Is Media Matters raising the white flag in its war with Fox
News?
That this much-ballyhooed book from David Brock and his
leftist Media Matters scribblers is such a grade-school style
cut-and-paste leaves the distinct impression.
Boy those Media Matters guys were going to really show Fox
News. One reads all this great
reporting from the Daily Caller and it
becomes clear that when the call goes up for a shot and a beer the
shot in question at the Media Matters offices must be for
rabies.
All this writing and moaning and obsessing about Fox News
— and this is the result?
Aside from boasting about wanting to hire private
investigators, there was this line the Daily Caller
revealed from a Media Matters memo:
“[W]e should write a book under David’s name that savages
Fox News and Fox News employees. The market for this is likely
huge.”
Doubtless that may be true — huge with the 20% crowd that
routinely self-identifies as liberal. But for anybody
else?
This book is nothing but what used to be called a
cut-and-paste job. Old news and older news repackaged and marketed
as some inside scoop. Oh sure, they name names. Have
you ever heard of Sean Hannity? Did you know he’s a conservative?
You will now. And Roger Ailes — he whose name is in the book’s
subtitle: “How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda
Machine.” That Roger Ailes? Well, there’s artfully arranged
stories taken from the anti-Ailes gang over there at Rolling
Stone or here and over there. The man defended the honor of
Christmas at his son’s school. Ohhhhhhhhhhh the
humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And so on and so on, right on through
Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Megyn Kelly…
yada yada yada.
Thanks to the Daily Caller we now know that when
Brock cites ex-Obama White House aide Anita Dunn, as he does in
this pitiful little book, Dunn is a “regular presence” in the Media
Matters office. We know when Brock approvingly cites the
Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, although Brock certainly
isn’t about to report the fact, that MM used Sargent because “If
you can’t get it [a story placed] anywhere else, Greg Sargent’s
always game.” We know when he
cites then-Politico reporter Ben Smith (who has since
left Politico) it may have something to do with the fact
that, as the DC alleges, Smith deliberately withheld
negative information in a story about Media Matters.
So. In short? Nothing new in Brock’s book, much less
scurrilous.
Unless, of course, you are David Brock and the Media
Matters gang.
And in the end? The closer that can only mean they have
real need to drink something over at Media Matters? Writes
a frustrated Brock of his repeatedly futile efforts to harpoon his
whale:
Most problematic, once these lies take hold, no amount of
fact-checking by Media Matters or websites such as PolitiFact or
Factcheck.org will ever convince the segment of the population that
is predisposed to believe them…. There is simply nothing comparable
on the left.
Oh damn!
Aside from the admission of defeat, this last business is
also, surprise, yet another left-wing untruth. Nothing comparable?
Really? How about the New York Times, the
Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and more
Mainstream Liberal Media outlets pumping out liberal propaganda
hourly, daily, yearly? The only reason Fox News exists is that
truth long ago departed from these precincts.
And people like David Brock and his friends
are furious they’ve lost their monopoly.
Lost it to Roger Ailes.
And people like Sean Hannity.
Oh… excuse me… you know who Sean Hannity is,
right?
I thought so. And in a nutshell, that’s what drives Media
Matters crazy. And to an exercise in cutting and
pasting.
