The Passing Parade of Hypocrisy

The usual suspects -- NewsMax, MRC, Jerry Falwell -- make themselves look silly in public again.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 3/28/2001

Hypocrisy abounds on the ConWeb, as ConWebWatch readers know all too well. Here's some of the latest from that seemingly bottomless fount:

The hypocrite: Jerry Falwell

What he did: In a March 17 WorldNetDaily column, he criticizes Ted Turner for his "cruel and insensitive" remarks about ashes on the foreheads of Catholics at a CNN bureau on Ash Wednesday. "The truth is that conservative people of faith face this type of discriminatory media harassment on a regular basis," Falwell wrote.

Why he's a hypocrite (this time, anyway): A couple of weeks earlier in a interview with the web site BeliefNet, Falwell let fly with his own discriminatory media harassment against people of faith: "I think the Moslem faith teaches hate. I think there’s clear evidence that the Islam religion, wherever it has majority control--and I can name a dozen countries--doesn’t even allow people of other faiths to express themselves or evangelize or to exist in their presence.... I think that when persons are clearly bigoted towards other persons in the human family, they should be disqualified from funds. For that reason, Islam should be out the door before they knock."

Falwell continued: "Islam is growing among African American young people. It’s growing in the prisons. And whenever Islam, God forbid, ever gets a majority in the United States--like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, all the Moslem countries--free expression will disappear. ... We should not respond to the Moslems the way they respond to us. If I were president of the United States, I would include Moslems in my presidency. And I would do my best to change them."

Omar Ahmad, board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, correctly points out that "these offensive remarks are symptomatic of the very intolerance that (Falwell claims) Islam promotes. No faith would accept being excluded from productive participation in our society based on such falsehoods."

The hypocrite: NewsMax

What they did: A March 16 story details tension between Tony Snow and his employer, the Fox News Channel, over the appearance of Snow's columns on a Republican-operated web site and Snow's address from the podium of the Republican National Convention. It concludes with the statement: "No sign yet that network brass at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN are equally concerned with the unmistakable left-wing bias of their own news anchors."

Why they're hypocrites (this time, anyway): There's also no sign that news anchors at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN are writing for left-wing organizations or speaking at Democratic conventions. Nor any sign that NewsMax is concerned with the unmistakable right-wing bias of its reportage.

The hypocrite: NewsMax

What they did: Come to the rescue of first daughter Jenna Bush March 25 against allegations in the National Enquirer that uses marijuana that resulted in an article on the web site Salon. "But the real problem here is that a serious writer would drag the name of the first daughter through the mud based on the Enquirer's anonymously sourced allegations."

Why they're hypocrites (this time, anyway): Christopher Ruddy, NewsMax CEO and a supposedly serious writer, likes dragging the Clintons through the mud based on anonymous tabloid sources, most recently to suggest that Bill and Hillary Clinton were selling their Chappaqua, N.Y. house. They still live there, and NewsMax hasn't retracted the story, which makes Ruddy's statement that "if I believed we had stated something false, misleading or inaccurate, I would immediately retract the story and make any corrections" doubly hypocritical.

NewsMax doesn't explicitly criticize their new buddies at the Enquirer for pursing the story; instead, they attack Salon for not reprinting an exculpatory quote about Jenna Bush that was in the Enquirer article.

The hypocrite: Media Research Center

What they did: Take umbrage March 27 at a Bill Moyers documentary about the chemical industry. "Moyers refused to include the views of any representative from the very industry whose reputation he had impugned with documents obtained by trial lawyers," writes MRC staffer Rich Noyes (who also, oddly, quotes himself in the article. "So, Rich, how do you feel about Moyers' documentary?" "Well, Rich, let me tell you...") Moyers defends his decision by stating that the documents his work is based on speak for themselves and that the chemical industry's only defense "is to attack the messenger who brings the message." (Noyes does exactly this by blaming the documents on "trial lawyers," a red herring that has nothing to do with the documents themselves but merely raises a conservative bogeyman to impugn Moyers by association.)

Why they're hypocrites (this time, anyway): Actually, Noyes quotes himself as saying, "Why would Bill Moyers disregard even the appearance of objectivity?" Better yet, Noyes could tell us this: When has your employer ever offered even the appearance of objectivity?