'The Most Ruthless, Opportunistic Person I've Ever Encountered'

Now who is this ruthless, opportunistic person?

None other than the High Priestess of Hate herself, the vile and loathsome Arianna Huffington.

Interesting item in the New York Daily News today chronicling a long-running feud with Tim Russert and his wife Maureen Orth.

Russert and his wife, Maureen Orth, said Huffington was the one with a vendetta. They contended that her spleen was payback for a 1994 Vanity Fair exposé Orth did on her former husband, Michael Huffington. Orth also claimed in a 2004 speech that Huffington was "the most ruthless, opportunistic person I've ever encountered." As evidence, she pointed to Republican political consultant Ed Rollins' memoir, in which he claimed Huffington hired a detective to snoop on Orth.

Huffington vigorously denied that claim, but clearly, the world's best private eye wouldn't have found any love lost between her and Russert.

Speaking of the Huffington Post, today they have yet another anti-American screed from the terrorist-loving hack Andy Worthington.

Worthington latches on to a dubious McClatchy study of alleged treatment of guests at Club Gitmo. I'm not sure who has less credibility, Worthington or the floundering McClatchy crew, who note how former detainees are easy recruits for al Qaeda. Which begs the question: Wasn't it a good idea to detain them?

Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.

U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantanamo the next year, however — after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers — he'd made connections to high-level militants.

In fact, he'd become a Taliban leader. When the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a stack of 20 "most wanted" playing cards in 2006 identifying militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan — with Osama bin Laden at the top — Farouq was 16 cards into the deck.

Can you believe their gullibility? He had no clear ties, but does that mean he had none at all? He ran kidnapping and extortion rackets, so when we went into Afghanistan, wasn't it a good idea that we clear out guys like him?

And just when he happens to return, he manages to climb the ladder overnight to a Taliban leader?

The idiocy boggles the mind.

Update: Thanks to Hot Air for the link.

Also, a related Orth-Huffington item here.

Al-Jazeera Terrorist/Cameraman Freed From Club Gitmo

Banner day for Club Gitmo news. First a former guest goes splodeydope, now another resident, an alleged cameraman from Terror TV, has been freed.

A Sudanese cameraman with the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera was released from six years of detention at Guantanamo US military prison and was due to fly home within hours, Al-Jazeera said Thursday.

"I am now in Khartoum as Sami al-Haj will probably arrive within hours," Al-Jazeera director general Waddah Khanfar told AFP when contacted by telephone from Qatar, where the channel is based.

"Sami al-Haj to arrive overnight in Khartoum after his release from Guantanamo camp," Al-Jazeera subsequently flashed on its screen.

Al-Jazeera's main night bulletin was dominated by the release of its cameraman, whose cause had been championed by several rights groups.

Haj was arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001 and had been held without charge at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba since June 2002.

The Pentagon would not immediately comment to AFP about Haj's release, but press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which has campaigned for him to be freed, voiced relief.

Reporters Without Borders, of course, is gushing.

The dubious Andy Worthington hyperventilates at the HuffPost.

As a trained journalist, Sami's insights into the horrors of Guantánamo have been unparalleled. Subjected to clearance by the Pentagon's censors, his letters and his conversations with his lawyers at Reprieve have shed light on the abuse of the Koran, suicide attempts, hunger strikes and the number of juveniles held at the prison.

For the last 16 months of his imprisonment, Sami was himself a hunger striker. Although the ethics of the medical profession stipulate that a mentally competent hunger striker cannot be force-fed, the US authorities disagreed. Twice a day, for the last 480 days, Sami was strapped into a restraint chair, secured with 16 separate straps, and force-fed against his will via a tube inserted into his stomach through his nose.

Greeting the news of his release, Clive Stafford Smith said, "This is wonderful news, and long overdue. The US administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. al-Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at al-Jazeera. We at Reprieve send him our best wishes as he is reunited with his wife and his seven-year old son Mohammed, whom he has not seen since Mohammed was a baby."

Worthington, you may recall, was given a front-page byline in the New York Times back in February, one in a long series of black eyes for the alleged paper of record.

Worthington Spins, Old Grey Hag Silent

We noted Friday the absurd decision by the New York Times to give a byline to a vociferous far-left critic of U.S. policy, in particular, keeping enemy combatants captive at Guantanamo Bay.

The New York Post today follows up their initial report with a editorial chiding the Times for their utter disregard for any modicum of journalistic ethics.

The New York Times was forced to issue a mea culpa Thursday on the latest in its seemingly never-ending stream of "exposés" from the American terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The problem: British freelancer Andy Worthington, one of the article's co-authors, turned out to be something short of an "objective" reporter.

As the Times admitted, he is in fact a fierce advocate for the closing of the Guantanamo facility; his recent book, "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison," describes it as "a cruel and misguided response by the Bush administration to the 9/11 attacks," said the paper.

The Times, which claimed that it somehow didn't know about Worthington's "outspoken" position until after the article ran, also admitted that it should've described Worthington's contributions to the story and made his views known, instead of simply running his byline.

The Times says that it verified his information - and by all appearances it continues to stand behind the story, which deals with detainee Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2003 and died of cancer at Gitmo in December.

Read the rest.

In the meantime, Worthington himself is spinning for all he's worth, and using some rather dubious sources in an attempt to buttress his case.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) posted the following news articles based on the Editor’s Note and Scott Horton’s article: (links here and here)

War In Context had this to say: (link)

And this from After Downing Street: (link)

This is Daily Kos’ take on the story: (link)

And this from at-Largely: (link)

Best of Both Worlds: (link)

FAIR, a Marxist front group founded by a former ACLU lawyer, isn't exactly an objective source. These boobs think the Times using one of their own reporters for war coverage isn't justified, but using Worthington on a dubious story is.

Another source Worthington offers is After Downing Street. Just check these folks out and you know what planet they live on. They still think Bush and Cheney are going to be impeached.

Daily Kos?

Please.

I will give Worthington props for finding one reliable source, however.

For a different point of view, see: (link)

I really like that last one.

UPDATE: LGF links. Thanks!

Thanks also to Memeorandum and Kathleen McKinley at NewsBusters for the link.

Shocker: NY Times Gives Byline to Guantanamo Critic, Plays Dumb When Caught

The relentless bias of the New York Times is exposed once again and sure enough, the alleged paper of record, with their layers of editors and factcheckers, claims they "were not aware" the author of a front-page story was an "outspoken critic" of U.S. policy.

Sure. And I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska up for sale.

Maybe a Times editor is interested in purchasing it.

The New York Times ran a front-page story critical of the Guantanamo anti-terror prison without checking to find out that its co-author was a bitter critic of the jail and of US policy, the newspaper acknowledged yesterday.

The paper's editors "were not aware" of the "outspoken position" of British freelancer Andy Worthington, who shared the byline on the article, according to an Editors' Note in the newspaper.

The story, which appeared Tuesday, described the case of an Afghan man who died in Guantanamo after five years' detention, allegedly on false charges of being a Taliban commander.

The newspaper acknowledged yesterday that its editors did not look up Worthington's Web site.

"Like many decent-minded citizens of the world I had been deeply concerned, from the moment Guantanamo opened in January 2002, that the US Administration's response to 9/11 was both cruel and misguided," Worthington wrote in an "About Me" section of the site.

The Times said that Worthington "did some initial reporting" for the article "but was not involved in all of it" and that the information he provided was confirmed by the newspaper.

It said that he should not have been listed as co-author and that his point of view and contribution to the article should have mentioned.

Worthington described himself as a freelance historian and journalist who wrote a sharply critical book about the prison, "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774Detainees in America's Illegal Prison."

He declined to comment directly on the Editors' Note yesterday but said he would be "extremely disappointed if anyone were to presume" from the note that his book was not well researched.

That's completely beside the point. Worthington is not an objective reporter, and a simple check of his background would reveal his biases for all to see.

Why, look here, he's all over that non-partisan home to fair and balanced journalism, The Huffington Post.

Hey, what's this, Worthington is also at the far-left Counterpunch, another bastion of objective journalism.

Who's this guy Worthington at AlterNet defending Jose Padilla?

Why, it's the same guy with a New York Times byline.

Shocking, isn't it?

Over at Guantanamo Blog, there's also a guy named Andy Worthington.

Why yes, it's the same author.

Antiwar Radio also lists an Andy Worthington. I'll go out on a limb and say it's the same guy.

Amazon lists the book by Worthington entitled
The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison.

But the editors at the New York Times "were not aware" of his background.

Paging Clark Hoyt, come in Mr. Hoyt.

Hot Air, Ed Driscoll and NewsBusters link. Thanks!