Comment

The National Republican Trust's NYC Mosque Insanity

10
Gus7/08/2010 8:29:38 pm PDT

re: #5 freetoken

That PAC and website is run by Scott Wheeler. Here is what SourceWatch has to say about him:

Anyone backed by Weyrich and Ruddy ought to be shunned. Those two are simply in the business of hate, in order to bring themselves more money and power.

Here’s the Wiki on the magazine he worked for:

Insight on the News

Owners: News World Communications and Unification Church

Insight on the News (also called just Insight) was an American conservative online and print news magazine. It was owned by Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, which also owns the Washington Times, United Press International, and other media through News World Communications.

[…]

Controversies

Arlington National Cemetery controversy

In 1997 Insight reported that the administration of President Bill Clinton gave political donors rights to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This charge was widely repeated on talk radio and other conservative outlets; but was later denied by the United States Army, which has charge over Arlington Cemetery. Spurred on by the report, a subsequent flurry of media investigations turned up the burial of Larry Lawrence, a former United States Ambassador to Switzerland at Arlington, which in turn sparked a congressional investigation.

Abraham Lincoln misquote

In 2003, Insight misquoted President Abraham Lincoln as saying during the American Civil War: “Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” By 2008, this statement was being repeated as if it were true, although Lincoln never said or wrote it.

Clinton/Obama controversy in 2008 Presidential Campaign

On January 17, 2007, Insight published a story which claimed the campaign staff of American presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton had leaked a report which said that Senator Barack Obama had attended a “so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary” (Insight’s words) during his childhood in Indonesia and that the Clinton campaign was planning to use this against him in the 2008 primary campaign. The article began: “Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage? This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama.” Though based on an unsourced claim, Insight’s presentation of the word “madrassa” appeared to describe an Islamic school, which the magazine went on to imply might have had an intrinsic anti-American bias, although in fact “madrassa” in Arabic simply means “school.”

Soon after Insight’s story, CNN reporter John Vause visited State Elementary School Menteng 01, which Obama had attended for one year after attending a Roman Catholic school for three, and found that each student received two hours of religious instruction per week in his or her own faith. He was told, “This is a public school. We don’t focus on religion.” Interviews by Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press found that students of all faiths have been welcome there since before Obama’s attendance.