Today, Andrew Breitbart launched Big Peace, the national security analog to his other smear and conspiracy sites. He announced its kick-off with the following ludicrous statement:
The site is pro-freedom, pro-liberty, and pro-American but will not be an outlet for false information or propaganda. The unique mix of Schweizer, Gaffney, and Blackfive and our collective reputations will provide a check and balance.
That's right. Breitbart, delusional nut that he is, thinks that his and Frank Gaffney's “reputations” will help “provide a check and balance” that will keep the site from publishing “false information or propaganda.”
Good grief.
Breitbart's “reputation” is that of a liar whose websites run wild with fringe conspiracy theories. Gaffney himself fits right in, with a record of pushing bizarre, obviously false claims.
You may remember Gaffney from his crackpot claim earlier this year -- published on Breitbart's Big Government, no less! -- that the Missile Defense Agency's “new” logo “appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo,” which Gaffney identified as a “nefarious” “symbolic action” that he suggested represented an “act of submission to Shariah.” Of course, Gaffney blamed Obama for his fanciful take on the logo, claiming it demonstrates how the administration “is all about accommodating that 'Islamic Republic' [Iran] and its ever-more aggressive stance.”
I'm sure you can see where this is going. A few days later, Gaffney embarrassingly returned to Big Government to admit that “it isn't true that the MDA's logo is exactly new or, apparently, that it reflects an Obama-directed redesign.” It turns out that "[t]he contract for a complete rebranding for MDA was let in 2007, during the Bush administration, although much of the work appears to have been done in 2008 in follow-on contracts during the presidential campaign in which the Obama logo was much in evidence." In offering this explanation, Gaffney apologized for any “confusion” caused by his insane conspiracy-mongering, though not for engaging in it.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
You may also remember that last year, Gaffney asked whether Obama is “America's first Muslim president,” declaring the existence of “mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.” This “mounting evidence” included President Obama's references in a speech to “the Holy Koran” (“Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones -- generally don't use that Islamic formulation”) and to Islam having been “revealed” (“a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God”) in the Middle East.
Such a declaration -- while still nuts -- might be considered more credible if President Bush hadn't used the same formulations in his own speeches.
And of course, no Big site contributor's record would be complete without a little birtherism, and Gaffney does not disappoint on those grounds. Back in October 2008, Gaffney falsely claimed that a “question yet to be resolved is whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States,” because “Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter.” Of course, as non-birthers are aware, Obama had already released his birth certificate, which was enough to satisfy all but the least rational.
As for Gaffney's purported ability to beat back “propaganda,” last March, Gaffney was still claiming the existence of “evidence” that Iraq and al Qaeda “were collaborating on all kinds of things,” and citing “compelling circumstantial evidence” linking Iraq to the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing.
But don't worry, Frank Gaffney is going to keep the “false information” out of Big Peace -- just like Jim Hoft keeps it out of Big Government.