Aaron Klein's July 13 WorldNetDaily article carries the headline “Felonious assault on U.S. elections,” so you'd think there would be something, you know, felonious being detailed. Instead, it's just another guilt-by-association smear job by WND's master of them.
Here's how Klein begins his article:
A federal bill that seeks to restore voting rights in national elections to felons released from prison previously was a pet project of the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign was briefed on state laws governing voting-rights restoration for former felons encountered during general voter-registration drives.
The information comes as a study released this week by Minnesota Majority, a watchdog group, found the six-month election recount that determined Al Franken won the Minnesota Senate seat may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally.
The bill Klein is referring to in the first paragraph is the Democracy Restoration Act (House version/Senate version), which indeed would do what Klein said it would. Why is that a problem? Klein never says -- he just plays guilt-by-association by irrelevantly claiming that it was a “pet project” of ACORN.
What does the Obama campaign being briefed on voting rights for felons have to do with this? Nothing. The campaign did nothing illegal, and even Klein doesn't claim otherwise. Again, it's guilt-by-association.
Klein went on to tout how Minnesota Majority “matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records,” leading it to conclude that “felons who voted illegally may have cast the determining ballots in the Minnesota race that put Franken in office.” But Klein didn't report the numerous problems with the study -- as we've noted, local officials in Minnesota have reportedly said that the group's data “is not good,” and that the report makes claims that are “not accurate” and “likely inflated.”
Klein then takes a stab at making a transition, asserting, “The issue of felony registration is not the only controversy to be attached to Obama's 2008 campaign.” But Klein never established that “felony registration” is a “controversy,” since he documents nothing remotely controversial.
The rest of Klein's article is typical right-wing boilerplate attacking comprehensive immigration reform as a liberal scheme to register more Latinos to vote and, presumably, vote for Democrats. Klein also repeats the misleading claim that SEIU's Andy Stern is “the most frequently logged White House visitor.”
Klein's article is a barely coherent exercise in buzzword reinforcement: Obama equals felons, amnesty, and ACORN.
At most news organizations, writers that display such a clear animus toward the subjects they cover -- as Klein has amply demonstrated with his obvious hatred of Obama -- are not permitted to report on them. At WND, however, it seems that hatred of Obama is a prerequisite for employment.