Kurtis Lee of the LA Times Follows the Yellow Brick Road in Reporting on Donald Trump’s Advisor, Dr. Walid Phares

by Rebecca Bynum

LA Times reporter, Kurtis Lee dutifully followed the path laid down by previous left wing reporters, who have attempted to smear Dr. Walid Phares with innuendo concerning his years in Lebanon by citing an old and thoroughly debunked story in Mother Jones. That story has been utterly repudiated along with vociferous demands for retraction here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Nevertheless, Lee plunged on, citing the fact that:

Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations have condemned Phares – like Trump – for his comments about Muslims.

Which is a lot like citing Joseph Goebbels condemning attacks against fascism. But nevertheless, in the world we live in now, the leftist press cites the leftist press, never straying into sources which could challenge their assumptions. Here Lee promotes the gun control argument favored by Hillary Clinton after the Orlando terror attack while downplaying the polls showing a narrow majority of Americans are now supporting Trump’s Muslim ban. No one wants to publish the fact that the numbers of Americans across political parties who support the ban has been steadily increasing since polling began. In fact, we can probably expect the polling on this issue to cease at this point – the tipping point, that is.

This morning, Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated on Meet the Press that officials will release a partial transcript of the conversations between Mateen and hostage negotiators, but they will scrub any mention of Islam or the Islamic State so as not to “further proclaim this individual’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups and further his propaganda.” And which incidentally might also support Donald Trump’s case for examining Islam and our immigration policies with regard to Muslims.

On this and most other issues, the LA Times is a bit like the little brother following along behind the NY Times, Washington Post and other left-wing opinion leaders, trying its best to keep up. Kurtis Lee is simply following the same yellow brick road, where assumptions trump facts every time.