Lester Kinsolving

Charles Lester Kinsolving (born 1927 in New York City) is a political talk radio host, currently heard on WCBM in Baltimore, Maryland. He is better known, however, as a White House correspondent for WorldNetDaily — the only member of the White House press corps to also host a talk radio show. His pointed, frequently off-the-wall questioning of the President's press secretaries has made him a Washington institution for more than three decades, and earned him a reputation as a gadfly within the corps. It's also sometimes made him the butt of jokes from many comedians, including Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

Kinsolving is also a minister in the Anglican Church. He was formerly a priest in the Episcopal Church, breaking away in 1978. Throughout the early part of his career, Kinsolving wrote a syndicated newspaper column about religious issues.

As a reporter and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner in the 1970s, Kinsolving was the first to report on the Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones, six years before the cult's members committed mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana; his reporting brought on vocal protesting by the group, and resulted in the newspaper canceling most of his multi-part series and replacing it with a more flattering portrayal of Jones. The episode left him angry with his treatment, and he left the Examiner, finally ending up in Washington, resuming a radio reporting career that began with a four-year stint at KCBS-FM in Sacramento, California.

Kinsolving has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

His reputation was damaged in 1977, when Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus reported that Kinsolving had accepted $2,500 worth of stock from a lobbyist to report favorably on South Africa, which was still under apartheid at the time. Kinsolving's State Department press credentials were revoked by the reporters' committee which issued them and a reprimand from the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which administers press credentials to the United States Congress. Kinsolving appealed the action to the United States Senate Rules Committee, and eventually won back his credentials.

In his early years in the Washington press corps, Kinsolving was well known for wearing his priest's collar to press conferences. Later on, he was famous for his bright red jacket.

Kinsolving has been an outspoken opponent of gay rights organizations — "the sodomy lobby," as he refers to them — mainly due to his religious beliefs. This may have led to a famous exchange in a 1982 White House press conference during the Reagan Administration, where Kinsolving asked Press Secretary Larry Speakes about the AIDS epidemic, then largely unknown in the United States. That exchange was telling in Speakes' somewhat comedic responses, which pointed out the administration’s ignorance of AIDS:

Les Kinsolving: Larry, does the president have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

Larry Speakes: What’s AIDS?

Kinsolving: Over a third of [the victims] have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (laughter) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the president is aware of it?

Speakes: I don’t have it. Do you? (laughter)

Kinsolving: No, I don’t.

Speakes: You didn’t answer my question.

Kinsolving: Well, I just wondered, does the president—

Speakes: How do you know? (laughter)

Kinsolving: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

Speakes: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.

Kinsolving: Does the president, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?

Speakes: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any—

Kinsolving: Nobody knows?

Speakes: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.

Kinsolving: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—

Speakes: I checked thoroughly with [Reagan’s personal physician] Dr. Ruge this morning, and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.

Though considered by most observers to be a political conservative, Kinsolving began his career in the 1960s as a liberal, and still holds many views considered to be left-wing; he is pro-choice and against the death penalty. On his show, Uninhibited Radio, Kinsolving often debates "The Berkeley Democrat" — his longtime wife, Sylvia.

After a verbal altercation with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on July 25, 2007, Kinsolving's publisher, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, wrote a harshly-worded column characterizing Snow's comments as "...a rebuke, and a threat, and an attempt to control Les Kinsolving and [WorldNetDaily]'s right to ask questions at the White House." Farah announced that Kinsolving would no longer be attending White House press briefings as a result. On Aug. 5, 2007, WND reported that after a "one-on-one conference" with Snow, Kinsolving agreed to return to the briefings.

Kinsolving has also appeared as an actor, playing the same role in two films: Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. In those films, he portrayed Confederate Gen. William Barksdale, Kinsolving's distant cousin.

External links

• LesKinsolving.com, official web site
• Kinsolving article archive at WorldNetDaily.com
• Baltimore City Paper, December 9, 2005: "Les is More"
• Jonestown Apologists Alert, the four part series of 1972 expose articles written by Kinsolving for the San Francisco Examiner