These days, though, de Borchgrave is involved in some less praiseworthy pursuits. Alongside his other activities, the veteran newsman is a columnist for the Washington Times, the influential conservative broadsheet, where he once served as editor in chief. And in a handful of columns over the last year he has lifted passages verbatim, or nearly verbatim, from the Internet and other sources, without attribution — a fact the Washington Times' leadership tried to sweep under the rug, according to insiders at the paper.

Continue Reading...

For the past year, Drudge has provided the Washington Times with, on average, 46 percent of its monthly traffic. In November of 2011, the Drudge Report sent 4.7 million visitors to the Washington Times website, or 57 percent of all the Times’ traffic that month. By comparison, just 820,000 visitors actually accessed the Times through its homepage that November. (These numbers come from the Times’ internal Google Analytics statistics, which Salon obtained.)

Continue Reading...

Any amateur can speculate that Chris Christie will enter the presidential race, or posit a Mike Bloomberg third-party run, or imagine Hillary Clinton launching a primary challenge against Barack Obama. After all, those three have actually won elections and expressed political ambitions. It takes a real pro to decide to build buzz around someone who not only hasn't ever run for anything, but who's never expressed a desire to run for anything.

Rice, the national security advisor in George W. Bush's first presidential term and secretary of state in his second, is currently a professor at Stanford with the requisite right-wing think tank fellowship. She has not said or done anything "political" in years. But Curl has been hearing things!

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

The ad depicts three monkeys ignoring what some Birthers believe are the facts of the situation; Congress is seeing no evil, the courts are hearing none, and the media is speaking none. It declares "Obama is NOT an Article II Natural Born Citizen and therefore is NOT Eligible to be President," and asks for plaintiffs to join in lawsuits spearheaded by the people who took out the ad.

The problem? Beyond the fact that "Article II Natural Born Citizen" appears to be a term made up out of thin air, those responsible for the ad don't have a leg to stand on, legally. First off, they can get as many plaintiffs as they want; they still won't be able to show standing -- a particularized injury, basically -- and that means the suit will get tossed, and fast. Second, the Birthers have just decided that their interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant when they said in the Constitution the president had to be a natural born citizen is the correct one, courts be damned. And they're wrong.

Continue Reading...

The Washington Times added some fuel to the fire Monday with an article headlined "Liberals seek health-care acess for illegals." Unfortunately, the paper doesn't have the best record of prizing accuracy over politics, especially not when it comes to issues of immigration, and this article continued that tradition. 

Continue Reading...

Breitbart advanced this thesis in an Op-Ed for the Washington Times. The piece is amusing enough to be worthy of reading in full, but here are some of the choicer bits:

Continue Reading...

Fortunately, the Washington Times' Peter J. Parisi is on the case. Though he admits that "retailers' sales brochures have been bedecked with Christmas iconography," he still finds plenty of reason to worry about the desecration of the holiday:

Continue Reading...

All:

Here are some recent updates to TWT style.

1) Clinton will be the headline word for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity.

3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).

4) Moderate is approved, but centrist is still allowed.

5) We will use illegal immigrants, not illegal aliens.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/02/27/washington_times/feed/ 13 http://www.salon.com/2007/06/01/commencement_2/ http://www.salon.com/2007/06/01/commencement_2/#comments Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/06/01/commencement Where, oh, where won't those insidious leftists strike next?

The Drudge Report and the conservative Washington Times are both highlighting a new study from the conservative Young America's Foundation, which purports to show that, in the words of spokesman Jason Mattera, "college administrators are using commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable leftist lecture." And while it does appear to be true that more liberals spoke at commencement this year than conservatives, just a cursory look at YAF's study shows that the disparity is nowhere near as wide as the group pretends.

YAF lists 49 speakers as being a "liberal activist, Democratic Party official, and/or representative of the old, liberal media," compared with just eight who are a "Republican Party official, conservative activist, and/or representative of the new media." (Some of the people on the list are speaking twice this year, and are for the most part counted as such.)

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/06/01/commencement_2/feed/ 28 http://www.salon.com/2005/09/06/washtimes/ http://www.salon.com/2005/09/06/washtimes/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:36:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2005/09/06/washtimes The president may finally be finding something close to the right tone to strike on Katrina -- he has started referring to the storm's victims as Americans rather than as "folks" from "this part of the world" -- but that doesn't mean that his supporters and apologists are.

We told you earlier today about the "Let them eat cake" insensitivity of the president's mother and the high-fiving that's apparently going on along the antiabortion, hard-right fringe. Now comes a hot blast of nastiness from the editor in chief of the Washington Times -- a paper that was just a few days ago wondering what happened to the stand-up, take-charge guy who led the nation after 9/11.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/09/06/washtimes/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/2002/12/19/nytimes_2/ http://www.salon.com/2002/12/19/nytimes_2/#comments Thu, 19 Dec 2002 00:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/12/18/nytimes A century ago, New Yorkers saw advertisements around town for the New York Times that played up the emerging paper's respectability: "It won't soil the breakfast cloth." Today it's the Times' own dirty laundry that's being scrubbed in public -- and the newspaper's political opponents couldn't be happier.

The mighty daily is struggling to regain its footing in the wake of the paper's most embarrassing newsroom flap since it famously outed the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape more than a decade ago. This time, the controversy erupted when two Times sports columnists questioned the newspaper's editorial campaign against the men-only membership policy at the venerable Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia. Both columns were spiked by executive editor Howell Raines.

The decision outraged journalists and media critics. While it's rare for columnists to contradict the editorial policy of their paper, it's almost unheard of at major newspapers to spike a columnist's work for internal political reasons. The fiasco played right into the hands of conservative critics who in recent months launched fresh attacks against the Times for its alleged liberal bias, arguing the left-wing fights of the editorial page were permeating the news sections. The bigger worry, say some media analysts, is that the poor judgment on one story is being used to discredit the Times' critical work on life-and-death issues like the Iraq War, where the paper's coverage has international influence.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2002/12/19/nytimes_2/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/2000/05/10/soundbite_10/ http://www.salon.com/2000/05/10/soundbite_10/#comments Wed, 10 May 2000 14:50:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/10/soundbite Young Elian Gonzalez, it seems, has become a hot commodity on Washington's society dinner circuit. This weekend, he and his pop, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, were ferried from the Wye Plantation in Maryland (where they have been living as virtual recluses since the boy was reunited with his father) to the Georgetown home of R.J. Reynolds tobacco heirs Smith and Elizabeth Bagley.

The dinner drew the expected cynical criticism that the boy was being paraded around for prospective Democratic donors, but the nastiest comments came from an apparently envious Georgetown maven, who seemed surprised that the Bagleys would entertain guests of such lesser means -- like, say, working-class communists from Cuba.

"This is really astonishing," the unnamed source told the Washington Times. "After all the talk about how Elian was put on exhibit in Miami, the Bagleys were a party to this. They don't usually invite their chauffeur or his children to dinner."

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2000/05/10/soundbite_10/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1999/10/29/rape_9/ http://www.salon.com/1999/10/29/rape_9/#comments Fri, 29 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/media/log/1999/10/29/rape The rape and murder of an Arkansas teenager last month has become Topic A among some right-wing media-bashers. Jesse Dirkhising, 13, was allegedly raped and suffocated -- gagged with his own underwear -- by a 22-year-old man while another man, described by police as his "lover," looked on. The Associated Press picked the story up on its local and state wires and has followed up on it since, though none of the reports went national. Which is precisely what the right finds suspicious.

In an Oct. 22 story ("Media tune out torture death of Arkansas boy"), the Washington Times contrasted this lack of coverage with the treatment the murder of Matthew Shepard received. The AP carried stories relating to his death on its national wire, and news of the trial is being handled the same way. What these two stories have to do with each other is something only the Washington Times could discern. For clarification, the Moonie paper turned to Tim Graham, the director of media studies at the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1999/10/29/rape_9/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1999/08/04/gore_5/ http://www.salon.com/1999/08/04/gore_5/#comments Wed, 04 Aug 1999 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/04/gore Al Gore knows he's been getting some mighty bad press lately, that even staunch Democrats have embraced the media caricature of him as a "stiff" and "boring" automaton from the Disneyland Hall of Vice Presidents. He's trying mightily to shrug it off.

"I find the coverage stiff and boring," he told Salon News. Not that the veep is complaining. "I feel fine about it," he insists, though his calm seems more calculating political strategy than thick skin. "I would honestly not swap my position in this race for anyone else's; I'm not peaking too early," he adds, only half-kidding. "You know, in stock car races, it's usually the second car in the gun lap that wins."

Gore is referring to his current weak position in the polls compared with his likely opponent in the 2000 election, high-flying Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Gore hopes Bush has only one direction to go in the polls and that direction is down.

Thus, the vice president can insist that he's quite content, for now, being the Rodney Dangerfield of American politics.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1999/08/04/gore_5/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1998/04/22/news_24/ http://www.salon.com/1998/04/22/news_24/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 1998 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1998/04/22/news Operatives of the anti-Clinton Arkansas Project mounted a campaign in the summer of 1995 to discredit a federal judge because they did not want him to preside over a criminal prosecution brought by the Whitewater independent counsel, documents obtained by Salon indicate.

Months after the campaign was launched, independent counsel Kenneth Starr prevailed in a highly unusual motion to remove the jurist, U.S. District Judge Henry Woods, from a case involving then-Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a move that was questioned at the time by legal scholars.

"I can tell you that when the court recused Judge Woods, it raised a lot of eyebrows among legal ethicists," said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University Law School, who labeled the court's decision "unjustified and a wild stretch." "I really can't think of an incident in the recent past, by which I mean the last 20 years, in which there has been a formal motion by the government to recuse a district judge in a criminal case," Gillers said.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1998/04/22/news_24/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1998/04/07/news_16/ http://www.salon.com/1998/04/07/news_16/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 1998 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1998/04/07/news Richard Mellon Scaife's eyes are what you notice first: a startling sky blue, they look almost unreal, so intense is their color. For the rest, a handsome countenance, a large frame and a shock of once-blond hair, now white, make up a classic picture of good breeding. Scaife's father came from one of Pittsburgh's blue blood families, its ancestry traced back to medieval England; his mother was a fabulously wealthy Mellon descendant whom Fortune magazine identified in 1957 as one of the eight richest people in America.

And yet, there is about Richard Mellon Scaife a seeming unease with his own person that even friends have commented on through the years. Almost pathologically shy -- he removed his name from Who's Who more than 15 years ago and has since sat for only a handful of interviews -- he is, at the same time, given to a pattern of unpredictable behavior that has continued despite his having stopped his formerly heavy drinking.

"He has a love-hate relationship with a lot of people, including himself," said a former close acquaintance. "He is at once the most wonderful, generous guy and the most hateful and vindictive one." Added another person who has observed Scaife close-up in Pittsburgh, "Whenever he dislikes someone, it's not enough to fire them; they can never work in this town again."

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1998/04/07/news_16/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1997/12/03/news_137/ http://www.salon.com/1997/12/03/news_137/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 1997 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1997/12/03/news The family and some relatives had just sat down to Thanksgiving dinner when my cousin, Jim, an Air Force veteran, leaned earnestly across the table. "So," he said, "first Clinton sold overnights in the Lincoln bedroom to big party donors. Now I understand he's selling burial plots at Arlington National Cemetery. Tell me, is nothing sacred in this administration anymore?"

As a Washington reporter, I'm often called upon by family and friends back home to explain goings-on inside the Beltway. This one should have been easy. The Arlington accusation had been proven false, I replied. End of story. Or so I thought.

"Right," Jim scoffed, "then how come it's still all over the radio?"

How indeed? Inside the Beltway, the Arlington cemetery story had been discredited as a lame attempt at partisan political poisoning. Here in Connecticut -- and it seems elsewhere -- the poison is still potent. How this particular phony scandal grew such sturdy legs is a grim but instructive tale of how presidential character assassination is as alive and kicking now as when President Clinton first entered the White House five years ago.

First, the smear:

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1997/12/03/news_137/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1997/11/13/news_69/ http://www.salon.com/1997/11/13/news_69/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 1997 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1997/11/13/news If the Paula Jones sexual misconduct suit against President Clinton wasn't already unseemly enough, things are about to get a whole lot seamier: Tom Grant, P.I., is on the case.

Grant, whose clients have included actress/singer Courtney Love, has been hired by Ms. Jones' lawyers to dig up dirt on the president's sexual past. Given his track record, who knows what the Beverly Hills private eye may find? Love hired him three years ago to locate her missing husband, Kurt Cobain. The heroin-addicted leader of the rock group, Nirvana, eventually turned up dead, a suicide, Seattle police ruled. Grant, however, believes that Cobain was murdered, and on his Web site he names Love as the prime suspect. For $18, Grant will also send you his 150-page file entitled "Kurt Cobain -- suicide or murder? You decide."

Contacted by Salon in Little Rock, where he's been busy digging for the past two weeks, the 50-year-old former Los Angeles police detective would not reveal what he had uncovered so far, but he insisted that his investigation had been "very productive." Warned Grant: "If Mr. Clinton's lawyers want to play hardball with Paula Jones, that's just fine. We've got the stuff to play hardball too."

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1997/11/13/news_69/feed/ 0