Saturday, July 29, 2006

ANN COULTER: POLITICS OF PERSONAL DESTRUCTION (Part 1) by DAN BORCHERS

This title should be: HOW ANN COULTER'S PROPAGANDIST TRIED TO DESTROY DAN BORCHERS"

This picture of Sedona lowers my stress level.

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Thomas Jefferson.

Just posted a wonderful article "Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for Pastor." You can read it at my Peacemakers Blog. Blessings to a brave Christian who woke up and realized the truth. Of course he will be persecuted for it. For spiritual solutions to the world crises, and some amazing prayer miracles in the next few weeks, please check out RADICAL PRAYER at my other blog: THE PEACEMAKERS

For TROLL-FREE blogging (without the malicious opposition trolls that personally insult people who comment here) please check out my Progressive Freedom Blog at: FREEDOM BLOG

EXCLUSIVE! NEW EVIDENCE OF THE TACTICS OF PROPAGANDA FROM RIGHT-WING COULTER SMEAR MACHINE.
The online "news" journal HUMAN EVENTS recently published a hit-piece written by Lisa De Pasquale (Coulter's publicist) assassinating the character of lifelong conservative Daniel Borchers in order to quell rising interest in Ann Coulter’s current plagiarism problems. Here "Part One" of Coulter Mystery is solved. Stay tuned for Part Two, which is most titillating.

I realize Coulter is distracting us from real news, but she is to blame for the hate-speak and annihilation prevalent today and must be called on it. Obviously her defenders on this blog are here to spread even more "politics of personal destruction."

My friend went through hell with Coulter's propaganda team, and with Coulter herself. Her slander, lies and criminally malicious behavior has to be stopped. Here on this website I have suffered from very similar tactics.

But first this: WHAT IS UP WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS? HE NO LONGER PLAYS HARDBALL. I used to trust him. He must be a paid shill, fawning all over Coulter. Or he was bribed by her publisher and was repaying a favor. This was one of the most bizarrely ingratiating interviews we've ever seen. I've always wondered how she manages to get air time for her hateful, horrendous agenda. She repeatedly called for killing, killing and more killing, and then resorted to repeating her insane accusation that Bill Clinton is gay, with a Gore comment thrown in. Is she jealous of Bill Clinton?

Human Events Trashes Ann Coulter Critic; Scrubs Story
Retraction By a Thousand Deletions
By Daniel Borchers

[NOTE: That defamatory essay has been removed – but without a formal retraction.
Their problem: I had published a well-researched exposé revealing that portions of Coulter’s first book, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors", had been plagiarized, thus making it difficult to refute her pattern of plagiarism.

Their solution: use the politics of personal destruction to discredit those who know the truth.

Coulter protégé and publicist Lisa De Pasquale led the attack with gusto. Her deplorable diatribe emulated the tactics of her mentor, Ann Coulter, fabricating falsehoods, asserting opinion as fact and distorting what little truth actually existed.

It took two weeks to clear things up, and even then, suppression of the truth remains in full force.

From the beginning, Human Events Online Editor Robert Bluey manipulated reality to defend Human Events premiere polemicist. At first, everything seemed straightforward with his first email:

Terry Jeffrey passed along your note. At Human Events, we have a reputation of always correcting errors. What part of the article are you asking us to retract?

“Ridiculous Article” (which can be read in the comment section here courtesy of "Voltaire."

The first correction was relatively easy. I replied as follows:

Thank you for getting back to me so promptly. What should be corrected you ask? Virtually every accusation against me. Ms. De Pasquale should insist upon evidence and refrain from concocting fantasies.

Let’s deal with just one charge as representative of the whole: her claim that I went “to great lengths to sneak into CPAC under false pretenses, including making a phony press pass on his home computer and registering under fake names.” Her accusation is totally false in every respect.

Is Ms. De Pasquale’s attempt to discredit me designed to vindicate Ms. Coulter of plagiarism, past and present? She dismisses my “ridiculous article” about Ms. Coulter’s plagiarism of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, even though the facts substantiate my essay, which is far more accurate than her own. My fact-checking included personal interviews with Michael Chapman (in person, via email and telephone), the Boston Globe reporter who broke the story and Ms. Coulter’s attorney at that time. My own evidence included correspondence from Mr. Chapman, the Boston Globe, and Ms. Coulter’s attorney. Further, I meticulously compared High Crimes with material written by Mr. Chapman and published in Human Events. (If you need a copy of the Special Report from which Ms. Coulter drew some of her material, I would be happy to provide it to you.)

While there is nothing “ridiculous” about my article on Ms. Coulter’s previous plagiarism, “ridiculous” barely begins to describe Ms. De Pasquale’s polemical cover-up of her favorite author’s misdeeds.

Please retract in its entirety all negative personal references to me.

Bluey corrected the portion dealing with the allegedly “ridiculous” nature of my plagiarism essay, but he refused to make any other corrections, claiming to have verified sources.

I have made some changes to the article. However, other things you cite have either been verified by Lisa's sources (as noted in the article) or witnessed firsthand by her or my colleagues at Human Events.

“False Pretenses, Phony Press Pass, Fake Names”

The second correction required more diligence. I had to disprove what Bluey claimed to have verified:

The following statement is false in its entirety: “[Borchers went] to great lengths to sneak into CPAC under false pretenses, including making a phony press pass on his home computer and registering under fake names.”

That never happened! No sneaking. No false pretenses. No phony press pass. No fake names. None of that is true! There is no evidence because it never happened!

Perhaps these facts can help dispel the fantasies of Ms. De Pasquale’s fevered imagination.

CPAC 99 I requested and received press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch.
CPAC 00 I requested and received press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch.
CPAC 01 I requested and received press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch.
CPAC 02 I requested and received press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch. Ian Walters gave me permission to distribute both my newsletter and press kit, then revoked that permission upon discovering it was critical of Ms. Coulter.
CPAC 03 I requested but was denied press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch.
CPAC 04 I requested press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch. Stacie Rumenap emailed me that my request would be forwarded. At CPAC, I registered at the press booth as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch. A short while later, Ian Walters confronted me. At that time – recorded on audiotape and in the presence of a City Paper reporter – I gave Mr. Walters the email from Ms. Rumenap. (Not even a ten-year-old could mistake a genuine email for a phony press pass.) After a lengthy discussion, Mr. Walters confiscated the press pass given to me at the press booth.
CPAC 05 I registered as a paying member of the public.
CPAC 06 My request for press credentials as Daniel Borchers, Editor of BrotherWatch was denied. The stated reason: that I was not a real journalist. Subsequently, Brad Blog commissioned me to cover the event for them. They received permission and provided my name as their representative. I was sent a confirmation email, press kit and other emails at my Daniel Borchers at yahoo dot come email address. I registered at press booth as Daniel Borchers.

Where were the false pretenses? The phony press pass? The fake name? For that matter, where is the “sneaking in?” Everything was done aboveboard.

Truth and facts can be so inconvenient, can’t they? Please correct, as necessary. Thank you.

Bluey’s email was brief, to the point, and unapologetic: “I’ve deleted the sentence from the article.”

Removal, No Retraction, No Apology

In the end, after a lengthy series of emails, Human Events removed De Pasquale’s vicious essay in its entirety – only because I could document my case. Bluey’s final email was extremely brief:

The article was deleted in its entirety last week. Please do not contact me again. If you continue to harass me, I will contact the FBI.

To which I replied, in part:

You astonish me. First, you publish a defamatory article about me. Then, you accuse me of harassment for merely seeking to clear my good name. You even have the audacity to threaten me!

Still, you have not even dealt with my initial request – retraction. Removal is not the same as retraction. Many people read the slanderous diatribe against me but they have not been apprised of the lies contained therein. Many websites have cited, reprinted or linked to that article. They are not aware of its many egregious errors.

Still, as of this writing, Human Events refuses to retract their defamatory diatribe. Indeed, not even an apology was given. Rather, Robert Bluey had the gall to threaten me for seeking to clear my name.

Such are the depths to which Coulter’s defenders will sink to ensure that Coulter’s peculiar brand of polemicism will remain profitable.

Plagiarism Redux

Despite their best efforts, new evidence of plagiarism in Godless continues to emerge. In High Crimes, Coulter used the work and the words of one of her colleagues and took them as her own. Coulter did the same in Godless. Consider this from Cliff Kincaid:

[Robert] Knight, who now directs the Culture & Family Institute at Concerned Women for America, tells me that all of the NEA examples cited in the Coulter column “were right out of my paper, although the phrasing was changed. Several were in the exact order I had them in my paper. It appears that Miss Coulter cribbed them directly from my Heritage report. Since it involves a considerable number of examples (nine), it would have been nice if she had credited me or Heritage, but I’m not upset. I’m glad she used this stuff to good effect.”


Let’s be clear here: Ann Coulter plagiarized from a colleague at her very own newspaper – and got away with it – so why shouldn’t she plagiarize from a stranger?

Setting aside (for now) her defamation of me, Lisa De Pasquale (designated Coulter apologist at Human Events) made one striking point: “Most telling is the fact that none of the authors or publications that liberals claim Ann Coulter plagiarized have come forward.”

Human Events seeks to discredit me because I have interviewed the one person who has come forward – Michael Chapman, a former editor for Human Events and former colleague of Coulter. (Yet, Coulter denies ever have even heard of Chapman.) Human Events was both privy to and party to Coulter’s use of Chapman’s material in her first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors (see “The Plagiarism Trap”).

Both Human Events and Regnery (the book imprint for Eagle Publishing) assured Chapman that he would be credited for his work. After High Crimes publication, Chapman sought some form of credit, but was denied. Human Events still turns a blind eye to the plagiarism of its premiere polemicist. Regnery even released High Crimes and Misdemeanors in paperback form, long after the Boston Globe had revealed Chapman’s role in its publication, again without acknowledging Chapman’s contribution (or correcting some of its more egregious errors).

The truth about Ann Coulter is unwelcome at Human Events, which clearly prefers profit to principle.

[Daniel Borchers is the Editor of BrotherWatch and the President of Citizens for Principled Conservatism. He can be reached at PrincipledConservative@yahoo.com.]

THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN WRITING ALL ALONG: WHAT ANN COULTER WOULD KNOW IF SHE ACTUALLY READ THE BIBLE