I think WND has already won that contest hands down. Debka isn't so much "goofball", but rather has an editorial policy of publishing any remotely plausible rumor concerning its area of interest, just in case it turns out to be true. Possibly this is due a genuinely goofy desire to be able to claim they were "first" to break significant stories (hardly a significant accomplishment, since anybody who matters knows that a story's appearance in Debka is not an indication that it's likely to be true, and that when the occasionally manage a scoop it's no more remarkable than a stopped clock being right twice a day). But I suspect Debka actually has a more strategic plan, namely to flush out information about the possible validity of specific intelligence tips, by generating a lot of Internet chatter on the precise topic. And given the part of the world Debka focuses on, "remotely plausible" covers a whole lot of ground. If I read a story about public pre-schools in the U.S. having kids dress up as suicide bombers and receive serious instruction on how to become real ones, I'd immediately dismiss it as tin-foil hat nonsense. But in the Middle East, that's documented reality, so what counts as borderline plausible includes some pretty wild tales.
I tend to concur with your observations.