Move America Forward at it again

[ck4829]

This vitriolic pro-war group attracted controversy in 2006, when one of the group leaders, Howard Kaloogian, posted photos of a very safe neighborhood and said it was taken in Iraq. This was a lie however, the photos were taken in Turkey, not Iraq.

Here comes the sequel.

"There are several claims on right wing websites that a Guardian newspaper reporter named Damien Benson contacted Move America Forward requesting information. It seems that when the organization told the reporter its views on the British sailors' arrest in Iran, he refused to give them publicity for moral reasons. What followed was a war of words where Move America Forward's leader Melanie Morgan accused one of the United Kingdom's most respected newspapers of being "far left".

A section of Move America Forward's statement was as follows:

"The message was very informative although I don't think it would be the best idea to quote your comments on the sailors' capture – it's an extremely delicate situation here," Benson said.

I think Benson is confused. We are not interested in a biased left-wing reporter cherry-picking parts of our message that are in line with his liberal political beliefs. He wanted the opinion of the other side and he got it."

As the publicity of this dispute increases, rumours are circulating that Damien Benson is in fact some kind of hoax on the part of Move America Forward. Indeed, the only search results on Google for the words "Damien Benson", "Guardian" and "Reporter" are from Morgan's own online columns. In addition the extreme nature of "Benson's" comments published by "KSFO" talk radio, plus the fact that these comments seem completely out of sync with the Guardian's normal stance could suggest an elaborate ploy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_America_Forward#The_Guardian_reporter_dispute