Author Ronald Kessler has joined NewsMax as its chief Washington correspondent. Kessler is best known of late for writing two conservative-friendly books: “A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush” and “Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady.”
Kessler was well acquianted with NewsMax before this. NewsMax heavily promoted his Laura Bush book, which was offered as a premium for its magazine subscribers; the book was also excerpted in the magazine. And to fill the Clinton-hating prerequesite for NewsMax employement, Kessler dished some alleged dirt on the Clintons in an April interview, painting them as unfriendly to the White House help, unlike the Bushes, and that they favored “gaudy” decorations for the White House. And during the 2004 campaign, NewsMax pulled an unflattering bit about John Kerry from Kessler’s 1997 book “Inside Congress: The Shocking Scandals, Corruption, and Abuse of Power Behind the Scenes on Capitol Hill.”
But NewsMax CEO Christopher Ruddy criticized Kessler in a 2002 column:
This week I heard author Ron Kessler say the FBI “disintegrated” under former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
I happen to agree with Kessler.
But I would like to ask, where was Kessler all these years? And the Washington press corps? And Congress?
During the ’90s they mostly hid under a rock, timid as they were to challenge the political takeover of the FBI by the Clinton White House.
Bygones are bygones, apparently. Kessler summed up his love for his new employer this way:
“Since I first learned about NewsMax, I’ve admired how, in order to tell the truth about subjects ranging from politics to medicine, it presents factual material that the rest of the media ignore,” Mr. Kessler said. “I’m proud to be associated with an operation that practices journalism honestly and fairly.”
Kessler clearly doesn’t know much about NewsMax. Not only does NewsMax has a long record of distortions, bias and outright lies, it used that April interview with Kessler to recycle several debunked accusations against the Clintons.
If Kessler really thinks that NewsMax “practices journalism honestly and fairly,” he’s in for a rude awakening.