2009 Slanties: Slant-dog Millionaires

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There are a lot of awards presentations out there, but only one honors the work of the right-wing media that would otherwise go unjustly ignored: the Slanties.

This is the sixth iteration of the Slanties -- you'd think we'd have worked ourselves up to a fancy ballroom, tuxes and designer gowns by now. But being a fiscally responsible website in an economic downtown, we remain a proudly web-only operation ... and we have yet to ask for a bailout.

Anyway, enough talk. Time to hand out some hardware.

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The first award is for the most egregious example of bias in a "news" story. We didn't even bother to compile nominees for this because there's one painfully obvious winner: WorldNetDaily, for its coverage of Barack Obama.

When Joseph Farah wasn't telling obvious lies about Obama, Jerome Corsi was peddling bogus documents purportedly linking Obama to wrongdoings in Kenya, and Aaron Klein was desperately playing guilt-by-association by trying to tie Obama to various radicals, terrorists and -- even worse -- communists. WND also glommed onto the Obama birth certificate non-controversy and pimped it like Wings Hauser in "Vice Squad" (and with approximately the same amount of psychotic ferocity) -- blithely ignoring the fact that WND itself declared the birth certificate to be "authentic" and that a lawsuit claiming Obama isn't a citizen "relies on discredited claims." And Farah himself joined the fun by lying about that.

WND and its writers have won all or part of this award since its inception. We might as well just officially name it the WorldNetDaily Award.

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The next award is the LoBaido Award for the silliest statement made by a writer for a conservative news Web site (named after Anthony LoBaido, who wrote a post-9/11 column for WorldNetDaily that was so unhinged -- he blamed the attacks on America's immorality since "all that is evil in the world can be found in New York" and, for good measure, called Hillary Clinton "openly Marxist, treasonous and abortion-mongering, occultic" -- WND eventually pulled it from its site). And the nominees, with a heavy emphasis on Clinton and Obama derangement, are:

Things are weird enough now with people Tasering each other and piercing every part of their bodies. ... [Hillary Clinton] reminds me of a 'Terminator' who can morph into any shape.

-- David Kupelian, quoted in a Jan. 15 WorldNetDaily article

The Democratic Party has paid a terrible price for its embrace of Bill and Hillary Clinton, a demented and devious duo of egomaniacs who will go down in history alongside the crazed Emperors Caligula and Nero of the late Roman Empire.

-- Lowell Ponte, Jan. 29 Newsmax column

When they're in power, the Clintons are like the hot dogs I just ate. I know they're loaded with a lot of horrific things that aren't good for me – but, once there's nothing I can do about it, I don't really want to know exactly what.

-- Doug Powers, Feb. 11 WorldNetDaily column

It's time for Hillary to hoist up the trousers of her sansabelt suit, stiffen the old upper lip and make the iron maidens and harridans of the world proud. Hillary possesses all the charm of Grendel's little sister, would he have had one – a trait that would not go unnoticed in dealing with radical Islamic factions, should she employ her true nature.

-- Mychal Massie, Feb. 12 WorldNetDaily column

Shrillary is anything but likable – and her voice sounds like a rusty nail scraping a blackboard. I won't comment on her looks – except to say most people are sick to death of seeing her. Period. End of story.

-- Joseph Farah, Feb. 14 WorldNetDaily column

Like him or loathe him, you get the feeling that you could enjoy having a beer with Bill Clinton, you don't get that feeling that you could enjoy anything with Hillary Clinton — except maybe anesthesia.

-- Brent Bozell, quoted in Feb. 26 Newsmax column by Phil Brennan

The fact that we don't have mandatory surgeon general warnings on the side of condom wrappers is a testament to the power and influence wielded by the radical homosexual lobby.

-- Matt Barber, April 18 WorldNetDaily column

A prostitute is whatever you need her to be. While Hillary's price may be a bit higher, possibly the future of America, she is nothing more than a prostitute. Give her what she wants, and she will give you what you want.

-- Craig R. Smith, May 12 WorldNetDaily column

Why are we promoting "clubs" in a high school based on sexual activity? Do we have a porno club at Irmo high school? Why not? How about a polygamy club? Maybe a bestiality club?

[...]

Like I said, if the kids wanted to form a "club" that supports pornography, would that be OK? After all, porn is legal. How about a "club" that promotes dancing strippers? A beer drinking club? How about a club that specifies support of terrorists? One that promotes Jew hatred, supports the KKK, the Nazis, gangs, the Black Panthers or Louis Farrakhan? Wouldn't the school have a vested interest in stopping these sorts of clubs based on hatred, anti-Americanism, and anti-social behavior? Is the school so bereft of moral convictions that they'd bend over for every socially backward and dangerous "club" to be formed just because the kids wanted it?

-- Warner Todd Huston, bashing Gay/Straight Alliance Clubs in a May 21 NewsBusters post

The Barack Obama campaign phenomenon increasingly resembles the 1973 science fiction movie "Soylent Green" more and more with each passing day.

-- Melanie Morgan, June 13 WorldNetDaily column

Although there are a lot of homosexual movies, there are very few homosexuals to support such movies. When I do interviews with hosts who have developed the effete accent of those who choose alternate lifestyles, I usually ask them, "If there are so many homosexuals, why don't you just show up and show off at the box office?

-- Ted Baehr, June 14 WorldNetDaily column

The majority of those who vote for Democrats come from that half of our population that has an IQ of 100 or lower. These sheep neither notice nor care about the irrationality and cynically manipulative nature of this dishonest all-feelings, no-brain ad.

-- Lowell Ponte, June 23 Newsmax column

Resurrect shame – deep, abiding disgrace. While you're at it, whatever became of the shotgun wedding? Bring back the pejorative "bastard." I don't like it; it's hurtful, but it had its uses. So does hurt. With hurt come hard-won insights. The prospect of bearing a bastard once forced a parent to think: Do I want my child to bear this burden? Do I want for myself the status of an unwed, untaught mother? Expel pregnant girls; don't cater to them and kit them out.

-- Ilana Mercer, June 27 WorldNetDaily column

[Obama] displays the kind of absolute trust in his own invulnerability that is so typical of revolutionary sociopaths.

-- Olavo de Carvalho, July 15 Accuracy in Media column

In this I have to say that Larry Hunter has no clue what the word "suffered" means. Our economy has not "suffered" too badly from the expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, this country has scarcely "suffered" at all from the war. Obviously, the war has touched only a small portion of our people and few Americans have been much put out by it. Even the battle deaths are miniscule compared to any of our past wars.

-- Warner Todd Huston, July 17 NewsBusters post

Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him – a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib and seemingly holding all the answers to all the world's questions.

And the Bible says that such a leader will soon make his appearance on the scene. It won't be Barack Obama, but Obama's world tour provided a foretaste of the reception he can expect to receive.

He will probably also stand in some European capital, addressing the people of the world and telling them that he is the one that they have been waiting for. And he can expect as wildly enthusiastic a greeting as Obama got in Berlin.

The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance.

-- Hal Lindsey, Aug. 1 WorldNetDaily column

Excuse me, because I have to throw up, wash my hands, and disinfect my keyboard -- not necessarily in that order.

I'm nauseated...talk amongst yourselves.

-- Noel Sheppard, Aug. 19 NewsBusters post reacting to the news that Rachel Maddow has been given her own show on MSNBC

Another of my late grandmother's many sayings was: "Sometimes it's hard to tell which is worse – the smell from the pile in the pasture or the flies it draws." Thus, in 21 words, she summed up my thoughts, feelings and disgust for the Obamas and their view of America.

-- Mychal Massie, Sept. 2 WorldNetDaily column

Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.

-- Michael Reagan, Sept. 4 column (published at Newsmax but later deleted) declaring Sarah Palin the "new Ronald Reagan"

Senator Hairplugs and Capped Teeth — he has more than a shark — has been around Washington longer than anyone can remember, and like his running mate, went right from law school to pursuing a political career, which tells you something about their real experience and motivation.

-- Barrett Kalellis, Sept. 3 Newsmax column

The nomination of Sarah Palin is now the Hungarian Revolution and Six-Day War of American Christians. A mother who chooses not to abort a child with Down's Syndrome. An unashamed believer in God who un-apologetically participates in the all-day-singing-and-dinner-on-the-ground style of country-and-peasant Christianity. This is primordially thrilling to millions of Christians who had grown accustomed to derision and humiliating exile to the back of the American cultural and political bus with no relief, no allies and no redemption this side of heaven.

Make no mistake. The very nomination of Sarah Palin is the revolver in the hand of the [Warsaw] Ghetto Jew and the Molotov cocktail in the hand of the Hungarian Freedom Fighter. If I, as a Jew, am enjoying this dramatic payback, what must the Christians be feeling?

-- Barry Farber, Sept. 16 Newsmax column

Barack Hussein Obama is a nothing, not in the eyes of God, or in the sense of human worth, but in the sense of his tissue-paper resume, fair game because he and his people tout it so audaciously. He was a community organizer, a position many would reckon is less important than dogcatcher.

[...]

It could be said – albeit defiantly and with a cattiness more characteristically employed by the left – that Adolf Hitler was a "community organizer," as well.

-- Erik Rush, Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily column

Was a Communist Obama’s Sex Teacher?

-- Headline on Oct. 14 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid

To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you.

-- Janet Folger Porter, Oct. 28 WorldNetDaily column

Barack Obama was programmed for years by his atheist, Muslim father, by the communist sex pervert Frank Marshall Davis, by con man Tony Rezko, by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and others – most of all by black liberation theology screamer Jeremiah Wright. Obama's resume is largely manufactured. There is a total blackout on his college years. His campaign obscures what he did as a "community organizer." All his radical associations are denied or minimized. His miserable legislative record (voting "present" over 100 times to avoid taking a stand), his lack of achievement, his radical views and so on – all have been laundered through the magic of public relations into the near-sacred saga of "The One" who has been sent to serve, and to save, America.

[...]

America has a choice Tuesday between a genuine war hero and a genuine Manchurian candidate.

-- David Kupelian, Oct. 30 WorldNetDaily column (wait -- didn't WND used to promote the idea that John McCain was the Manchurian candidate?)

Many of those who helped elect Barack Obama as the next president represent a very different generation of Americans from earlier ones.

They have passed through the politically correct indoctrination of government/union controlled schools and have little accurate knowledge of history, geography, or civics with which to make informed judgments. They are more the product of popular media and culture than any previous generation.

-- Alan Caruba, Nov. 10 CNSNews.com column

It was the Sunday after the election, and everywhere I looked I could only see impending doom.

There is no way God would have allowed Barack Obama to become president were He not finally turning America over to judgment, to whatever great or lesser extent that will be.

I sat in my mother's church and was surprised to feel anger when the worship leader smiled and sang the same songs as ever, as if life hadn't drastically changed the week before, as if the Church itself wasn't indicted by Obama's election.

-- Jill Stanek, Nov. 12 WorldNetDaily column

Barack Hussein Obama would bring his immorality into the White House. He is an enemy of God.

-- Hilmar von Campe, Nov. 25 WorldNetDaily column

Whether the financial meltdown has been engineered or not -- and there are major questions about its timing, just six weeks before the national elections -- it will be up to President Obama to manage America’s transition into this New Global Order. With his background in Marxism and extensive Wall Street contacts and associations, he seems perfectly suited for the task.

-- Cliff Kincaid, Nov. 24 Accuracy in Media column

Critics who denounce and slander their colleagues for comparing Barack Obama's meteoric rise to power with that of Hitler's are out of ideas or have too much time on their hands.

-- Jerry Kane, Dec. 3 WorldNetDaily column

-- Henry Lamb, Dec. 27 WorldNetDaily column

And the winner is ... a tie: Hilmar von Campe's declaration that Obama is "an enemy of God" (he has other issues with Obama) and Janet Folger Porter's declaration that Obama voters jeopardize their immortal souls (she too has other issues with Obama). They perfectly illustrate the intensity of the hatred the far right has toward Obama. Expect four more years (at least) of this.

* * *

Our final award is the Slantie Award for Career Achievement in Conservative Bias. This goes to a reporter or commentator with a consistent record of biased and slanted reports that fly in the face of time-honored journalistic practice, the truth and/or common sense.

And the winner is ... Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid. A longtime conspiracy theorist and right-wing ranter, Kincaid went into Obama overdrive in 2008, kicking things off by spreading lies about Obama and playing guilt by association, later peddling the idea that the world financial crisis was engineered by George Soros to get Obama elected. Kincaid climaxed (if you will) with an article headlined "Was a Communist Obama’s Sex Teacher?" in which Kincaid merged his obsessions of Obama, anti-communism and sex into a skeevy paranoiac stew.

It's not often one finds a way to aggressively mix sex with anti-communism, and Kincaid may very will have earned the award through that feat alone. But he did so much more, and that clinched it.

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That's it for awards. Since the mere idea of a President Obama is enough to make right-wing media heads explode, just wait 'til Obama actually takes office. The resulting hatred and bile will pretty much guarantee that we'll see you again this time next year.