An affiliate of the George Soros-funded think tank and pressure
group, Center for
American Progress (CAP), is now in the media-bias analysis
business.
Claiming to be outraged at the aggressive news-gathering
techniques of Bill O'Reilly's team, the Center for American
Progress Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization that
grew out of CAP, rejoiced Friday after getting UPS to stop
advertising on "The O'Reilly Factor." The Fund released this
statement on its Think Progress website:
In response to our Stop
Supporting The O'Reilly Harassment Machine campaign, UPS
told us yesterday that it was investigating whether to continue
supporting O'Reilly's show. "We are sensitive to the type of
television programming where our messages and presence are
associated and continually review choices to affect future
decisions," spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg told us.
Today UPS announced it will stop advertising on O'Reilly's
show. Here is the statement UPS emailed out just moments ago:
Thank you for sending an e-mail expressing concern about UPS
advertising during the Bill O'Reilly show on FOX News. We do
consider such comments as we review ad placement decisions
which involve a variety of news, entertainment and sports
programming. At this time, we have no plans to continue
advertising during this show. [emphasis
in thinkprogress.org post]
Meanwhile, the great Noel Sheppard of
NewsBusters noted a few hours ago that chest-beating leftist
tool Keith Olbermann of MSNBC hyped the UPS-dumps-O'Reilly
story.
I regret I missed this anti-Bill O'Reilly campaign until it
struck gold. The campaign also claims to have elicited
responses from Capital One, AT&T, and Ford.
I've never been a fan of ambush-style interviews but as any
journalist worth his or her salt can tell you sometimes in the
news-gathering process the approach is justified as a last
resort. Surely nothing the O'Reilly team has done is any worse
than anything done by myriad leftist commentators such as
Michael Moore and journalists such as the obnoxious
performance artist Max Blumenthal,
Geraldo Rivera, and the team at "60 Minutes."
The whole campaign by the CAP Action Fund is a cheap
piece of political theater calculated to hurt the
revenues of a prominent right-leaning TV commentator perhaps
with the ultimate goal of removing him from the
airwaves.
Incidentally, CAP is funded by Soros's Democracy
Alliance, a billionaire's club that is funding a drive to
turn America into a European-style socialist country.
CAP, run by Clinton White House chief of staff John
Podesta, is an extremely well-funded machine that has
aspirations of becoming a "Heritage Foundation" of the left.
(Perhaps aspirations is the wrong word. It has already
become a formidable force.) It has an approximately $25 million
annual budget and took in $64,681,960 in donations from 2003
through 2006, according to its tax returns.
The 501(c)(4) CAP Action Fund may be legally separate from CAP, a
501(c)(3), but both have roughly the same goals: pushing liberal,
Big Government policies.
CAP funds the CAP Action Fund directly. It gave $1,796,235 in
"grants" to the CAP Action Fund in 2007 alone, according to the
CAP 2007 tax return.
Podesta is president and CEO of CAP
and president and CEO of
CAP Action Fund.
(modified from a post at the
Capital Research Center blog)
