Bob Unruh wrote in a Jan. 29 WorldNetDaily article:
Minnesota’s Muslim congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, who broke down in a fit of rage recently over America’s support for Israel in light of the Muslim terrorists in Hamas who attacked it, now is trying to defend her decision to make controversial comments about Somalia, her home country.
She reportedly said she is “Somalian first, Muslim second,” thereby triggering a backlash on social media.
Unruh went on to write that “Omar has claimed that responses were to a translation that was ‘slanted'” — but he didn’t explain that further. In fact, a more accurate translation shows that isn’t what Omar said at all. The Minnesota Reformer did its own translation of Omar’s remark (h/t Mediaite) using two translators, including a federally certified court interpreter, and found that she actually said this: “We Somalis are people who love each other. It’s possible that we might sometimes have disagreements but we are also people who can rely on each other. We are people who are siblings. We are people with courage. We are people who know that they are Somali and Muslim. We are people who support each other.”
Unruh also made a big deal out of Omar saying that “As Somalis, one day we will go after our missing territories,” claiming that “the disputed reference was described online as Somalia’s claims that the Republic of Somaliland, which says it is an independent state even though not recognized internationally, is part of her Somalia.” The Minnesota Reformer put those remarks in context:
Omar also spoke of the return of “missing territory” to Somalia in an apparent nod to the push to unite ethnic Somalis across the Horn of Africa, including those living in land controlled by Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya.
Asked if she was calling for Somalia to gain control over those lands, Omar said, “no.”
Like Omar in this case, American elected officials have frequently weighed in on foreign policy debates in their ancestral homelands, be it Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland or Cuba.
Because Unruh was only going for a cheap and lazy attack, he’ll never correct the record and admit that the attack is faulty — even though he admitted he was using a disputed translation to fuel that attack. That kind of journalistic malpractice makes it hard to trust WND on anything.