with the annual conservative gathering, with his MRC employees caught in the middle. Read more >>
Kant's March 4 WorldNetDaily article on Stockman's ill-fated challenge of John Cornyn for his Senate seat is a train wreck starting with the supremely uninformative headline: "Texas Republican primary: Who survives? Season begins with a bang as firebrands take on GOP incumbents."
It's sad that WND couldn't be bothered to follow the standard journalistic practice of putting the election results in the headline.
Kant's opening was even more of a joke:
This time, Goliath beat David.
A long-shot bid by Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, to unseat the second-most powerful man in the Senate has come up short.
Stockman’s strategy was to try to force Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, into a runoff by keeping him below 50 percent of the vote in the Texas GOP primary on Tuesday.
But, underfunded and targeted by GOP strategist Karl Rove, Stockman fell short, as Cornyn captured 61.6 percent of the vote at 17.1 of precincts reporting.
That's right -- Kant stopped counting before even one-fifth of the results were in. Kant was also too lazy to report just how badly Stockman did: He received only 19 percent of the vote.
Talk about lazy journalism.Apparently, Kant simply lost interest in the race after his boy was completely stomped and the results were called early.
Then again, he may as well been on Stockman's payroll. Kant rehashed all his pro-Stockman talking points (since he won't be able to use them again for some time), including the "startling poll results showed Cornyn had fallen from 50 percent to 43 percent." Kant doesn't mention that the poll was so flawed that it didn't include the six other Republicans, and that the undecided vote was outpolling Stockman.
Kant also touted how stockman filed a lawsuit against a Cornyn aligned super PAC for “numerous false statements” without mentioning the fact that the statements in question are, in fact, true.
And Kant is still sucking up to Stockman:
“It’s not what we wanted, but he had $14 million,” Stockman told WND just minutes after polls closed. “I don’t think we could honestly compete with that. We tried, though.”
Asked if he would have done anything differently, he said, “I wish we had more money. [Cornyn] saturated the radio in Houston with $2 million in ads calling me ‘Shady Stockman.’”
In fact, Stockman could have done numerous things differently -- like actually campaigning. Even Fox News noticed:
Famous for outlandish comments in support of gun rights and calls to impeach President Barack Obama, Stockman began his campaign with more debt than cash-on-hand. He also was dogged by accusations of ethics violations -- only to see things get worse. He attended almost no major campaign events. And he even dropped out of sight for weeks in January, ignoring reporters and missing almost 20 votes in the House before explaining he had been part of an official overseas delegation at least part of that time.
Last week, leading conservatives suggested in an open letter to Stockman that he ran "the laziest statewide campaign to date" and added: "There is nothing about your conduct that represents the spirit of grassroots conservatives in the Texas tea party."
Kant won't mention that, of course. Nor will he mention that Stockman has threatened with imprisonment anyone who publishes a 1977 police mugshot of him after his arrest on drug possession charges. Because that's not what a public relations agent does.
The fact that Kant turned WND into Stockman's PR shop is just the latest reason why nobody believes WND.
CNS' Jeffrey: CPAC Must Censor Atheists Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey continues to do his boss' bidding -- specifically, his war on CPAC for inviting an atheist group to take part -- by turning an earlier blog post into a full-fledged column explaining how good an idea is that CPAC (and its operator, the American Conservative Union) censor views it doesn't agree with because Reagan:
Are atheism and promoting atheism consistent with American — let alone conservative — values and principles?
The operational policy of the American Conservative Union now appears to contradict Ronald Reagan's view on this.
Reagan believed atheism was not merely wrong, but the enemy of freedom. The ACU has functionally adopted the position that groups promoting atheism can be featured at its annual Conservative Political Action Conference — so long as they promote godlessness with civility.
Strange to see the head of a so-called "news" organization advocate censorship of viewpoints.
WND Embraces Anti-Semitic Egyptian Tabloids That Bash Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Right Wing Watch highlights a new report by the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute about how Muslim Brotherhood supporters and critics alike have embraced an anti-Semitic narrative, driven in part by Egyptian tabloids that are frequently cited by American right-wing news outlets.
Egyptian newspapers including Al-Wafd and Roz Al-Youssef have promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Right Wing Watch noted: Al-Wafd claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi were tools of Israel and were implementing the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," while Roz Al-Youssef claimed the Muslim Brotherhood is a "Masonic, Jewish, Zionist organization."
WorldNetDaily is listed among the outlets that have pushed Roz Al-Youssef's conspiracy-laden "report" about Muslim Brotherhood agents in the Obama administration.Art Moore declared in a January 2013 WND article that the report "effectively affirm[ed]the concerns of five much-maligned Republican House members" by claiming that "six American Muslim leaders who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who have significant influence on U.S. policy."
WND has also approvingly highlighted how Al-Wafd published a picture depicting President Obama as Satan. WND has previously portraying Obama as the Antichrist, so this isn't much of a leap.
Right Wing Watch concludes: "Desperate to smear the Obama administration as ridden with Muslim Brotherhood agents, it seems that several US conservative outlets don't mind relying on publications that embrace anti-Semitism and hoaxes such as the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"
Newsmax Still Shilling For 'Son of God' Film Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's lovefest for the film "Son of God" hasn't quite ended, though the film's advertising at the website has.
A March 2 article declared, "'Son of God' Blows Away Expectations With $26M Box Office Weekend." It touted how the film had "a staggering $26.5 million box office take" (though not so staggering that it wasn't surpassed by another movie that weekend).
A March 3 article by Matt Bendell tried to take a shot at the religious-film competition:
While the movie "Son of God" had a blockbuster opening weekend at the box office, the next biblical big-screen production on Hollywood's horizon, "Noah," is taking heat from some Christians for departing from the scriptural account of the Old Testament story.
The article goes on to promote some evangelicals' attacks on the film's supposedly "revisionist message," with one lamenting that "young people have a hard time deciphering reality from fiction and don't often take the time to form their own educated opinions."
WND's Marisa Martin Undermines Her Own Attempt To Portray Obama As Self-Obsessed Dictator Topic: WorldNetDaily
Marisa Martin (a pseudonym) begins her Feb. 28 WorldNetDaily column by asking, "Why do dictators always love enormous, ostentatious and self-aggrandizing art?" You know it's not going to go well, because she quickly moves from Lenin, Stalin and Mao to, yes, President Obama:
Which brings me to the current administration and their fondness for huge heads … of Obama.
Last December diplomats with London’s U.S. Embassy were lavished with unusually large portraits of Obama by the famed artist Chuck Close. Described as “tapestries,” the black and white portraits are woven from Polaroid photographs. At 8 feet tall and more than 6 feet wide, the POTUS projects powerfully into the space. It could be considered intimidating, but the attitude is something his diplomats have learned to live with, or perhaps enjoy.
Martin then undermines her own argument by conceding that such large-format portraits are Close's stock in trade, and that Obama "apparently appreciates Close’s work and collects contemporary art." But she quickly got back on her paranoia track by declaring that "There’s an Orwellian element here that can’t be missed":
Perhaps it’s just artistic expression, but the State Department and the president approved it. They had the choice of another more solemn piece by Close, which would have worked at least a little better – in my humble opinion.
There is a marked difference between the giant visage of a movie star and self-portraits of a reigning political personality. Everything changes because of the history and the cultural meaning understood by the public through historic precedent.
The psychology here is: I’m watching you. I’m bigger than you. I’m the alpha dog in this political pack, and I can take your money to make these monuments too.
Massive public art dedicated to non-political luminaries exude none of this implied threat. Celebrities, city fathers or General Custer have no opportunity to control, limit, imprison or execute you.
Cult leaders may apply the Happy Face artifice. Still on a grand scale, here the Leader is benign and compassionate. Scenes of adoring children are common props, reminiscent of Jesus and the little ones. And even Kim Jong-il is always grinning blithely in a field of daisies to derail complaints.
[...]
America hasn’t plastered Obama’s face on currency, textbooks or federal buildings … yet. We don’t bow, send him mandatory birthday presents or laud him as “Sun of the Nation,” but that’s the small stuff. They’re merely the outward efflorescence of the darker motives to control thought, loyalty and belief. Big stuff. And that’s where we find ourselves in America now and why the big heads matter.
MRC Defends Bill Donohue, Hides His Link to MRC Topic: Media Research Center
Matthew Balan spent a Feb. 27 Media Research Center item being indignant that Catholic League president Bill Donohue was questioned about his stance against same-sex marriage:
On Thursday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo hammered the Catholic League's Bill Donohue for his opposition to same-sex marriage and his support of the now-vetoed SB 1062 in Arizona. Cuomo mouthed the talking points of the social left on LGBT issues: "Why do you want to discriminate against gays? You say, we don't...only the marriages bother us. But that's the same thing, because their right as an individual is to marry."
The anchor even questioned Donohue's Catholicism, for supposedly standing with "these Christians who are more of the extreme...[who] have their own rigid beliefs," and against Pope Francis (or, more specifically, the liberal media's spin about him)[.]
Balan failed to mention -- as the MRC so often does -- that his boss, Brent Bozell, is on the Catholic League's board of advisers.
The video accompanying Balan's post is heavily edited to take Cuomo's comments out of context. Thus, Balan's readers don't get to hear about Donohue denying that love has any role in marriage.
WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh is such a dutiful transcriber of right-wing talking points that he doesn't dare question what he's transcribing. Thus, he writes in a March 1 article:
The damage done by pornography has been documented in studies. But one of the more compelling condemnations of porn came from serial murderer Ted Bundy, who once escaped from jail in Aspen, Colo., to continue his murderous death trip across America.
Dr. James C. Dobson, now with the nonprofit Family Talk, interviewed Bundy just hours before Bundy was executed on Jan. 24, 1989, in a Florida electric chair.
Bundy, who was blamed for the deaths of dozens of young girls and women, explained that as young boy of 12 or 13, he encountered soft-core pornography in local grocery and drug stores.
“Young boys explore the sideways and byways of their neighborhoods, and in our neighborhood, people would dump the garbage,” he said. “From time to time, we would come across books of a harder nature – more graphic. This also included detective magazines, etc., and I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of pornography – and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – is that that involves violence and sexual violence.”
Bundy told Dobson that he accepted responsibility for what he did and was not blaming porn for “causing” him to do something. His M.O. was to wear a fake cast on an arm or leg and “accidentally” drop books near a pretty coed. When she helped him carry books to his car, he would shove her into the passenger side, from which he’d removed the seat, and take off with his latest victim.
Bundy said the issue “is how this kind of literature contributed and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behavior.”
“In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process,” he told Dobson. “Then, at a certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into something that is almost a separate entity inside.”
Bundy said he led “a normal life, except for this one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close to myself.”
But as we've previously documented, Bundy was almost certainly playing Dobson. True-crime writer Ann Rule wrote of the interview:
Two agendas were met with that videotape. Dr. Dobson believed that smut and booze triggered serial killers, and he had the premiere serial killer to validate his theories. Ted wanted to leave behind a legacy of his wisdom and humanity's guilt. He was guilty, yes, but we were guiltier because we allowed pornography to be sold. We walked by newsstands and did not demand that filthy literature be confiscated and outlawed.
[...]
I don't think pornography caused Ted Bundy to kill thirty-six or one hundred or three hundred women. I think he because addicted to the power his crimes gave him. And I think he wanted to leave us talking about him, debating the wisdom of his words. In that, he succeeded magnificently.
The blunt fact is that Ted Bundy was a liar. He lied most of his life, and I think he lied at the end.
The point of Unruh's article is to serve as a press release for the right-wing Morality in Media's "Dirty Dozen" list, at the top of which is Attorney General Eric Holder who allegedly "refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against hard-core adult pornography, despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and effectively enforced by previous attorneys general."
Because this is a glorified press release, not an act of journalism, Unruh can't be bothered to investigate Morality in Media's claim any more than he can be moved to question the Ted Bundy narrative. If he had acted like an actual journalist, he would have found that such prosecutions are increasingly difficult to obtain, and that the Department of Justice has said that obscenity prosecutions are better handled U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
NewsBusters Still Trying To Spin Arizona Anti-Gay Bill As 'Religious Freedom' Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters remains in denial mode, insisting that the proposed Arizona "religious freedom" law wasn't really about discriminating against gays.
In a Feb. 26 post, Jeffrey Meyer actually did acknowledge that it was about gays, but huffed that an MSNBC panel "disregarded the religious freedom argument associated with SB 1062," adding: "MSNBC could have had a serious discussion on the merits of this bill and whether or not SB 1062 needed to be clarified to ensure that businesses cannot simply deny services to individuals for being gay but still protect companies such as florists and bakeries from being forced to service a gay wedding. Unfortunately, no such discussion occurred on Morning Joe, as the liberal media has chosen to bully supporters of the bill to prevent actual discussion about religious freedom and gay rights from occurring."
In another Feb. 26 post, Meyer complained that "MSNBC seems to be perfectly content presenting SB 1062 solely as an 'anti-gay' bill rather than discussing the merits of whether or not the state should force private businesses to participate in a gay wedding if it goes against their religious beliefs."
A Feb. 27 post by Ken Shepherd stated that the Wall Street Journal "portrayed accurately the religious freedom legislation" (by framing it as "religious freedom") while "the headers for the print stories at the Washington Post and New York Times were loaded." Shepherd pretended it wasn't an anti-gay bill:
As such, SB 1062 is not an "anti-gay" statute which green-lights discrimination. It's a bill which tightens the legal standards for levying damages against a defendant in civil court for not providing a service when that business owner cites religious conviction as the reason for not providing said service.
[...]
Again, the law itself is content neutral, it's about protecting religious conscience. It could just as well be used by a person sued in court for refusing to cater a strip club's Christmas party or an abortion lobby's fundraising gala out of religious objections to participating in and condoning sin.
While Shepherd conceded that "a lawsuit in neighboring New Mexico against a Christian photographer had been the impetus for the legislation," he failed to mention that it involved photographing a same-sex couple -- and, thus, continued ignoring the fact that anti-gay sentiment was really the "impetus" for the bill.
Randy Hall asserted that the bill could not possibly be targeting gays because "the word 'gay' was not mentioned in the legislation."
On March 2, Meyer again complained that the media was "portraying SB 1062 as an anti-gay bill without ever giving the religious freedom argument consideration."
The next day, Meyer went after the Daily Beast's Kirsten Powers for her "outright mischaracterization of a the motives of proponents of the now-vetoed bill" by pointing out that the bill "is very much about gayness." Citing the case against one photographer who refused to shoot a same-sex wedding, Meyer retorted: "But the proprietors of Elane Photography do NOT have a problem with rendering photographic services for gay persons, just with photographing activities which they consider sinful and offensive to the conscience, including nude photo shoots." Meyer added: "Powers may be unaware of those facts, but she should educate herself on the issue and not SLANDER her fellow evangelical Christians for their sincere religious beliefs."
But why must gays be discriminated against in situations like this? How does he know that the photographer's religious beliefs were "sincere"? Shouldn't the sincerity of the same-sex couple's relationship also be taken into consideration?
Meyer then asserted that the proposed bill really wasn't about discrimination:
Powers provided no evidence that SB 1062 would result in a wave of anti-discrimination in Arizona, and there is no evidence that the law would authorize discrimination. It’s highly unlikely we would have seen a wave of discrimination because businesses could get sued and deal with the subsequent legal costs. Would many small businesses want, or be able to afford, such costs associated with a lawsuit simply to “discriminate” against gay people? Yes, under SB 1062, they could recover court costs in the event of winning the case, but the court hassle to get there is not worth it for most folks.
But as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer noted when she vetoed the bill, it "does not seek to address a specific and present concern related to Arizona businesses," and the out-of-state examples "are not issues currently existing in Arizona. So the law addressed a problem that did not exist, which raises legitimate questions about the motivation of its proponents. Any chance Meyer will acknowledge that?
WND Gets In One More Press Release For Steve Stockman Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been serving as Steve Stockman's PR shop throughout his run for John Cornyn's Senate seat, and Jerome Corsi takes the PR baton for one last article before tomorrow's election.
Corsi does his one-sided job by touting a poll claiming that Cornyn was "polling below 50 percent" with Stockman at 28 percent. But as we noted, it's a fundamentally flawed poll because it found 29 percent had not made up their mind and didn't include the six other candidates who are also running in the Republican primary for Cornyn's seat.
Meanwhile, another poll taken around the same time as the one Corsi cites shows Cornyn with 60 percent and Stockman with 16 percent (and, yes, it did include the other candidates).
In true PR flack tradition, Corsi talked only to Stockman, included numerous attacks on Cornyn, and made no effort to let Cornyn's campaign respond.
Corsi also touts Stockman's libel lawsuit against a Cornyn-linked super PAC without mentioning that he has no case.
Corsi also fails to mention controversies involving Stockman, such as apparently violating election law by sending out a fake newspaper promoting him and bashing Cornyn.
The headline on Corsi's article reads, "Famous Republican about to fall out of sight?" But Corsi won't give you the full facts to inform you that the person who best fits that description is Stockman.
P.S. After Corsi's article appeared, TPM reported that Stockman has threatened to imprison anyone who has published the mugshot from his 1977 arrest for possession of a controlled substance. Somehow we suspect that neither Corsi -- who called the release of the photo "a particularly low moment" in the campaign, though he concedes it's authentic -- nor anyone else at WND will be defending our First Amendment rights.
Meanwhile, CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, is launching a new "Tell the Truth!" campaign (which, if history is a guide, will exempt itself and anyone seeking to tell the truth about conservatives from that demand) starting, yes, Mark Levin. It's promoted by the ad image shown at right -- which has appeared on the CNS front page alongside the above Levin articles -- and it links to page that states at the top, "As Heard On Mark Levin."
None of the three CNS articles about Levin mention that he is a paid spokesman for the MRC.
The Society for Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics states that journalists should "Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived" and to "Disclose unavoidable conflicts." But CNS hasregularlyfailed to tell its readers that Levin is a paid spokesman for its parent company.
WND Still Pushing Matthew Shepard Revisionism Topic: WorldNetDaily
Art Moore writes in a Feb. 28 WorldNetDaily article:
The Associated Press reported the Brooklyn Nets’ Jason Collins, who signed a 10-day contract with the team Sunday, met after his game in Denver Thursday night with the parents of Matthew Shepard.
The AP, in its recounting of the horrific 1998 assault, stated matter-of-factly that Shepard “was tortured and murdered in 1998 because he was gay.”
However, a book by an accomplished, openly gay journalist published last fall presented documentary evidence that the murder of Matthew Shepard had nothing to do with hatred of homosexuals.
It was so convincing that the Advocate, which calls itself the “world’s leading source for LGBT news and entertainment,” published a positive review of the book titled “Have We Got Matthew Shepard All Wrong?”
In “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard,” author Steve Jimenez contends Shepard not only knew his murderers, he engaged in homosexual acts with them. They also bought drugs from each other and partied together.
Jimenez speculates Shepard’s killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, wanted a stash of methamphetamine they believed Shepard possessed. McKinney, according to Jimenez, was on a prolonged meth binge that made him prone to extreme violence.
Ten years ago, the ABC News program “20/20″ interviewed the convicted killers, who, like Shepard, were both 21 at the time of the murder.
As ABCNews.com summarized, they told ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas “that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays.”
But what Moore claims is the "truth" about Shepard is extremely dubious. Media Matters points out that despite Jimenez's claim, quoted by Moore, that he "didn’t write the book from a political point of view," his objectivity is questionable, most notably because he is a friend of the defense attorney of one of the killers.
Moore doesn't mention that Jimenez was the person responsible for that 2004 ABC story, and that he had already decided that Shepard's death wasn't a hate crime before doing that story.
And as we've previously noted, the killers' claim that Shepard's death was fueled by drugs and not hate belies the fact that one of the killers mounted a gay-panic defense during his trial.
Moore's boss, Joseph Farah, similarly tried to revive Shepard revisionism last fall when Jimenez's book came out.
Bozell Using His 'News' Organzation To Forward His Anti-CPAC Agenda Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell has shown he has no problem using his Media Research Center to advance his personal political agenda -- which currently involves attacking CPAC for briefly inviting an atheist group to take part in its annual conservative confab. Now Bozell is using his "news" division, CNSNews.com, to hammer home his animus toward CPAC.
A Feb. 27 CNS article by Barbara Hollingsworth and Michael Chapman features a CPAC board member criticizing the since-rescinded invitation to American Atheists, and trying to get other CPAC board members and sponsors to answer whether CPAC "should insist on an official policy guideline making it clear that groups that are openly hostile to any one of the four major pillars of conservative thought--including traditional values--will not be allowed to participate in future CPACs." The authors couldn't be bothered to contact American Atheists for a comment.
CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey also did his boss' bidding with a blog post quoting William Buckley's "God and Man at Yale" and declaring:
There are Americans today, holding themselves up as conservatives, who argue that one can be both an atheist and a conservative. This is absurd.
There is a God, He made us and all things, and His immutable moral laws apply to all men, in all nations, at all times. These fundamental truths--recognition of which is not confined to any particular religious denomination--were embraced by our Founding Fathers. A social and legal order consistent with these fundamental truths is at the very heart of what modern conservatives seek to conserve.
[...]
Must the modern Conservative Movement be a classroom in which young Americans can be schooled in how to fight and defeat the forces of atheism so manifestly gaining ground in our society today? Of course.
Jeffrey didn't mention the CPAC controversy, but he didn't have to.
WND's Cashill Blames Everyone But George Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin's Death Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Cashill's Feb. 26 WorldNetDaily column is headlined "2 years post-Trayvon and nothing learned." That's not quite true -- along with fellow WNDer Colin Flaherty, Cashill has learned how well race-baiting plays with WND readers.
Indeed, the first thing Cashill tells us is that blacks are just a bunch of thugs, even if President Obama doesn't agree:
Like all men of color, said Obama, he knew what it was like to be followed in a department store or have women clutch their purses upon seeing him enter an elevator.
Even if true, Obama neglected to mention the motive behind this seeming bad behavior. Like Obama’s own grandmother, even the relatives of young black men know that they commit more than their share of crime, far more.
Obama did acknowledge that young men black men “are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence,” but he abandoned this thread prematurely.
Although he had the opportunity to shake up the debate, he instead pulled his ultimate punch, not in what he said, but in what he did not say. He let the idea stand that Martin was one of the victims of violence, but not one of the perpetrators.
If the president had called attention to the fractures in Martin’s domestic life, his suppressed criminal record, his all but unseen descent into drugs and violence, and especially his reckless attack on Zimmerman, Obama might have lent a dollop of moral seriousness to his remarks.
Continuing his defense of George Zimmerman -- whom he lionizes in his recent book -- Cashill tells us that everyone but Zimmerman was to blame for Trayvon Martin's death:
Here is the real injustice. In the two years since Trayvon Martin died, roughly 15,000 black Americans have been killed by other African-Americans.
If asked, I doubt if Barack Obama could name a one of them. I doubt if Holder could either. In these last two years, in these last five, neither has made a serious inquiry into why young black males kill and get killed at such a frightening rate.
It is so much easier and so much safer to blame George Zimmerman.
Yeah, putting blame on the guy who had a gun and shot Trayvon Martin to death is just too easy.