Here We Go Again

We should have known it was coming: yet another in a series of Joseph Farah columns complaining that he and WorldNetDaily have been pigeonholed as conservative.

What launches Farah's lament this time, in his May 6 column, is the appearance of the WorldNetDaily name on the cover of the new book "South Park Conservatives."

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"I can't tell you how much fun it is seeing your life's work reduced to a cartoon caricature," Farah writes. These are Farah's social conservative tendencies coming out; not only does he despise "South Park" (remember the WND article erroneously bashing the show a couple years back?), he considers "the whole genre of coarse, vulgar cartoons anathema to our culture and think of the producers of such trash as irresponsible reprobates." Then again, Farah not only favors blacklisting actors who are too liberal, he condones the murder of adulterers, which might explain why his "life's work" could be considered a "cartoon caricature" (though not in the way "South Park Conservatives" author Brian Anderson intended).

Farah continues: "Since I founded WorldNetDaily, it's difficult for me to understand how my creation could be so simplistically and erroneously mislabeled as 'conservative.'"

Um, because WND's overall slant favors conservatives and attacks non-conservatives? Because it slavishly and uncritically advances the agenda of conservative legal groups? Because Farah and WND were so willing to spread lies about John Kerry and his wife, thereby boosting the re-election of President Bush, whom Farah endorsed? Because Farah collaborated with Rush Limbaugh on one of Limbaugh's books? Because it promotes polls, even bogus opt-in ones, only when they advance a conservative agenda? Because Farah and WND hate the Clintons with the passion of a thousand suns? (Farah once called Hillary Clinton "a personification of true evil in the world. ... Just looking at the woman is enough to make me retch.")

We throw these reasons out because Farah again offers no specific examples of why we should not consider him and WND to be conservative beyond complaining that he does not follow the strict textbook definition of the word: "By definition, conservatives seek to 'conserve' something from the status quo."

Farah later states that "my main occupation has been, is and always will be 'newsman,'" adding: "I believe the proper role of a newsman is to seek the truth without fear or favor."

And if you believe that Farah's "proper role of a newsman" actually applies to Farah himself, we have some prime beachfront property in North Dakota to sell you. Farah and WND have shown plenty of fear of fulfilling its mission statement of "exposing government waste, fraud, corruption and abuse of power" while the Bush administration has been in the White House. For instance, WND has not only failed to provide original coverage of the various allegations involving Halliburton's defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars, it ran an August 2004 commentary by Steve Marr defending the company: "The next time you hear allegations of price gouging by Halliburton, remember the 41 employees who have died, the scores wounded, and the extreme cost of providing security BEFORE deciding if the allegations are true."

Farah writes of himself and other like minded folks who stand for "truth, justice, freedom [and] the rule of law": "We're the rebels, the radicals, the revolutionaries."

Actually, the term that might best describe Farah is "Christian reconstructionist." Farah's desired destruction of the public education system and his hard line against sinners such as adulterers reflect that of Christian reconstructionists such as R.J. Rushdoony, who like Farah opposes public education in favor of homeschooling and approves of the death penalty for moral crimes (though even Farah hasn't publicly endorsed Rushdoony's desire to put "practicing homosexuals" to death). WND columnist Samuel L. Blumenfeld wrote a fond remembrance of Rushdoony following his death in 2001.

Farah's folderol continues in a May 11 column marking WND's eighth anniversary. "Not only do we mark the eighth anniversary of WorldNetDaily, I would argue we are also marking the renaissance of a truly free press in America," he writes.

Really? Is distorting and lying about people and causes you philosophically oppose really the mark of "a truly free press"? How refusing to disclose your personal and financial interests in the issues and people you cover?

Farah also engages in a little myth-making about WND's creation: "Eight years ago, my wife was the self-taught webmaster and high-tech guru and I was the editorial staff. The whole thing was cooked up nightly in our bedroom-office -- mostly after we put the kids to sleep."

What Farah doesn't tell you is that he raised $4.5 million from investors as seed money to start WND -- from whom, he won't tell you. That's just one hint that WND's origin was hardly the mom-and-pop bootstrap operation Farah makes it out to be. Another is that WND started under the wing of Farah's Western Journalism Center, which at the time was taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife to bash the Clintons, and for all of Farah's blathering about WND being "a watchdog on government," WND's main function in the early years was to serve, like NewsMax and CNSNews.com, as yet another conservative Clinton-bashing tool. Indeed, Farah's very first WND column was an attack on Clinton.