Lies, Damned Lies, and The Guardian

Arguments vs. Clubs


As everyone knows by now, Circus Breivik opened today in Oslo.

The farcical antics began long before today, however — we’ve been through a prodromal phase of several weeks during which the leftist mainstream media outlets (yes, I know that’s redundant) prepared and published their hit pieces on every writer, publication, and website they consider “xenophobic”, “racist”, or “extreme right-wing”.

The Law of LibelVarious sites in Norway and the rest of Europe have been rehashing all their material from last July and August. Photos of Fjordman and Robert Spencer have been dusted off and re-digitized. Anyone foolish enough to reply to press enquiries has been quoted out of context and had his words used against him.

In other words, ho-hum. Business as usual.

Gates of Vienna has come in for its share of slime, especially in the Norwegian press. We’re used to all that, and generally ignore it. However, one particular hit piece was so egregious that it required a response.

I refer to an article entitled “Far-right anti-Muslim network on rise globally as Breivik trial opens” that was written by Mark Townsend and published in The Guardian last Saturday, April 14, 2012. The penultimate paragraph of Mr. Townsend’s screed included this sentence:

Other US and UK links include the Virginia-based anti-Islamic blog, the Gates Of Vienna, which counted Breivik as a contributor.

This is, as all our regular readers know, a damnable lie.

To leave that sentence on the record, uncontested and uncorrected, was not something that I was willing to do. That same day I wrote the following email to The Guardian:

To whom it may concern at the Guardian/Observer:

Mark Townsend, your home affairs editor, published an article today in the online Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/14/breivik-trial-norway-mass-murderer

In his article Mr. Townsend stated:

“Other US and UK links include the Virginia-based anti-Islamic blog, the Gates Of Vienna, which counted Breivik as a contributor.”

This is a blatant falsehood.

Anders Behring Breivik was NOT a contributor to our blog. He NEVER contributed any essays whatsoever. He wrote NO articles, under his real name or any pseudonym.

I demand a prompt public retraction and correction, to be published at the Guardian and any other location where this libel appeared, both online and in print.

Because my email was written on a Saturday, it seemed fair to allow the editors until close of business the following Monday (today, London time) to correct their false and libelous assertion. As of this writing I have not received a response, nor has the falsehood in The Guardian been corrected. Hence I have taken the unusual course of publicizing the matter.

I will mull further options, but obviously the mulling process will not be conducted in public.



Readers who wish to make The Guardian aware of their opinions on this matter are invited to do so.

As always: Please be civil, courteous, and temperate in your communications. Anger and name-calling merely give the recipient the opportunity to dismiss your email without reading it or considering your ideas.

The email address I used was reader@observer.co.uk, but there may another one that is more appropriate.

12 thoughts on “Lies, Damned Lies, and The Guardian

  1. It bothers me nothing can be done against this constant smearing of anti-jihadists. There should be lawyering and profiteering Al Sharpton style. It could be the main source of income of any blogger, hell, we could probably run a small welfare state on the Guardian alone.

  2. Long time reader….I hope you turn their stupid libel laws on to them. They have besmirched your character.

  3. Great point, 2:48 PM

    This is all happening so massively, and for those unaware, almost impossible to protect you against.

  4. After seeing this yesterday, I did some more research on Breivik/Gates of Vienna in the Guardian, and came across this gem from September, commenting on those mentioned in Breivik’s manifesto:

    “Then there are those in between, such as the Hungarian far-right party Jobbik. But they range all across Europe. They are united by hostility to Muslims and to the EU.”

    As GoV readers will no doubt be aware, the leader of Jobbik supports Hamas and Hezbollah, counts the Iranian president as a “close friend” and sees Islam as “the last bastion of mankind’s traditional culture”.

    Does that sound very “hostile to Muslims”?

    A search of Breivik’s manifesto reveals the only instance of the word “jobbik” as being a reference in the “Eastern European Right wing parties/nationalist orgs” section.

    The introduction to that section:

    “The term “anti-immigration” or “anti-Islamisation” does not capture the core concerns of
    Eastern European nationalist parties. Because immigration into these countries is very
    limited, these parties have not mobilised against immigrants. Rather, they have promoted
    strong right wing nationalism and as such they have mobilised anti-EU sentiments, as
    well as anti-Semitism (in particular the Polish Self Defence and the Hungarian Life and
    Justice) and opposition against other ethnic groups, in particular the Roma (gypsies).”

    In other words, Jobbik is explicitly mentioned in Breivik’s manifesto as NOT being an “anti-Islamisation party”. Yet according to the Guardian (in an article about the manifesto!), it’s united to other European “far-right” parties by “a hostility to Muslims”…

    Such is the much-glorified “open journalism” of the Guardian in action…

  5. Yes, the word CONTRIBUTION in this literary context can only mean to have written an article, but the Guardian may find it it more to their liking to pretend the word could have some more general meaning. I feel you are right to demand a correction on this.

    This is, Baron, yet another reason to follow each title in your blog with a by-line, “And essay by Will U. Remembermie”.

    This form-ality of a by-line will further help you to establish fame, the reputation of your writer’s writings, your Google hit rating as well as establish who exactly is NOT a contributor.

    As we too well know, the words of leftists have a special, multidimensional meaning that we lower members of society cannot fathom, ie. it depends what you mean by “sex” or by “contributor”.

  6. Coming from a liberal source like The Guardian GofV should take their comment as a badge of honor. Maybe GofV is making a name for itself and they feel threatened by the blog’s influence, that is growing. Let them lie – we are on the right side! Why publications like the Guardian are so blind to the Islamic threat is beyond me. None of the GofV contributers hate Muslims but we want to make people aware of the threat by political Islam. Thank God for the 1st Amendment and may it guard our free speech far into the future.

  7. Be it noted that the cartoon at the top of this post depicts the beating of abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner by the Southern scoundrel Rep. Preston Brooks on the Senate floor in 1854. Brooks later crawfished out of a duel with Rep. Anson Burlingame, a Northerner who was a crack shot, and met his condign quietus of the croup in 1857.

  8. Baron….

    you have little or no chance of getting the slime.. at guardian/bbc to retract or apologise….short of hitting them with some legal action

    this (guardian….of what?) believes ..like its sister ship the bbc….that it is above the law….and as such can wave you off with an air of dissmissiveness

    they…contemptible leftist scum that they are…feel that they are priveleged game…

    i look forward to seeing a public retraction as the first course of action….hopefully with more punishment to come

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