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WashTimes no longer even tries to hide its right-wing movement roots 

October 30, 2009 12:54 pm ET by Eric Boehlert

And in a sense, why should editors continue the charade? Nonetheless, when John Solomon took over as the Times' editor he claimed, much like Fox News does today, that sure, it's opinion leaned right, but its news whole was legit.

I don't think anybody actually buys it, considering on the complete lack of standards that guide the partisan newspaper on a daily basis.

Now here in a new Washington Independent article about the roll out of the daily's right-wing hub, TheConservatives.com, the editor of the WashTimes goes on and on about how wants to plug the newspaper into the right-wing conservative political movement. Note I didn't say the WashTimes opinion page editor, I said the editor, like the guy who oversees the newspaper news coverage [emphasis added]: 

Solomon sold the new site as a way to bring the energy and distributed reporting of conservative activists into the Washington mainstream. “We’re not trying to supplant or replace RedState or Townhall,” he said. “We love those sites–they play valuable, valuable roles every day. We want to create a new medium where things from Townhall and RedState and Twitter and Facebook are all aggregating up, and the most interesting ideas from grassroots, from the meritocracy of ideas, bubble up, using technology. And then we use our relationship with The Washington Times to marry the grassroots to the leadership every day.”

...

In his pitch at the Heritage Foundation, Solomon made all of this explicit. The Times, he explained, played an important role in pushing stories that the White House didn’t like. “Before Andrew Breitbart did the ACORN series,” he said, “we did 47 stories about ACORN.” He explained how TheConservatives.com could run the news cycle by arguing that its “Right People” aggregator, which collects tweets and news from a small group of influential conservatives, changed the debate over Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Again, this naked cheerleading by the WashTimes news editor surprises nobody. I'm just glad Solomon is no longer even pretending the Moonie newspaper aspires to anything more than being another player in the conservative echo chamber.

And oh yeah, the punchline: WashTimes claims its working on a similar site called TheProgressives.com. I'm sure Solomon, at this very minute, is taking meetings with MoveOn.org and Daily Kos, explaining how the right-wing daily desperately wants to marry far-left grassroots to the "leadership of every day."

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    • Author by letsbefair (October 30, 2009 1:00 pm ET)
         
      Yea! Washington Times. That's one for the Conservatives and 9,247 for the Liberal Progressives.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by walstib (October 30, 2009 1:11 pm ET)
         
      I am shocked.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by yancy derringer (October 30, 2009 2:24 pm ET)
      1  
      Moon and his org have never stopped embedding his ideology into the nation's political system. Moon brags about using the paper to "influence" America.

      I watched Solomon on C-span a year or so ago after he was named the latest front man for the WT. He repeatedly deceived the C-span viewers about the relationship between the paper and Moon. Solomon can rationalize and deceive like the Moon org he shills for.

      He said a few times how every WT editor he "talked to"... "before" he took the job told him the UC didn't interfere with the paper. Solomon would have to be the most uninformed and inept reporter in history not to know he was deceiving the viewers.

      Don't be surprised if Solomon finds a a couple right wing democrats to help him with a "progressive" blog so they can distort from that angle also. He'll probably get Tammy Bruce to run it. hah

      Here's quote from James Whelan the very conservative first editor fo the WT. This quote is from a must see video of panel discussion featuring three former editors of Moon's media.

      http://tinyurl.com/yqqbmz

      "They (the Moonies) are subverting our political system. They're doing it through front organizations--most of them disguised--and through their funding of independent organizations--through the placement of volunteers in the inner sanctums of hard-pressed organizations. In every instance--in every instance--those who attend their conferences, those who accept their money or their volunteers, delude themselves that there is no loss of virtue because the Moonies have not proselytized. That misses the central, crucial point: the Moonies are a political movement in religious clothing. Moon seeks power, not the salvation of souls. To achieve that, he needs religious fanatics as his palace guard and shock troops. But more importantly, he needs secular conscripts--seduced by money, free trips, free services, seemingly endless bounty and booty--in order to give him respectability and, with it, that image of influence which translates as power."



      Report Abuse
    • Author by epkklk851 (October 30, 2009 2:54 pm ET)
         
      I've been watching the Moonies for over thirty years now. I could never understand how anyone could be taken in by them. Frontline ran an episode about how they were trying to go mainstream way back in the mid-80s. It was quite eye-opening. I currently receive an edition of the Washington Times. It comes every day. I did not ask to receive this paper, I have never received a bill. I was billed for the Washington Post, which I did subscribe to, but I don't understand where the Times is coming from. Sometimes, I find that someone has tied the two delivery bags together at the top. How can the paper afford this? I used to live in Seoul. I visited a woman who lived in a part of the city called UN Village. The Reverend has a compound within the village. When he is home, the flag flies over his house. The village has a great view of the city and the Han River. After living in Korea, more of the Moonie beliefs make sense (some sort of sense), the Reverend is so very traditional in so many ways.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by yancy derringer (October 30, 2009 3:20 pm ET)
         
      no longer even pretending the Moonie newspaper aspires to anything more than being another player in the conservative echo chamber.


      Eric, I think you are underestimating the purposes Moon created the paper. It has many more reasons for being than just pushing the nation right, though that is obviously a primary role. Moon wants a right wing American that is more agreeable to his right wing, auhtoritarian, homophobic and theocratic agenda.

      Report Abuse
    • Author by yancy derringer (October 30, 2009 4:21 pm ET)
         
      Moon's ties to the Heritage Foundation grow even today...

      Excerpt from:
      U.S News and World Report March 27, 1989
      Rev. Moon's Rising Political Influence
      His empire is spending big money trying to win favor with conservatives.

      On New Year's Day, 1987, South Korean mystic Sun Myung Moon, who considers himself to be the son of God, told his Unification church followers that he wanted to expand the church's political influence in the United States. His aim, Moon said, was "the natural subjugation of the American government and population." [...]

      the [Unification] church has established a network of affiliated organizations and connections in almost every conservative organization in Washington, including the Heritage Foundation, the largest of the conservative think tanks and an important source of government personnel during the Reagan administration. Although Heritage officials deny it, the foundation has dramatically changed its policy toward the Unification Church. In the early 80's the foundation, wary of the church's aims, prohibited staff or fellows from being associated with Unification Church organizations or taking money from the church or church-financed institutions.

      As the Washington Times has become the voice of capital conservatives, the Heritage Foundation has become far more tolerant of church ties      .
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    • Author by steeve (October 30, 2009 11:17 pm ET)
      1  
      I'm real sick of seeing "leans right". When 100% of your words are conservative, you've toppled over.
      Report Abuse

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