What happens when Obama doesn't do anything scandalous? Create fictional scandals, of course!

[ck4829]

Right-wing "news" websites serve as a staging ground for right-wing-friendly news stories -- if it can make it there, it can move on to the next level of the conservative media machine, i.e., conservative talk radio and Fox News. It's a role those websites like and, indeed, were arguably created for -- Joseph Farah has touted how "hundreds of talk-show hosts" use his WorldNetDaily as "an essential component of their show prep."

Sometimes the audition doesn't work out -- the story dies on the vine, despite multiple attempts to breathe life into it.

Such is the case with the recent attempt by CNSNews.com (Cybercast News Service), the right-leaning news operation run by Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, to create a controversy around President Obama where there isn't one.

It began with a Jan. 21 column by CNS editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey claiming that Obama made a "declaration" in his inauguration speech that "We are a nation of ... non-believers." Jeffrey also referred to "the 'non-believers' to whom Obama paid tribute in the heart of his speech."

But as the ellipsis in the quote indicates, Jeffrey failed to offer to his readers the full context of Obama's words: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth." Obama, obviously, didn't "pay tribute" to "nonbelievers"; he merely highlighted the diversity of religious belief among Americans -- which also includes the right to not believe. Certainly Jeffrey wouldn't contradict that fundamental American belief, right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-krepel/brent-bozells-news-servic_b_164502.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. Worked with the Clintons and Gore. nt

[Puzzler]

2. Absolutely, they will throw everything at him...

... and see what sticks. And if nothing sticks, they will make stuff up. They've done it before, they'll do it again.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. I don't like that we got last billing,

seeing as how there are more non-believers than Jews, Muslims and Hindus combined.

[damntexdem]

4. Well, it worked against Clinton.

It was years before they uncovered a little WH sex scandal of which he was actually guilty -- but there was no end of fake scandals before then.