The Cold War ended decades ago, but Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid appears not to have gotten the memo — he’s as obsessed with finding communists under every rock as any cold warrior. Thus, we have this overly lengthy Sept. 1 AIM piece from Kincaid that starts out thusly:
The lack of coverage in 2008 of the embarrassing facts in Barack Obama’s background, especially his deep personal relationship with a Communist by the name of Frank Marshall Davis, stands as a sensational example of how dishonest the national media can be when they are determined to elect somebody. If Obama’s opponent, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), had been linked to a Nazi or a Klansman, the press would have jumped on the story, with endless follow-ups. But the story of Obama’s Communist mentor was suppressed by a journalist for The Washington Post who had all the essential details and could have broken the story wide open.
We now know why the potential blockbuster story about Obama’s Communist mentor was deliberately ignored by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Maraniss. He had personal and political conflicts that prevented him from telling the truth about Obama to the American people. Simply put, his parents were Communists, just like Davis.
Maraniss, in other words, was a red-diaper baby.The shocking truth can finally be told. His parents, Elliott and Mary Maraniss, along with Davis, were members of the same international conspiracy which had groomed Obama for the presidency, in order to hasten the decline and destruction of the United States.
We’re into some serious guilt-by-association territory here. It’s a very tangential attack on Obama by going after the author of a book Kincaid didn’t like.
And Kincaid is just spouting off by claiming that Maraniss “deliberately ignored” and “suppressed” the story of “Obama’s Communist mentor.” He knows no such thing — he’s just ranting and speculating.
And these sorts of weird, tangential attacks are a big reason why few people take AIM seriously as a source for credible media criticism.