The 2009 Slantie Awards

Since 2004, my website, ConWebWatch, has given out the Slantie Awards, which highlight the year's worst reporting and most outrageous statements in the right-wing media.

It's that time once again. So without further ado: the 2009 Slantie Awards!

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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.

* * *
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 website). The full list of nominees, with a heavy emphasis on Clinton and Obama derangement, can be found here.

This year, we have a tie: Hilmar von Campe's declaration that Barack Obama is "an enemy of God," and Janet Folger Porter's threat to Obama voters:

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.

Both von Campe and Porter have issues with Obama (and both opinions were published by WorldNetDaily). They perfectly illustrate the intensity of the hatred the far right has toward Obama. Expect four more years (at least) of this.

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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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Since the mere idea of a President Obama has so far proven 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.

Comments

[jackgoose]

I doubt World Net Daily deserves scorn for its coverage of Obama's eligibility for office. I rather think they deserve praise. The difference between WND and other media is they're truly interested in the truth of the matter. Despite all other media's representations of the birth certificate issue, there is validity to it that needs to be addressed.
These are some of the issues WND has raised: Obama's mother was not old enough by law (at that time) to convey US citizenship to Obama, which would have made him a Kenyan citizen via his father, whether or not he was actually born in Kenya; Hawaii used to register out-of-state and foreign births; statements issued by Hawaii state representatives do NOT say he was born in Hawaii--they only state that they have his birth certificate (sealed); no one knows what hospital Obama was born in; his easily available Certificate (not Certification) would provide the transparency Obama promised; if Obama was an Indonesian citizen when he was adopted, by the rules of reciprocation in effect at the time, he would have lost his citizenship via Indonesia's non-duel citizenship policy--that very simply means he could not possibly be a natural born citizen.
If the foregoing concerns are not valid to Terry Krepel, then he should at least admit that the Constitution, as regards presidential eligibility criteria, is irrelevant to him.

[JimBozo]

Mr. Goose,
We would like to meet with you to discuss your whereabouts and activities on the afternoon of January 15 2009. This is in relation to the terrorist attack on US Airways Flight 1549. You will not need a lawyer, although you may choose to bring one should you be feeling particularly guilty. Please contact us at your earliest convenience so we may set up this meeting. You might consider tucking your beak brush in your pocket, just in case.

Sincerely,
Walter Murchison
Co-Ordinator
FAA, ATS, FBI, National Wildlife Agency
Anti-Terror Task Force

[JafiJafur]

lol...classic post....

Of course the real problem here is that the constitutional crisis you speak of is imagined despite anything you might have been reading on WND (not contradicting its own findings int the matter).

The nice thing about our legal process is that the burden of proof (i.e., proving that Obama isn't a citizen) is on you (read: WND readers, right wing, etc.,), and you have yet to come up with anything concrete that isn't based on so-called expert opinion, forgeries, or outright lies.

I find it laughable that when faced with what should have been a standard issue reasonable evidence of birth, rather than accepting it and moving on, you would rather hang your hat on an elaborate conspiracy theory wherein the only remedy to this imagined injury is a right to see the 'real' thing.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark here - I'm guessing that there is no reasonable proof in all of this, is there? Because at the end of it all, Obama is still a liberal.

I would say that we have been provided with sufficient proof of his status as a natural born citizen, in the form of a legal copy of his birth certificate posted online, and that is something that a reasonable person should/would recognize. Aside from that, it is a waste of the court's time and tax payer's money to hear these frivolous lawsuits.

[Karma7]

I think CNN’s major "Middle East expert," Jeffrey Goldberg, should be included as a candidate for a Slanti Award. Goldberg is a self-identified "passionate Zionist "and member of the Israeli military.

CNN should identify him as such whenever he speaks or is cited in reports or analyses -- which is often.

Journalistic ethics and standard practice would require the media to state this clearly and frequently. It would also require that he, as a partisan, be balanced with an equally articulate commentator representing the other side.

Being a member of a foreign military is a clear conflict of interest for a journalist whose job is to give unbiased information on the country he is serving and compromises his position as an analyst.