The American Spectator

That the George Soros-funded “Center for Public Integrity” is in the pocket of the far-precincts of the American Left, there can be no doubt.

In addition to taking $651,650 from the Soros “Open Society Institute” (in 2009 as reported at Fox News.com by the Media Research Center’s Dan Gainor) the CPI has other far-left partnerships. It has jumped into content-sharing deals with the left-wing Newsweek and the Daily Beast as well as “revenue generating partnerships” with the far left MSNBC and the owner of something called Dan Rather Reports. Yes indeed, that Dan Rather. (The latter two deals are extolled in this CPI video, which also boasts of having its content favorably promoted by the hard core leftists over at the Daily Kos.)

No surprise for a group whose board currently includes Arianna Huffington, ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, and Ellen McPeake, the latter the former chief operating officer of Greenpeace. Not a conservative in the bunch.

Not a problem, of course, if one advertises that one is a liberally-funded liberal special interest group specializing in investigating conservatives. No one at the Nation claims to be non-partisan. CPI just boldly lies, saying it is an “independent…. nonpartisan investigative journalism organization.” It’s left to the Media Research Center and Fox News to mention that, oh, by the way, CPI took $651,650 in Soros money just in 2009 alone.

And in the case at issue, the variation of this liberal media game involves Liberal Media Outlet “A” serving as a revolving door for a liberal journalist involved with Liberal Media Outlet “B.”That would be one-time CPI senior associate Kenneth P. Vogel, who has been magically transformed from Soros-acolyte into a “reporter” for Politico stories that reek of the let’s-pretend-to-be-objective style of the New York Times editor Bill Keller (“we do not go into a story with an agenda or a pre-conceived notion”). All are just interested in is a Jack Webb-style just- the-facts-ma’am approach to politics. Really. Honest. Cross their hearts and hope to love Sarah Palin.

Mr. Vogel and his leftward political slant have come to light recently (here, here, and here) in what has been exposed as Politico’s fake-scandal story on talk radio.

But a closer look at Vogel shows the old media game of pretend-objectivity is still alive and well in the new Internet medium, this time with Politico. Vogel’s liberal passport into Politico, a newsroom swarming with veterans of liberal media outlets from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times to USA Today to CBS, was doubtless stamped in his time working as a senior associate for the Soros-funded CPI.

Soros-funded groups are well on record, specifying their horror that Rush Limbaugh “the top host, is broadcast a total of 440 hours each weekday… more than nine times as much airtime as his nearest progressive competitor.” And who can doubt Soros, who can’t stand Fox either, was furious with Sean Hannity because Hannity did precisely what CPI would never have the guts to do…as seen here. Not to mention this from Mark Levin on Soros.

But there’s more here to the CPI/Vogel/Politico connection than the talk radio story. What is one of the big concerns at the Soros-funded CPI? Why, zapping the conservative Koch brothers, of course.

Story after story has poured forth from the Soros-fueled CPI digging into those fiendish Kochs. There’s this one (the fiendish Kochs and oil power), and this one over here (the fiendish Kochs and their fiendish web of influence) and that one (the fiendish Kochs are fiendishly staffing Congress with Koch staffers) and don’t forget that one over there (the fine film that exposes the fiendish Kochs entirely). All this liberal propaganda injected into the din that is liberal media background noise through this or that liberal media “partnerships” — some of which are quite visible and announced, some of which are quite invisible and propagated with the old liberal wink-and-a-nod.

You get the point.

Out of this Soros-funded CPI world of nobody-here-but-us-non-partisan Koch-watching folk, Kenneth Vogel passed through the liberal journalist revolving door to Politico. Where, can you believe the coincidence, he began writing about — can you guess? Yes!Those fiendish Brothers Koch!

So now, very quietly, the CPI Soros-funded agenda has popped up at Politico. There’s this one (fiendish Koch Brothers raise $88 million), and that one (which begins… really… with this sentence: “Faced with an avalanche of bad publicity after years of funding conservative causes in relative anonymity, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, Charles and David, are fighting back.” There was no word as to who was publishing this “avalanche of bad publicity.”) And let’s not forget this one over there (the hellish battle to define the fiendish Koch Brothers) and that one way, way over there (OMG! The fiendish Kochs have their own Darth Vader — and he’s, gasp! — a Democrat!)

Did I forget the Politico stories (here and here) attacking conservative activist Ginni Thomas, her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and fellow Justice Antonin Scalia? For some allegedly and surely quite dastardly connection to — oh nooooooooooooooooo! — the Kochs?

And what do all of these Politico stories have in common? That’s right: the byline is ex-CPI senior associate Kenneth P. Vogel.

This even drew a fiendish response to Politico from the fiendish Koch’s Darth Vader, with Mr. Vader (otherwise known as Philip Ellender) indelicately pointing out the Soros-CPI-Vogel connection. Somehow it seemed to mysteriously get lost in the liberal media ether. It seems not to have popped up at Politico for readers to see, either. Perhaps that’s because the response actually drew attention to Vogel’s pedigree at CPI.

One could go on. And on. But there’s a point here.

Politico seems to be following the Old Media model of pretending to objectivity when in reality it is anything but. To criticize Ginni Thomas because “she suggested listening to conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin instead” of the liberal media is a dead giveaway as to what really is afoot in the Politico editorial suites.

Not to mention the absence of serious similar work on Soros or liberal Supreme Court Justices makes it seem this relatively new Internet venture has evolved into just one more liberal media sham.

What’s coming clear at Politico (or should it be called Leftico?) is that it is really all about the liberal agenda. Or, as it is at CPI, the Soros agenda. Just once removed to make it respectable.

That’s why, when Kenneth Vogel arrived at the Politico employment office with his liberal passport stamped “Center for Public Integrity” — apparently no one laughed.

Much less just said no.