WorldNetDaily is one of umpteen kooky right-wing websites dedicated to Truth, Justice and The American Way. However, to its credit — and in its high-minded pursuit of such lofty aims — WND has produced some truly awesome reportage. For example, did you know that US President Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a Soviet mole?
That was February. This week, one of its contributors, Aaron Klein, was caught out by ConWebWatch for (er) using a sockpuppet to edit President Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s entry on Wikipedia: Obama Wiki fiddler caught red-handed, Asher Moses, The Age, March 12, 2009.
Well, sort of. Actually, Klein denies claims he used a sockpuppet, blaming someone else with access to his account for the mischief-making on Wiki:
Eventually, in response to emailed questions from Wired News, Klein admitted he had a hand in engineering the facts used to stand up his scandal. But he blamed the Jerusalem21 edits on his researcher. “I am not ‘Jerusalem21’, but I do know the Wikipedia user (he works with me and does research for me), and I worked with him on this story,” Klein said.
(See : Klein Claims He’s Not Jerusalem21 — And Scrubs His Story, ConWebBlog, March 11, 2009. “The focus of ConWebWatch is what I [Terry Krepel, editor] collectively call the ConWeb — large, well-funded, Internet-based conservative “news” organizations NewsMax, WorldNetDaily and CNSNews.com. I also look at conservative media “watchdogs” Media Research Center and Accuracy in Media, as well as the MRC’s NewsBusters blog.”)
Sadly, Klein is not the first neo-con scribbler to have had his account hijacked by malevolent forces; local hack Tim Blair has also come under assault in this fashion. In Blair’s case, the (er) sockpuppet was named ‘WB’, and the stage for the puppet show was the media monitoring blog Poison Pen. Note that, after having aired the allegation that ‘WB’ was in fact Blair (that is, Blair with his socks on), Poison Pen subsequently posted an apology, noting that “Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP”.
Which just goes to show: It’s so hard to get good help these days.
See also : Right-Wing Writer Invents His Own Obama Wikipedia Scandal, Owen Thomas, Gawker, March 10, 2009.
