WND's Apparent Quid Pro Quo With Steve Stockman
Garth Kant came off quite excited with his big scoop in a Dec. 9 WorldNetDaily article:
One of Washington's most reliably conservative lawmakers is breaking the news that he will challenge a mainstay of the Republican establishment – all because the incumbent GOP senator "undermined Sen. Ted Cruz's fight to stop Obamacare."
Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, told WND exclusively that he will run against against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the state's primary race. Cornyn is running for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2014.
The Texan had been keeping his decision to run close to the vest, until informing WND.
How did Kant score such a scoop? Perhaps it's a quid pro quo for an earlier collaboration.
Back in October, WND touted how Stockman distributed to other members of the House copies of Aaron Klein's slow-selling anti-Obama book "Impeachable Offenses," which WND donated to the cause. It benefited both sides -- Stockman got to promote his anti-Obama agenda for free, and WND had 435 fewer copies of Klein's book cluttering its warehouse.
Is it too hard to believe that Stockman would return the favor by giving WND a big scoop on his political plans? Not at all. Stockman surely knew that WND would give him all the fawning coverage he could imagine.
And Kant does just that, touting how "Stockman had already picked up some major support" just an hour after the announcement and promoted his "reputation as one of Capitol Hill's most popular members on Twitter, using his pithy but pungent tweets to deliver scathing indictments of Democrats, often with a characteristically wry sense of humor."
Kant conveniently failed to tell his readers not only about WND cozy relationship with Stockman, but also about ethical problems in the form of Stockman's failure to fully disclose his business affiliations on his congressional financial disclosure forms, which include that he has apparently paid himself $350,000 from a company he formed.
That's the kind of selective reporting Stockman can count on from WND. And it's likely why Stockman graced Kant with his big poltiical scoop.