October 02, 2007
Media Matters Targets Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Coulter
Liberal Jihadis Lie To Attack Conservatives
Media Matters for America, the Democratic National Committee’s “goon squad” of liberal activists that bludgeons any journalist or media figure reporting a story or expressing an opinion critical of Democrats moved into high gear recently with smear campaigns against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, talk radio superstar Rush Limbaugh and conservative writer Ann Coulter. The playbook calls for taking a statement out of context and creating a phony controversy that their liberal allies of the Old Media accept at face value and parrot to unsuspecting news consumers.
Senate Democrats eagerly swallowed Media Matters’ phony claims about Limbaugh’s “phony soldier” comments. The fraudsters of the Hillary-Clinton-founded-George-Soros-funded “untruth squad” purposely mischaracterized Limbaugh’s discussion with a caller about Jesse Macbeth, a disturbed liar convicted for fraudulent John Kerryesque claims about U. S. troops committing war crimes in Iraq, in order to help Democrats gain back some ground lost as a result of the “General Betray-us” debacle.
I describe my own experience with Media Matters in my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”. Media Matters generated the “Gannongate” controversy by attacking me for asking a single question to President Bush that criticized Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid and initiated the hateful smear campaign against me that soon followed.
From the chapter titled “Gannongate”:
The “scandal” that came to be known as “Gannongate” began because I violated the first rule of the White House press corps and liberals in general that required all reporters’ questions to a Republican president to be hostile, accusatory and based on Democratic talking points. When Rush Limbaugh singled me out for praise, he also focused the attention of his critics on me. Millions of Limbaugh’s admirers listened to his daily three-hour broadcasts, but some of his detractors heard the program as well. A liberal “media watchdog” group, Media Matters for America, swung into action when Limbaugh correctly claimed to have been the original source of the phrase “soup lines” contained in “The Question.”
Limbaugh’s considerable influence as the most prominent host in conservative-dominated talk radio made him a natural target of liberal groups like Media Matters. The organization articulated a mission to “monitor, analyze and correct, conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Its large research team and a network of liberal activists across the country watched newscasts to detect “conservative bias.”
After identifying what it considered conservative misinformation, Media Matters waged aggressive and shrill campaigns against programs, hosts and newscasters that allegedly transmitted it. Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly, a frequent Media Matters target, referred to the group as “hired guns,” “paid assassins,” “smear merchants,” and “despicable, vile ankle biters.” My experience with Media Matters validated those characterizations.
What mattered about Media Matters?
Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, who also started the liberal “think tank,” Center for American Progress, helped found Media Matters for America. The staff consisted of political operatives from various Democratic campaigns as well as the Democratic National Committee. David Brock, a former self-described “right-wing hit man,” headed up the group. Brock went over to the “dark side” in 1996, shortly after he realized his homosexuality and adopted the political philosophy of a “classic liberal.”
A long list of leftist sponsors, including Progressive Insurance founder Peter Lewis and convicted insider trader George Soros, funneled financial support to Media Matters through various liberal organizations. Two anti-Bush groups, the New Democratic Network and MoveOn.org, pitched in as well.
Before Limbaugh’s broadcast that highlighted “The Question” ended, Media Matters posted an article on its website attacking my question and me. The group cast doubt on the legitimacy of Talon News because someone identified as a Republican owned and operated it. Media Matters accused Talon News of being an arm of the Republican Party, an ironic accusation coming from a collection of Democratic campaign refugees.
Media Matters criticized my question to the President as “erroneous,” but the underlying objection had nothing to do with accuracy. The crisis for the liberal group concerned a conservative reporter’s ability to scale the ideological fence that surrounded the White House press corps. Media Matters immediately launched into attack mode, which I quickly learned meant first trying to discredit
my reporting and the news service I worked for, then to discredit me personally.
The group’s first article included information about my weekly webcast talk show on Rightalk.com and my news commentary and analysis website that emphasized my strong conservative political perspective. Media Matters also regurgitated the characterizations of me as “softball-tosser” made by Washington Post liberal columnist Dan Froomkin.
Interestingly, Media Matters research director Katie Barge, one of the authors of the original attack on me would later be fired from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for her involvement in the criminal identity theft perpetrated against Maryland Republican Senatorial candidate Michael Steele in 2005. Barge and a co-worker reached plea deals to avoid prosecution for illegally accessing Steele’s credit report.
The following day, Media Matters researchers monitored my webcast talk show. I discussed the presidential press conference and the fact that my colleagues seemed to ask questions of the podium read from Democratic National Committee talking points. The group countered with an analysis of a few of my articles that extensively quoted White House press information and accused me of hypocrisy.
Subsequently, Media Matters questioned my right to have press credentials, despite the fact that at the time Talon News had nearly 700,000 daily subscribers, larger than the circulation of most newspapers. The group continued to focus on the background of the owner, reporters and board of directors of Talon News, insinuating that because all of them had partisan ties, the organization constituted “more of a political organization than a media outlet.”
Brock and his band of character assassins were hypocritically disinterested in the incestuous relationship between the Democratic Party with which they had been allied and the Old Media. Previously, Media Matters vigorously defended Dan Rather and his fraudulent story based on forged documents about President Bush’s military service. The group also disparaged journalists and news outlets that questioned the authenticity of the phony papers and then criticized the motives of some of the key figures reporting the story.
At the beginning of the next week, Media Matters sent a letter to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan requesting that he revoke my press credentials. Brock asserted that Talon News failed to qualify as a legitimate news reporting entity. The letter insultingly accused McClellan of using me as a “useful lifeline for you to rely on when you get in trouble.” Brock additionally suggested that I acted as an “agent of the White House” and referred to me as a “fake journalist” who posed questions “staged beforehand.” Although patently false, those characterizations served as the template for how the press portrayed me.
At the same time, Media Matters distributed a press release announcing the letter to McClellan. Never before had any group made a demand to have a journalist removed from the White House press corps.