Maybe you saw the New York Times story over the Independence Day holiday about me and Donald Trump.
It was an attempt to smear Trump through his relationship with me.
Five New York Times reporters worked on it, but only one interviewed me.
This was the lead: “Joseph Farah, a 61-year-old author, had long labored on the fringes of political life, publishing a six-part series claiming that soybeans caused homosexuality and fretting that ‘cultural Marxists’ were plotting to destroy the country.”
For the record, I have never been in “political life” – either on the fringes or laboring. The “six-part series” was not a series at all, but the personal obsession of one of WND’s 45 weekly columnists. That columnist died a number of years ago, so that will give you an idea of how far back the Times had to look for embarrassing stuff to write. (By the way, unlike the Times or practically any other significant newspaper or news site, these days, WND actually publishes the opinions of columnists from across the political spectrum. What a concept!)
I was indeed 61 when the story was published. I have since turned 62. (Say happy birthday!)
And, yes, I absolutely believe “cultural Marxists” are plotting to destroy the country. In fact, they may have already succeeded.
The story goes on to say that I spoke to Trump on the phone a few times because he wanted to take one of my theories “mainstream.”
“That developer, Donald J. Trump, told Mr. Farah that he shared his suspicion that President Obama might have been born outside the United States and that he was looking for a way to prove it,” the article said.
There are just three problems with that statement:
- I never believed, said or wrote that Obama was born outside the U.S.;
- I explained that to the one and only reporter who interviewed me several times – giving her my full cooperation;
- Trump didn’t say he believed Obama was born outside the U.S. either, nor did he say he was looking for a way to prove it.
From there the article descends into ideological insults – from “the birther idea – long debunked, and until then confined to right-wing conspiracy theorists” to playing the old race card against Trump.
Through the entire eligibility issue that lasted from 2008 until late 2011, the New York Times apparently never thought it was strange that Obama wouldn’t release his birth certificate – or practically any other information about his life, from academic records to Harvard Law School writings to passport records to health reports. Apparently, it still has not occurred to the Old York Times that it was unusual. Of course, it could only be racism that would cause anyone to ask for such things.
For me, this was always an issue of transparency.
You might recall that Obama claimed in 2008 that his administration would be the most open and transparent in American history.
Yet, it has been the opposite – more secretive than Richard Nixon’s. And, while Nixon once fantasized for a brief moment about using the IRS to go after his political enemies, Obama actually did it and got away with it, thanks to the “watchdogs” at papers like the Old York Times.
Yet, with five reporters working for many weeks on this piece about Trump and me, you have to conclude they never laid a glove on him.
And, as for me, I can honestly say that all of the garbage they wrote about me was simply drudged up from old reports in Media Matters. You’d think with five reporters on the story, they could have come up with something really embarrassing from 20 years of publishing WND and 20 years of personally written daily columns!
No one from the Times ever asked me about soybeans or my life in “politics,” which ended a long, long time ago, in my early 20s, when I stopped being one of those “cultural Marxists” – a subject I know something about from firsthand experience.
Why do I do it?
Why do I subject myself to interviews from hostile reporters over and over again?
Maybe because I still hope to find an honest reporter in what we euphemistically call “the mainstream media.”
Remember, I was part of that “mainstream” for 20 years, running daily newspapers in major markets. Honest reporters did exist back then. Perhaps, like me, they all became refugees in the New Media.
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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