The Anatomy of a Smear: "Phony Soldiers" Is a Phony Story

Rush Limbaugh ^ | September 28, 2007 | Rush Limbaugh

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Headline: Congress praises virtual-combat vets. Out-of-body travel to fight, sees widespread Bush war crimes.

It's all the same say Democrats. Clinton Surgeon General Elders praises "safe combat" . . . .

[weegee]

At the time we sign this letter, 3,801 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq

Reid and Durbin have just lied. In using shortcut statements and the talking points of ANSWER, they have made the FALSE claim that 3,801 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

Let's break it down now, shall we?

I will not dispute the number of deaths, the are culled by the Left from the published reports circulated by the military (although the military makes no statements or tallies of how many died in which war).

(A) These deaths did not all occur in Iraq. The first casualties of the Iraq War were industrial/traffic accidents in Kuwait (on base and related to deployment).

Additionally there have been deaths that were tallied in Germany and elsewhere (the most extreme example being a woman who died while crossing the highway in Kansas).

So these are not all people who were "killed in Iraq".

Additionally we can break this number down between "died in Iraq" and "killed in Iraq". When a man dies of drowning while swimming in a non-search/resuce/mission incident (I seem to recall it was recreational), there is no KILLING involved. It like other accidents are ACCIDENTS. Like happen in America on base (especially with helicopters).

There are also people who died in Germany of heart attacks and pneumonia on that list. Unless the insurgents GAVE these men heart attacks and pneumonia, they did not KILL our troops.

The traitors on the Left are pushing enemy propaganda.

This does not lessen the sacrifice of our troops. I do want to point out that the anti-American War Left seem real focused on pushing up the numbers and stomping on the graves (with the Phelps(D) family being the most angry of Democrats protesting at the funerals of fallen soldiers).

[weegee]

Clear Channel has been gutting conservative talk radio in Houston for many years now.

They canned the hometown conservative staff and relocated some loudmouth hosts from across the country. People who were to cover local call in but had no clue as to local politics (in the midst of a mayoral election).

One host even said he wanted no more God talk on his station and no more boring talk of congressional bills.

Eventually having run 950AM into the ground (with some of the staff moved to 740AM “news-talk” radio) and the original staff at KSEV 700AM, they’ve finally moved in even more loud mouths onto 950AM (the type of hosts morning noon and night who have phony characters host or call into the shows). Jesse Jackson even has a midnight program on the 950AM schedule now.

Luckily we also have 1070AM giving us REAL conservative hosts/programming along with KSEV 700.

1430AM also has a local black conservative host. He’s been there for decades (KCOH is black owned and has been for over 50 years).

[weegee]

Keep reminding everyday Joes how stupid these extreme leftie liberal democrats are!

That would best be accomplished by pointing out the financial ties between the Communist party and these antiAmerican war groups. Point out how they were the first and have been among the most vocal of the antiwar movement. Just as they were in Vietnam. Just as they were in WWII (at least until Hitler betrayed Stalin).

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

When Kerry said that the troops are dumb, the media made it into a “botched joke”.
It was no botched joke. Kerry meant what he said, but the media gave him a free pass.
Obviously there will be no free pass for Limbaugh.

In case there is still 1 person left who doesn’t know:
the left records and monitors EVERY WORD spoken or written by their enemy, conservatives.
Then they pore over the words, looking for something to GET the conservative on.

It doesn’t have to be real, since they know that their friends in the media will treat it as real and blast it all over the airwaves.

[weegee]

Socialists and Stalinists lie too. Funny how that is...

[weegee]

The media doesn’t CARE if it is true. As the recent October Suprises (that were COORDINATED with the DNC) have shown us, a story has a lifecycle. Get the story out there. Keep telling that story for days even as other facts come to light. Eventually acknowledge the “controversy” or bury the traction on page 31b.

Some people will never see the retraction or hear of the outcome (show of hands, how many know the current state of Tom DeLay’s trial which saw him hounded from office?).

Disinformation rules the day. Put the talking points out there even you know the truth about what you are reporting. There is always time to issue a retraction “later” and in the case of an election, it can sway enough votes to change the course of history.

[kcvl]

It was all started by this LIAR:

Peter Rosenstein, Congressman Barney Frank, and David Brock at Bo Billups and David Brock’s Birthday Party.

DAVID BROCK, is an author and the founder of Media Matters for America (funded by George Soros). He was a conservative journalist during the 1990s.[1] During that time he was best known for his book The Real Anita Hill and authoring the Troopergate story, which led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against Bill Clinton. After declaring his homosexuality, he claimed that he became a liberal; he now works to dismantle what he refers to as the "the conservative media machine" of which he claims he was once a part. He tells his personal story in his memoir Blinded by the Right and describes how the "machine" operates in his book The Republican Noise Machine. His work on the latter book led him to found Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

MMFA employees have previously worked for the presidential campaigns of Democrats Al Gore, Sen. John Edwards, and Gen. Wesley Clark, the National Organization for Women, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Alliance for Justice, and Greenpeace. MMFA receives significant funding from pro-Democratic foundations.

Brock's Boyfriend: Andrew (at Berkeley, ex-, "blond blue-eyed dreamboat of the Brad Pitt variety")

[kcvl]

The Real David Brock

Christopher Hitchens

I have now been provoked by curiosity into reading Brock, and I would say without any hesitation that he is incapable of recognizing the truth, let alone of telling it.

The whole book is an exercise in self-love, disguised as an exercise in self-abnegation. How could he, asks the author of himself, have possibly gone on so long in telling lies, smearing reputations and inventing facts? The obvious answer—that he adored the easy money and the cheap fame that this brought him—was more than enough to still his doubts for several years. However, his publisher seems to have required a more high-toned explanation before furnishing him with a fresh tranche of money and renown. And Brock’s new story—that he was taken in by a vast right-wing conspiracy—is just as much of a lie as his earlier ones.

http://tinyurl.com/2yrrqe

[kcvl]

Truth Matters

Media Matters for America is a new website (mediamatters.org) “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation.” It’s been developed with the zillions of tax-deductible dollars that George Soros and others contributed to the leftist Center for American Progress. It’s run by a confessed liar, former conservative author David Brock, who has admitted that he knowingly lied in his book about Anita Hill, and has apologized for his reporting on Bill Clinton’s sexual misadventures.

So far the work from Media Matters isn’t very impressive. But what should we expect when the Left is put in charge of a quest for truth?

http://tinyurl.com/2djr3y

******

David Brock Is Buzzing Again
And the gadfly’s main target is Rush (and Bush, of course).

This article appears in the June 14, 2004, issue of National Review.

Susie Tompkins Buell was very, very impressed with David Brock. A California businesswoman who co-founded the fashion giant Esprit and went on to become a major donor to Democratic causes, Buell was in Washington last fall attending a meeting of friends and supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she met Brock, the self-described former “right-wing hit man.” Buell listened as Brock, now a defector to “progressive” causes, presented plans for Media Matters for America, his new Internet-based project to monitor and criticize conservative media. In a short time, she was sold.

“It just made so much sense to me,” Buell recalls. “All this garbage that’s coming out of the Right is like the worst contamination of this country. . . . He brought so much understanding of what goes on over there. He’s very articulate, and very, very bright.”

After Brock’s presentation, Buell introduced herself and offered to hold a fundraiser for him at her home in San Francisco. Brock accepted, and at that gathering Buell introduced him to other potential contributors, whose donations would become part of the more than $2 million Brock has so far raised for Media Matters.

Brock’s donors read like a Who’s Who of those who have financed the new, activist Left. Besides Buell and Hindery, donors to Media Matters include Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Corp., who has contributed more than $7 million to the 527s in partnership with his friend, the financier George Soros. There is Democratic activist Bren Simon, wife of shopping-mall tycoon Mel Simon, New York psychologist and donor Gail Furman, California philanthropist James Hormel, and others. Two anti-Bush organizations, the New Democratic Network and MoveOn.org, have also contributed to Brock’s project.

In addition to his donor list, Brock’s staff at times resembles that of a political campaign. In the group’s K Street offices, there are a number of veterans of Democratic causes. One Brock aide did opposition research for the recent presidential campaign of Sen. John Edwards; another did the same thing for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; yet another worked on the Wesley Clark presidential campaign; another worked for Massachusetts Democratic representative Barney Frank, and so on.

But since Media Matters has just been formed, it does not yet have the formal structure in place to accept tax-deductible donations, so, like other new charitable organizations, it has had to form a “fiscal sponsorship” relationship with an existing charity, which is already set up to accept such contributions. For that, Brock turned to the Tides Foundation, a wealthy but little-known institution that funds a variety of left-wing causes.

Timothy Noah, the liberal “Chatterbox” columnist for Slate, wrote that “Chatterbox yields to no one in his eagerness to believe the awful things Brock is now saying about himself and the conservative movement in America. But the more Brock insists that he has lied, and lied, and then lied again, the more one begins to suspect Brock of being, well, a liar.”

http://tinyurl.com/2ejlav

[kcvl]

From: Discover the Networks (see link below)

Standing behind Brock was John Podesta, a former chief of staff in the Clinton administration and the head of the “progressive” Washington, DC think tank, the Center for American Progress. In 2004 Podesta provided Brock with office space for his fledgling enterprise. Soon after, Media Matters received over $2 million in seed donations from a roster of affluent donors including Leo Hindery Jr., a former cable magnate; Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the fashion company Esprit and a close ally of Senator Hillary Clinton; James Hormel, a San Francisco philanthropist who nearly served as ambassador to Luxembourg during the Clinton administration; Bren Simon, a Democratic activist and the wife of shopping-mall developer Mel Simon; and New York psychologist and philanthropist Gail Furman. Media Matters, which can accept tax-deductible contributions under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, has also benefited from the patronage of Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Corporation and a longtime consort of leftist financier George Soros.

Media Matters has not always been forthcoming about its high-profile backers. In particular, the group has long labored to obscure any financial ties to George Soros. But in March 2003, the Cybercast News Service (CNS) detailed the copious links between Media Matters and several Soros “affiliates”—among them MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and Peter Lewis. Confronted with this story, a spokesman for the organization explained that “Media Matters for America has never received funding directly from George Soros” (emphasis added), a transparent evasion.

Nor were groups cited by CNS the only connection between Media Matters and Soros. As investigative journalist Byron York has noted, another Soros affiliate that bankrolled Media Matters was the New Democratic Network. In addition, Soros is reported to be involved in the newly formed Democracy Alliance, a partnership of some 80 affluent financiers who each have vowed to contribute $1 million or more in order to build up an ideological infrastructure of leftist thinks tanks and advocacy groups. News reports list Media Matters as a main beneficiary of the Alliance’s funding. By August of 2004, Media Matters’ operating budget had already doubled to $4 million.

To summarize, Soros and his Open Society Institute pour millions of dollars into the coffers of MoveOn, the Center for American Progress, and Democracy Alliance. In turn, these organizations funnel some of that money to Media Matters.

Prior to founding Media Matters, David Brock met with a number of leading Democratic Party figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and former Vice President Al Gore. Today, more than a few of the organization’s roughly 30 staff members are Democratic operatives. Among these are Media Matters’ chief communications strategist Dennis Yedwab, who is also the Director of Strategic Resources at Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Brock’s personal assistant, Mandy Vlasz, is a Democratic pollster and a veteran consultant to Democratic campaigns, including the 2000 Gore/Lieberman campaign. Katie Barge, the Director of Research at Media Matters, formerly presided over opposition research for Senator John Edwards’ unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign.

In 2004 Media Matters reported that its website had elicited some 150,000 comments in its discussion forums and that over 22,000 subscribers had registered to receive its e-mail alerts. Brock has also become a regular feature on leftist radio stations like Air America.

A notable figure at Media Matters is senior fellow Eric Boehlert, who was among the most passionate defenders of University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian after the latter was accused of having been the North American leader of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In an article titled “The Prime-time Smearing of Sami Al-Arian,” Boehlert charged that: “In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, all four media giants, eagerly tapping into the country’s mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home.”

Media Matters’ Senior Advisor Jamison Foser wrote on May 26, 2006: “The defining issue of our time is the media. ... The dominant political force of our time is the media. Time after time, the news media have covered progressives and conservatives in wildly different ways — and, time after time, they do so to the benefit of conservatives.”

Media Matters’ Editorial Director is Marcia B. Kuntz, who formerly headed the Judicial Selection Project of Alliance for Justice.

In September 2006, Media Matters became the sponsor of Eric Alterman’s media, politics, and culture blog, Altercation.

In June 2007, Media Matters released a report titled The Progressive Majority: Why A Conservative America Is a Myth. According to this study, the “conventional wisdom” which “says that the American public is fundamentally conservative,” is “fundamentally false.” “Americans are progressive across a wide range of controversial issues, and they’re growing more progressive all the time,” the researchers conclude. The report examines public attitudes regarding the economy, social issues, national security, the environment, energy, health care, and the proper role of government.

Media Matters (which in 2005 pulled in contributions, gifts and grants totaling approximately $8.5 million) receives financial support from the Tides Foundation, the Arca Foundation, the Peninsula Community Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation.

http://tinyurl.com/39ywpr

[kcvl]

“Soros says be patient”:

April 20, 2005

George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks.

The Scottsdale, Ariz., meeting, called to start the process of building an ideas production line for liberal politicians, began what organizers hope will be a long dialogue with the “partners,” many from the high-tech industry. Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.

Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists...

Senior Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials were quietly briefed about the meeting in recent weeks. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was aware of it...

...Sarah Ingersoll, de facto spokeswoman for Stein’s Democracy Alliance...

The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse and is expected to channel much of its money to new organizations and existing ones such as John Podesta’s Center for American Progress and David Brock’s Media Matters for America...

Other participants included former White House press secretary Mike McCurry and New Democrat Network president Simon Rosenberg. Andy Rappaport, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and reliable investor in liberal causes, did not attend the meeting, his spokeswomen said...

[pillut48]

Oh, PLEASE let them subpoena Rush!!! I would pay good money
to see that on C-Span!!! Or Pay-Per-View!!! :-)