In her obituary for retired congressman Paul Findley, Republican from Illinois (“Paul Findley, 11-Term Congressman Behind the War Powers Act, Dies at 98”) New York Times’s Katharine Seelye ignored Findley’s anti-Semitic conspiracies, while bashing Republicans for being overly conservative and in the pocket of the Israel lobby:
Paul Findley, a moderate Republican congressman from Illinois who sought to limit presidents’ power to wage war and pressed the United States government to engage with the Arab world, died on Friday in Jacksonville, Ill. He was 98.
That’s certainly one way to put it (click “expand”):
Mr. Findley spent 22 years in Congress. When first elected in 1960 he promised to fight “creeping socialism,” but his views soon moderated and occasionally veered to the liberal side, making him part of a breed of Republicans more common then and almost nonexistent today.
He supported civil rights and, with the blessing of the Republican leadership, named the first black person in the 20th century -- 15-year-old Frank Mitchell of Springfield -- to the position of page in the House of Representatives.
(....)
Mr. Findley was also known for his vocal advocacy of involvement with the Arab world, including Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been designated a terrorist group by the United States.
He became convinced that the influential pro-Israel lobby known as Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had a stranglehold on American politicians that prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state and prevented rational dealings with Arab leaders in general.
Mr. Findley detailed his own immersion in the Middle East in his book “They Dare to Speak Out,” published in 1985 and reissued in 1989 with the subtitle “People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby.”
....As he became more sympathetic to Arabs, he spoke out about his frustrations with the United States government’s overwhelmingly pro-Israel posture, though he voted regularly for aid to Israel.His stance led to his being targeted by Aipac activists in his 1980 re-election campaign.
(....)
In 1982, he lost by less than 1 percent of the vote. The winner was Dick Durbin, a Democrat and now the senior senator from Illinois.
Seelye didn’t quote anything about Findley’s "The-Mossad-killed-JFK" theory, but managed to quote his attacks on the “Jewish lobby”:
Mr. Findley wrote that shortly after the election, Thomas A. Dine, Aipac’s executive director, took credit for the win. “This is a case where the Jewish lobby made a difference,” he quoted Mr. Dine as saying to a Jewish gathering in Texas. “We beat the odds and defeated Findley.” He said Mr. Dine later estimated that $685,000 of the $750,000 raised by Mr. Durbin had come from Jews.
Findley wrote bizarre theories about the JFK assassination:
Who else had a strong reason to want President Kennedy out? It is interesting-but not surprising-to note that in all the words written and uttered about the Kennedy assassination, Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned.
And yet a Mossad motive is obvious. Israeli leaders never trusted the Kennedys. They were aware that when President Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, was ambassador to Great Britain, he frequently praised Nazi Germany.
The Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review published with permission Findley’s piece blaming Israel for 9-11:
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the 9/11 catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Findley’s articles also circulate on other anti-Semitic outlets like Stormfront.
Yet the same New York Times which just played guilt-by-association by falsely smearing groups as Islamophobic couldn’t bother to mention a direct link between a Holocaust denial outfit and the anti-Israel congressman that the paper is praising.
One could argue that obituaries should focus on the best of the person's life not the worst. But that’s not how The Times plays the game when it comes to its ideological foes, whether in politics or not:
American beer pioneer William Coors: “William K. Coors, who led one of America’s biggest beer makers for decades, but whose ultraconservative speeches and anti-union policies incurred boycotts and the wrath of organized labor, civil rights groups and minorities, died on Saturday at his home in Golden, Colo. He was 102.”
Conservative icon Paul Weyrich: “Mr. Weyrich (pronounced WY-rick) was one of the far right's most unbending ideologues.”
Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky was paid tribute to under this Times headline: “Jim Bunning, Hall of Fame Pitcher Turned Cantankerous Senator, Dies at 85.” Bunning “spoke out against spending and taxes and showed a contrarian streak in the Senate while receiving national attention for some strange remarks.”
Speaking of “strange remarks," why not quote some of Findley's?
