Days later, the Mail still hasn’t corrected its gross errors about Giffords

I was sure that by now the Mail would have fixed its howlers, quoted from the DHS memo, that Rep. Giffords is a “Republican” and “the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government” (which was why, the memo suggested, the “anti-ZOG” American Renaissance might have wanted to have her assassinated, using Jared Lee Loughner as its agent) But no. The article, last updated on the ninth (unfortunately the Mail does not tell us when a story was originally posted), contains the same false statements as before. As of this morning, here is the way the article looks:

Tucson shooting suspect linked to fanatical pro-white magazine with anti-Semitic and anti-government views
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:28 PM on 9th January 2011

The main suspect in the Arizona massacre has links to a fanatical pro-white magazine.

Fox News claimed it had seen a Department of Homeland Security memo which said Jared Lee Loughner, 22, had ties to American Renaissance, which is staunchly anti-immigration, anti-government and anti-Semitic. [LA replies: see here my responses to these characterization of American Renaissance.]

Arizona Republican [sic] Gabrielle Giffords, the target of the mass killing, is ‘the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate,’ according the DHS memo.

Mrs Giffords is the granddaughter of Akiba Hornstein, the son of a Lithuanian rabbi who in the 1940s moved from New York to Tucson. He later changed his name to Giff Giffords in an effort to avoid anti-Semitism.

So the DHS, the federal agency responsible for our domestic security, issued this ignorant, wacky memo; Fox News repeated the ridiculous statements in the memo without correction; and the Mail repeated the same false and ridiculous statement without correction. And two days later, no one has told the Mail that Giffords is a Democrat, no one has told them that there have been other Jewish female congresswomen before Giffords, not to mention female Jewish U.S. senators, and no one has told them that American Renaissance is not an “anti-government, anti-Semitic” newsletter. And remember that the Mail as a matter of course constantly updates its previously posted articles with new information. Further, I repeat that Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that normally pins the words “hate, “racist,” and “anti-Semitic” on every conservative group that swims into its ken, has stated (quoted at Politico) that AR is not anti-Semitic. Nor has the Mail picked up the fact, reported in the MSM, that Jared Taylor, the editor of AR, has said that Loughner has never subscribed to the AR newsletter or attended it conferences. So what does DHS’s mysterious “link” consist of?

Next step: looking at the DHS memo as a whole.

- end of initial entry -

Below is an exchange between JC and me from two days ago that I inadvertently failed to post at the time, but is relevant here.

JC writes from Houston (January 9):

I was puzzled by this line in the Mail’s story:

“Arizona Republican Gabrielle Giffords, the target of the mass killing, is ‘the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government.”

The first Jewish Congresswoman was Florence Prag Kahn, a Republican elected in 1925 in a special election to fill her deceased husband’s California seat and then reelected for several terms. Here is another article on her.

I believe there have been more than a few since then, not to mention the two awful senators presently representing California. Is this what passes for “reporting” these days?

LA replies:

These ignorant reporters actually think she’s the first Jewish congresswoman in U.S. history? My gosh …

JC continues:

I just noticed as well that the Mail story describes Giffords as a “Republican” when in fact she is a Democrat. Does anyone in the UK know the difference?

LA replies:

Often they don’t. Just watch any contemporary British movie that features American characters. The Americans are invariably portrayed as gross and stupid. There is a tendency over there, especially on the left, which produces the movies the television programs, to see us as an undifferentiated mass of idiocy.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 11, 2011 08:56 AM | Send