« Washington Times
May 7, 2008
Right on Voter ID: Those People 'Should Not Be Voting Anyway'
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Indiana’s partisan voter-ID law, like other recent cases with conservative outcomes, received generous praise from the Right. “This victory continues conservatives’ good run of Supreme Court decisions dating back to last term,” wrote Human Events columnist Sean Trende, who called the case evidence that John Roberts’s appointment as Chief Justice “mark[ed] a sea change” in pulling the court “rightward.”
Paul Weyrich praised the Court and called objections to the law—which closes access to the ballot box for many otherwise eligible voters, primarily minorities and the elderly, in pursuit of the phantom threat of voter fraud—“overblown and sensational,” adding, “We do not compel people to vote.” (As Weyrich said in 1980, “I don't want everybody to vote. … [O]ur leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”)
And Gary Bauer boldly asserted that “all citizens have photo I.D.s, and the only people who don’t are illegal aliens, who are, by definition, not allowed to vote. The only ones disenfranchised by the photo I.D. requirement are those who should not be voting anyway.”
Of course, by the time Bauer sent that remarkable claim out to his e-mail list, the AP was already reporting on some of these people he said “should not be voting”:
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. …
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back within the 10 days allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."
Posted by Ezra at 4:42 PM | Permalink
May 1, 2008
Suburban Immigration Warriors Confuse Press
Prince William County, Virginia did something this week to address social and financial problems stemming from its recent crackdown on immigrants. What exactly it did is not entirely clear:
Washington Post headline: “Pr. William Softens Policy on Immigration Status Checks.”
Washington Times headline: “Prince William stiffens crackdown on illegals.”
Washington Examiner headline: “Pr. William softens illegal immigration policy.”
NBC 4 played it safe with “Prince William Votes To Change Immigration Enforcement.”
So what happened? As the Post and the Examiner report, the board of supervisors in this wealthy D.C. suburb, where police have been checking the immigration status of crime suspects, changed the policy slightly. Now the police only check the status of those arrested. (A proposal to check only those arrested and put in jail failed by a wide margin.)
While the Washington Times immigration coverage is always suspect, and the paper’s editorial page has been pushing the county to stay the course, in this case they do point to another change in policy: whereas before, local police needed “probable cause” that the person was undocumented (wonder what that means?), they now check everybody. Broadening the law, claimed the supervisors, would help protect them from lawsuits for racial profiling. But as Chairman Corey Stewart, leader of the crackdown, asserted, “This will increase the number of people who will have their immigration status checked.”
In any event, it’s hardly the “reconsideration” of the crackdown we were teased with in April.
Posted by Ezra at 2:26 PM | Permalink
April 17, 2008
New Washington Times: Same As Old Washington Times
Let's not get too excited about new management. AP story headlined "Immigration crackdown costs grow" (see here) printed as "Illegal immigration costs grow."
Posted by Ezra at 10:44 AM | Permalink
February 27, 2008
Washington Times Takes Small Step Toward Mainstream
Associated Press stories run almost identically in various newspapers—maybe the headline will change, or a few paragraphs will be trimmed. Or, in some cases, certain copy-editing standards will be enforced. Take this AP story from last week, as run in the Washington Examiner, a right-leaning tabloid in D.C.:
Md. lawmakers renew debate on in-state tuition for immigrants
By KRISTEN WYATT, AP
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Maryland lawmakers renewed debate Thursday over one of the sharpest topics to come up in recent years - whether to allow residents who are illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition.
Now consider the version published by the right-wing Washington Times:
Tuition for illegals stirs strong debate
By Kristen Wyatt
ANNAPOLIS (AP) — Maryland lawmakers renewed debate yesterday over one of the sharpest topics to come up in recent years — whether to allow residents who are illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition.
Replacing “illegal immigrants” with “illegal aliens” was part of the Times’ stylebook. The same went for “same-sex marriage,” which the Times published as “same-sex ‘marriage’”—that is, the paper added scare-quotes around the word "marriage." These typographical tics were more than a conservative badge of honor for the Times, owned by Korean religious leader Rev. Sun Moon. For many observers, they were also a running gag, a joke that the newspaper didn’t seem to be in on.
But the comical stylebook, at least, is now a thing of the past—another casualty of executive editor Wesley Pruden’s retirement, along with the departure of longtime staffers Fran Coombs and Robert Stacey McCain, who gave the Times an unfortunate air of white supremacy. New executive editor John Solomon promises “news down the middle”; we’ll believe it when we see it.
Posted by Ezra at 9:31 AM | Permalink
January 9, 2008
Huckabee Still Vague on Birthright Citizenship
More he said/he said from the Washington Times. Background here.
Posted by Ezra at 11:00 AM | Permalink
November 27, 2007
Wash. Times Knocks Thompson Tax Plan
"Indeed, unless the laws of arithmetic are repealed, the Thompson tax plan almost certainly will lead to massive budget deficits." But CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow, a Thompson water-carrier, is in his corner.
Posted by Ezra at 11:19 AM | Permalink
August 23, 2007
Washington Times Outlet Claims Congressmen Secretly Fear Muslim Rep
According to a (subscriber’s-only) article in Insight, the sensationalist newsweekly put out by the right-wing Washington Times, “both Democratic and Republican” members of Congress, unnamed in the story, “have been worried” that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) “would become the strongest advocate of extreme Islam in Congress.”
"He is a pleasant man, but his advocacy of the Saudi agenda is very worrisome," a senior House aide said. "This feeling represents numerous Democrats."
Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, has been a target of the far Right since his election last November. Talk show host Dennis Prager said he “should not be allowed” to pose with Koran after his swearing in, a sentiment echoed by self-described “defender of religious freedom” Jay Sekulow, and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore—who was removed from the bench for refusing an order to move a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from his courthouse—wrote that Muslims like Ellison are not fit for office. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) warned his constituents that “if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.” Meanwhile, other right-wing commentators have attempted to link Ellison to American Muslim groups they purport to be somehow associated with terrorism.
Insight, citing anonymous “congressional sources,” claims that “no Democrat has gone public in fear of a Saudi-financed Muslim backlash, particularly by Ellison's biggest supporter, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.”
As an example of Ellison’s supposed “close ties to Islamic fundamentalists,” the Insight article refers to a visit by Ellison and other members of Congress to Iraq, during which he met with U.S. military leaders and Iraqi leaders seeking his help in “countering al-Qaeda's vision of Islam.” USA Today noted that Ellison was “already helping a State Department outreach effort aimed at improving the image of the U.S. in the Muslim world.” In Insight’s telling, those details get lost and the trip takes a menacing aspect:
Ellison's close ties to Islamic fundamentalists have sparked greater concern. In late July, Ellison toured Iraq and met Sunni clerics in Ramadi who sought his help in improving Islam's image in the United States. Ramadi has been regarded as being heavily influenced by al Qaeda.
"They were very upset and concerned that al Qaeda is misrepresenting Islam," Ellison said on July 30. "And they were talking to me about what I can possibly do to work with them to give a clearer, more accurate picture of what Islam is all about."
Posted by Ezra at 4:31 PM | Permalink
May 18, 2007
The Most Objective Name in News
Apparently, the 25th Anniversary of the establishment of The Washington Times qualifies as national news. At least it does to The Washington Times, which ran a 2200+ word “article” about itself on its own “Nation/Politics” page yesterday.
Written by one of its own staff members, The Times’ love letter to itself is remarkable for its complete and utter lack of humility.
As the piece explains, the Vietnam War and Watergate “contributed to a surge of self-regard among the news elite” that “curdled into an inflexible, often arrogant bias that has cost news organizations the public's trust” – but not The Times and that it is why it became the “vanguard of a media insurgency”:
The Times, however, has upheld traditional journalism standards with far fewer resources than its more lavishly funded competitors. Indeed, The Times earned its credibility precisely because of its shoe-leather reporting on corruption at every level of government as well as its scoops on issues involving national security and U.S. intelligence services.
The tumultuous administration of D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, the House banking scandal, the exposure of Rep. Barney Frank's live-in call boy, President Clinton's Whitewater troubles, the 1995 budget showdown between Mr. Clinton and the Republican Congress, the September 11 terrorist attacks -- on these stories and many others, The Times has been a vital source of information.
For some reason, nowhere in the piece is it mentioned that the paper was started by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a man who admitted back in 1991 that “literally nine hundred million to one billion dollars has been spent to activate and run the Washington Times.”
Just as The Times is anything but modest about its accomplishments, it is likewise swollen with pride over its ability to maintain its “standards of objectivity” – with “objectivity” presumably meaning "serving as a reliable mouthpiece for the Right”:
To some, The Times' overarching mission -- defeating communism -- may have seemed quixotic in 1982; the Cold War had reheated, and the economic renewal and military reconstitution triggered by the Reagan administration had yet to gather steam.
The founding vision of The Times proved prescient, and the methodology with which the paper pursued that vision had practical implications as well. By boosting the morale of the pro-American West and delivering a real, dependable product, The Times both instilled the spirit and created the architecture for today's news counterestablishment.
Indeed, by succeeding as an independent voice in a town that had become stony ground for "second" newspapers, The Times taught an important lesson that still resonates: The news elite shouldn't have the last word on what is and what is not news.
…
It seems clear for now, at least, that bloggers, like their forerunner The Times, have been a check on mainstream news outlets that often ignore facts that don't square with their cherished stereotypes. Or, in the case of Mr. Rather's discredited "60 Minutes II" report on President Bush's Air National Guard service, their monomaniacal vendettas.
…
Like other papers transitioning into the age of the Web, The Times champions new technology but resists challenges to standards of objectivity.
While The Times itself basks in its lofty mission of defeating communism and creating a ”news counterestablishment,” Moon, its founder and primary funder, had slightly different goal for the paper, as he explained in 1997:
I established The Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save this world. Since that time, I have devoted myself to raising up The Washington Times, hoping that this blessed land of America would fulfill its world-wide mission to build a Heavenly nation. Meanwhile, I waged a lonely struggle, facing enormous obstacles and scorn as I dedicated my whole heart and energy to enable The Washington Times to grow as a righteous and responsible journalistic institution … The efforts of The Times to revitalize the moral and spiritual values of the United States and the world are being recognized as absolutely urgent and necessary at this time.
Also unmentioned in the Times’ Most Glorious History of Ourself was the infamous event cosponsored by the paper in a congressional office building, attended by several members of Congress who later said they were duped into participating, at which Moon declared “himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be ‘reborn as new persons.’”
Posted by Kyle at 9:15 AM | Permalink
December 21, 2006
Full-Time Anti-Gay Activist Chides Bush for Supporting Gay Cheney
Peter LaBarbera, president of a group called Americans for Truth, is upset with President Bush for his supportive comments on the parenthood plans of Mary Cheney and her long-time lesbian partner. Although Bush has made a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage one of his platform issues, in the case of the vice president’s daughter he struck a different tone. “I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her,” Bush told People magazine. “He blinked,” complains LaBarbera.
LaBarbera had previously attacked Cheney as “immoral” and said that he was “saddened at the spectacle,” joining a number of other right-wing figures to call the pregnancy “tragic” and “cruel.” Religious-right leaders James Dobson and Tony Perkins also piled on. Dobson’s article in TIME magazine, in which he called the family “yet another untested and far-reaching social experiment,” was roundly criticized by both researchers whose work he cited, but the Right is still standing by him.
In response to Bush, LaBarbera writes:
President Bush has been too timid about using his Bully Pulpit to promote pro-family values, but occasionally he stumbles and uses it to advance the opposite. In this case, he could have declined comment altogether or, better, used this situation as a teaching moment to reaffirm the natural superiority of the God-ordained family.
Maybe the latter is asking too much of Mr. Bush given his relationship with the Cheneys, but I do wonder why a president who talks so openly about his Christian faith was unprepared or unwilling to apply it logically to this touchy situation. Assuming that as an evangelical Christian, Mr. Bush believes homosexual practice is sinful, are we to believe that this man who faced down Islamic radicalism and launched the War on Terror is afraid to say what he really believes about lesbians having children to be raised in homes that are fatherless by design? …
By uttering platitudes rather than principles about Mary Cheney, the President of the United States missed a golden opportunity to instruct a nation about the gold standard of traditional marriage as the optimal environment for raising children. He blinked when put in the awkward position of either telling the truth or pretending that Ms. Cheney’s is not unlike any other (wonderful) pregnancy. It is different, by a long shot. Not that she won’t have maternal love for her child; of course she will. But the child is being brought into a household where the most important person in his or her world will be modeling lesbian behavior, which is changeable and always wrong, and an affront to a holy and loving Creator.
Bizarrely, even though LaBarbera was one of the first to politicize Cheney’s pregnancy, he claims that politicization of personal matters is a hallmark of “the ‘gay’ agenda”:
The whole Mary Cheney-baby episode typifies how the “gay” agenda advances in our emotionally-driven culture. The personal becomes political, and “open and proud gays” use their relationships with family members, friends and co-workers to persuade them to embrace behaviors with which they once disagreed — or at least go silent about them. This is the goal of homosexual activists’ “coming out” strategy, which is brilliant in its manipulation of human nature.
LaBarbera is an ambitious antigay activist: after working as a reporter for the right-wing Washington Times, he headed Accuracy in Academia while doing his own anti-gay investigative reporting. He then joined the Illinois Family Institute, but, complaining that “there is not a single, serious national group dedicated specifically to exposing and countering” the “homosexual activist agenda,” he left to form Americans for Truth.
Posted by Ezra at 6:18 PM | Permalink
December 19, 2006
Right Eyes 4th Circuit Court
Circuit is “really critical” for terrorism cases, says Sekulow. GOP “kicked the can,” sighs CWA’s LaRue. Wash. Times: Choose to nominate either moderates or extremists who will fail.
Posted by Ezra at 6:44 PM | Permalink
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