In a guest appearance on Peter Boyles' May 17 show, Denver Post columnist Al Knight touted the website VDARE and the writings of its editor, Peter Brimelow. Neither Boyles nor Knight told listeners that VDARE has been described as a “white nationalist Web site” or that Brimelow has acknowledged that VDARE publishes writers he “regard[s] as 'white nationalist.' ”
On Boyles' show, Post's Knight promoted VDARE but omitted its “white nationalist” ties
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
During the May 17 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show, Denver Post columnist Al Knight encouraged Boyles' listeners to “go to a website called vdare.com ... and read Peter Brimelow.” As Colorado Media Matters noted, Brimelow -- editor of the anti-immigration website -- has acknowledged that VDARE publishes writers he “regard[s] as 'white nationalist,' ” a fact neither Knight nor Boyles mentioned.
After Boyles introduced Knight as “the only reasonable voice” at the Post, Knight said, “I would make two points to listeners who have access to a computer, which I assume is about a hundred percent. One is that they read the provision in the U.S. Constitution that so clearly gives power to Congress to determine the standards of citizenship and all of the matters related thereto.” Knight continued, “The other one is to go to a website called V-Dare.com ... read Peter Brimelow. I ran into his piece after I wrote mine the other day. And he did a better job, honestly, in the sense of outlining the core reasons why, the core issues that voters and citizens should look at” with regard to immigration. Presumably, Knight was referring to his May 16 column, “The immigration debate features magical thinking.”
As Colorado Media Matters noted following Brimelow's guest appearance on Boyles' July 18, 2006, show, a July 15 Rocky Mountain News article described VDARE as a “white nationalist Web site.” Responding to the News' reporting, Brimelow wrote in a July 23 “Speakout” op-ed in the News (available through the Nexis database) that VDARE is “not 'white nationalist,' ” but that "[w]e also publish on VDare.com a few writers -- for example, Jared Taylor -- whom I would regard as 'white nationalist,' in the sense that they aim to defend the interests of American whites."
Taylor is editor of the magazine American Renaissance, which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described as “focus[ing] on alleged links between race and intelligence, and on eugenics, the now discredited 'science' of breeding better humans.” The SPLC also described Taylor as “a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist.”
Brimelow also has been criticized by conservatives and advocates of limiting immigration. For example, in an article about Brimelow's 1995 book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (Random House), Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies -- an immigration think tank that "seeks fewer immigrants" -- stated that Brimelow “never quite admits that blacks are actually Americans.” Krikorian also noted that "[Brimelow] complains that immigration is upsetting the racial balance by reducing the white share of the population." Krikorian added, “This ambivalence about the American-ness of black Americans is disturbing and further evidence of Brimelow's feeling that 'white' and 'America' should be synonymous.”
Similarly, in a February 24, 2002, commentary (available through Nexis) in the Los Angeles Times, National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg wrote that "[r]ather than focusing on how to create a rational immigration policy that recognizes the permanence of America's ethnic diversity," Brimelow and VDARE contributor Samuel Francis, who died in 2005, “live in denial about how to get back to the days when America was 90% white.”
As Colorado Media Matters previously noted, Knight ignored VDARE's white nationalist ties in an October 18, 2006, column. Colorado Media Matters has also documented the numerous times Boyles has featured VDARE authors as guests on his show, including:
- On his June 20, 2006, program, Boyles interviewed Edwin Rubenstein, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a regular VDARE columnist. Among his VDARE columns was one from June 4, 2006, titled "May Jobs: Hispanics Gain -- Whites Lose" and one from March 10, 2006, titled "A Cold February for White Workers."
- Another VDARE contributor, John Vinson, president of the American Immigration Control Foundation, appeared on Boyles' June 22, 2006, show. According to the SPLC, Vinson “is a founding member of the white supremacist League of the South.” Vinson contributed to the League of the South's The Grey Book: Blueprint for Southern Independence (Traveller Press, 2004), which argues that Southern states should secede from the United States and form their own country. According to the SPLC, Vinson “often speaks” at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that the Anti-Defamation League reported was “established by former activists in the segregationist White Citizens' Councils” and that, according to the SPLC, has described blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity.”
From the May 17 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:
BOYLES: One of my absolute true favorites on 630 KHOW with Peter Boyles, from your Denver Post -- the only reasonable voice -- is Al Knight. And he is with us.
[...]
KNIGHT: Well, you know, Peter, I think -- I, I would make two points to listeners who have access to a computer, which I assume is about a hundred percent. One is that they read the provision in the U.S. Constitution that so clearly gives power to Congress to determine the standards of citizenship and all of the matters related thereto. The other one is to go to a website called vdare.com, which you are familiar with, I'm sure --
BOYLES: We're going to have these guys on a little bit later.
KNIGHT: -- and read Peter Brimelow. I ran into his piece after I wrote mine the other day. And he did a better job, honestly, in the sense of outlining the core reasons why, the core issues that voters and citizens should look at. And that -- it really is a good piece. And one of the things he, he makes out there, is two things you and I have talked about in the past. One of them is the birthright citizenship issue --
BOYLES: Mm-hmm, 14.
KNIGHT: -- and the, and the reunification of family policies --
BOYLES: Mm-hmm.
KNIGHT: -- that already --
BOYLES: Well, now --
KNIGHT: exist and that drive --
BOYLES: Sure.
KNIGHT: -- especially the Republican Party.
BOYLES: Mm-hmm.
KNIGHT: And those have to be addressed. And what you're, what you're saying here is you describe the legislation now pending, is that they just ignore that.
BOYLES: Yeah.