WorldNetDaily has unleashed a double-barreled smear of Obama administration deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough for speaking at a Virginia mosque.
A March 7 WND article by Aaron Klein went his usual tired guilt-by-assocation route, claiming that McDonough’s speech “was hosted by a radical Muslim group that was designated by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.” That’s Klein’s boilerplate language for the Islamic Society of North America.
Meanwhile, groups that have actually worked with the ISNA — Klein offers no evidence he has personal knowledge of the attacks he spews beyond what he and researcher Brenda J. Elliot have cribbed from anti-Muslim websites — have a much different view. Religion Dispatches notes that The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, which has worked with ISNA, said that “ISNA understands and supports democracy and the freedom with responsibility that beats at the heart of the American experience.”
WND followed up the next day with an unbylined article quoting anonymous smears of McDonough. The second paragraph quotes “one FBI veteran” saying of the Obama White House regarding McDonough’s speech: “They are so ignorant. … This is unbelievable bullsh–.”
WND offers no explanation for why the “FBI veteran” was granted anonymity or even if he has any relevant experience to be discussing this issue.
Remember that WND editor Joseph Farah has attacked anonymous sources as “quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better.” Until WND can offer a more plausible explanation of its cowardly hiding behind an anonymous source to smear McDonough — or even why it has compounded its cowardice by letting the article’s author remain anonymous as well — we shall assume that Farah is taking his own advice.