PrintOctober 21, 2009
Media Matters & President Obama in Lockstep
Revival of right-wing conspiracy charges are all the rage in the age of Obama, but liberals are just playing the same old shell game. The real action is on the left, with lockstep collusion by the President with Soros-funded Media Matters.
While the President sends his surrogates onto national network programs to decry Fox News, Media Matters is behind the scenes working its Fight Fox campaign.
Media Matters' president, Eric Burns, sent out the Fight Fox campaign announcement to supporters on September 17 and explained why Fox had to be driven out of the national political conversation
Translation: Fox is a thorn in the side of the Chavez-minded leftists.
"Since President Obama's inauguration, Fox News has officially abandoned its already dubious standing as a news organization and is now engaging in outright political activism, completing its transition into the 24/7 media wing of the far-right conservative movement."
Translation: Fox doesn't' kiss the hand of Obama.
This Media Matters Fight Fox campaign shines new light on the President's malicious joking at the White House Correspondents dinner, in which he acknowledged that all of those in the room had voted for him (a line which drew raucous, pitifully biased applause and catcalls), adding this tacky jab, "Apologies to the Fox table."
Now, if you happened to see Anita Dunn, White House Communications director, on CNN's October 9 appearance in which she called Fox News "a wing of the Republican Party," you might have surmised that substantial coordination was occurring between the White House and Media Matters. Dunn's salvo at Fox was indeed no unintended statement of her personal opinion but is now the policy of the White House Communications office.
A week later, both Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod continued the President's attacks on Fox News in their guest appearances on network news shows. Emmanuel said, regarding Fox News, "It is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." Appearing on ABC, David Axelrod had this to say: "Fox shouldn't be treated as a news organization. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way."
Perhaps the President and his minions at Media Matters need a refresher on Journalism 101.
Of course, anyone who has graduated from high school ought to know that there is straight news reporting journalism and then there's opinion/perspective journalism. All news channels -- including Fox -- produce both kinds of journalism and even a ninth grader ought to be able to distinguish between the two.
How much are those Ivy League degrees in poppycock going for these days?
Now, one would indeed need to be living in a Siberian outpost not to understand what's behind this sudden, concerted attack on conservative journalism (targeted for now at Rush Limbaugh and Fox News). It's a simple all-American peculiarity. It's called competitive SUCCESS.
Fox and conservative talk radio are the balance in the media sphere. As the only outlets where a conservative opinion can be given a fair hearing, they serve as the balance required by a robust democracy. By serving as the only alternative to all-Obama-all-the-time-great-and-wonderful coverage, Fox is delivering a real service that is being supported by millions of astute American viewers. It's a very successful competitive enterprise.
The President has a whole slew of empty-headed mouthpieces in all the other media outlets. They stoke his flames 24/7. They cover for him on stories that are unflattering. Why, one network even did a fact-check segment on a barely bothersome Saturday Night Live comedy sketch that poked some fun at the President's utter failure to actually accomplish a single thing since taking office. So, in three corners of the ring, President Obama has a lapdog "press" willing to lick his hand and curl up at his feet for the simple pleasure of his beneficent companionship.
This president resembles his south-of-the-border ideological counterpart, Chavez, every single day.
In the single outlying corner of the ring, the President actually has to earn his accolades and explain his policies and answer a few tough questions. In our coddled President's imagination, this is quite beneath him. So, when Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio commentators bring unpleasant-for-the-president matters to the fore and umpteen million Americans are listening, it's a problem. When Fox News reports the stories ignored by other outlets, out of misplaced fidelity to the President they all sponsored, then Fox is tarnished with the label "not a real news organization."
Media Matters is doing the behind-the-scenes work too dirty for the President's own hands. A small group of far-left 527s are working in concert, ginning up the propaganda machines against Fox and disseminating boycott information on Fox News sponsors. Media Matters pays scores of interns to listen and "report" on all major conservative media personalities. These interns then manipulate the spoken words to fit their own leftist message and spit it back out to subscribers in a propagandized version, which smears and slanders the speakers.
Here's my big question: If a Republican President were acting in lockstep with a billionaire-financed 527 group in the rhetorical assassination of independent media organizations and individuals, wouldn't this be really hard-news news?
You betcha, it would.
So what we have here just might be bigger even than a vast left-wing conspiracy. It might actually be a President's bullhorn announcement that the end of free speech and a fully state-operated fourth estate (i.e., Pravda) is in the offing.
Now, who is shredding the Constitution for real?
Honestly, our founders are not merely turning in their graves over this. They're huddled in heaven screaming like banshees at the top of their lungs: "Americans, take back your Country now! Before it's too late."
CORRECTION: This column originally included an incorrect reference to Eric Burns, Media Matters President, as being the same man who was a Fox News program host for ten years. Due entirely to my own negligence, these two men with the same name, were assumed to be the same. They are not. As far as I now know, Eric Burns, formerly with Fox News has nothing whatsoever to do with Media Matters in any capacity. My sincere apologies for this bubble-brained, absolutely stupid, inexcusable error. Of course, I should be flogged in the public square, but am hoping this dramatic mea culpa will suffice. Kyle-Anne ShiverKyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and a syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. She blogs when she has a mind to at kyleanneshiver.com.
