AIM Report: How Hillary’s Hit Man Got Imus - May A
AIM Report | May 4, 2007
It is highly ironic, however, that Olbermann, who smears people by labeling them as “The Worst” in the world on a nightly basis, should stay on the air in the wake of the Imus firing.
Do you think something is fishy about the Don Imus affair? Why was the boom lowered on him at this time? The answer may have something to do with his main accuser, the Media Matters group, which is emerging as a front organization for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and has extensive ties to the national Democratic Party. In firing Imus, NBC News and CBS got rid of one of Hillary's major political enemies in the media.
Glenn Thrush of Newsday wrote a revealing September 7, 2006, article about the relationship between Senator Clinton and David Brock, the former conservative who runs Media Matters. Calling it the "Clinton-Brock alliance," Thrush revealed that Hillary "advised Brock on creating the group" and "chats with him occasionally and thinks he provides a valuable service…" Thrush added, "For her part, Clinton's extended family of contributors, consultants and friends has played a pivotal role in helping Media Matters grow from a $3.5 million start-up in 2004 to its current $8.5 million budget."
Another key funding source for Media Matters (and much of the left-wing movement in this country) is George Soros, the billionaire financial speculator who profits at the expense and decay of Western civilization. His causes include legalization of marijuana and other drugs, gun control, abortion rights, gay rights, rights for felons, opposition to the death penalty, rights for illegal immigrants, and euthanasia. On foreign affairs, Soros, a big backer of the United Nations, is associated with opposition to the U.S. policy of resisting the rise of radical and anti-American Islamic groups and states. He spent $26 million in 2004 trying to defeat President Bush.
Media Matters receives Soros money through the Democracy Alliance, a group of wealthy "progressive" donors that was the subject of rumors in the left-wing press that it was a front group for Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign.
The Inside Story
By now, everyone knows the basic story of Don Imus. A shock jock who had been saying shocking things on his radio/TV show for years, said some more shocking things and got fired. But why was he singled out for firing after all these years of saying shocking things? Some are saying that it had something to do with his latest victims, the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team. The rationale is that insulting this particular group of people was somehow over the line, as compared with all of his other jokes, insults and putdowns. But that argument isn't very convincing. There is something else to this story.
As Newsday's Thrush indicated, Media Matters, the organization that initially taped and distributed Imus's racist remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, has extremely close ties to Hillary. Media Matters had been after Imus for months because of his treatment of Hillary, noting as far back as May 2006 that he had referred to her as "Satan" and a "witch." Media Matters called this attempted humor a "smear" and urged its followers to contact MSNBC and "take action" and protest.
It didn't matter that Imus specialized in insults that were laughed at or dismissed by most people, including his victims. In the Media Matters world, where Hillary rules, you are not supposed to say anything seriously or comically critical of the former First Lady.
While NBC News is claiming that black news personnel played a critical role in getting Imus fired, and that network executives responded to them with interest and sensitivity, it was a white liberal, Keith Olbermann, who boasted on his own MSNBC "Countdown" show on April 11 that he told his bosses "behind the scenes" that a decision to remove Imus "had to be made." Olbermann is a Clinton sycophant who specializes in attacking others who are perceived to be too tough on the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, and other Democrats. But he has some leverage at the network, based on having recently signed a new four-year contract.
The New Targets
It was during this program, while interviewing Jesse Jackson, that Olbermann provided a new list of targets. He told Jackson that "Don Imus was not alone among those who have made remarks like this. Let me go through a few names and then ask you a question in terms of momentum, in terms of fairness." He then cited:
"Comments by people like Rush Limbaugh, who calls Senator Barack Obama and actress Halle Berry, quote, 'halfrican-Americans.' Michael Savage, who asked whether the Voting Rights Act, intended to counteract racial discrimination at the ballot box, was trying to, quote, 'put a chad in every crack house.' There's Neil Boortz, the other radio talker, who said the black congressman Cynthia McKinney looked, quote, 'like a ghetto slut.' Glenn Beck from CNN and ABC, who referred to the largely African-American survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans as, quote, 'scumbags,' and who, when he interviewed the Black Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, from Minnesota, said he felt like saying to him, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' Where is the protest, where have you been, why are there not efforts to remove them from the air for these things?"
In response, Jackson agreed that "The air is toxic" and said that "The momentum to detoxify the airwaves to create a higher decency standard for our children, must apply across the board."
The same day, April 11, Al Franken, who is running for the Senate in Minnesota as a Democrat, was on CNN's Larry King Live, endorsing the firing of Imus and asking CNN to fire Glenn Beck for questioning the loyalty to the U.S. of Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison. Franken went on to say, "And I hear this kind of thing a lot of time. I monitored a lot of right-wing radio when I was doing my show and before it. And I've heard Rush Limbaugh say things that are worse than this."
The next day, Media Matters was out with a list of targets and alleged bigoted and sexist quotes, citing the names on Olbermann's list and adding Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson, now on MSNBC. The Free Press, the George Soros-funded group behind the "National Conference on Media Reform," issued an "action alert" declaring that "getting rid of Imus won't fix the media problem," that Imus was "just the tip of the iceberg," and that "Scores of other TV and radio hosts regularly make racist and sexist comments." The liberal Huffington Post website followed with a front-page story that accused O'Reilly and Limbaugh of making disparaging comments about minorities.
Mouthpiece For The Censors
It is highly ironic, however, that Olbermann, who smears people by labeling them as "The Worst" in the world on a nightly basis, should stay on the air in the wake of the Imus firing. I was labeled a "Worst Person in the World" for drawing attention to Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Joseph Biden's racist comments about Senator Barack Obama. In attacking me, Olbermann falsely claimed that Bush had made similar remarks. The former sportscaster can claim he's just joking when he identifies someone as "The Worst Person in the World," but Imus said that he was joking, too. Olbermann's approach is mean-spirited, amateurish and beneath the dignity of a serious news operation.
Not surprisingly, Media Matters has a direct pipeline into Olbermann's program. Media Matters President and CEO David Brock has appeared on Olbermann's show, and Olbermann makes use of Media Matters material. Media Matters, in turn, highlights his attacks on conservatives.
But you don't have to be a conservative to come under attack by the Olbermann/Media Matters axis. A recent and amusing example is their coordinated attack on Karen Tumulty of Time magazine for writing a piece about Hillary's political exploitation of the Imus controversy. For daring to suggest that the former First Lady might be using the incident for fundraising purposes, Tumulty was given a "bronze" medal in the "Worst Person In the World" segment.
The working relationship between Olbermann and this left-wing pressure group not only puts in question the "independence" of MSNBC in the Imus matter but the ability of Olbermann and his producers to come up with original and fresh material. Of course, NBC News correspondent Dennis Murphy didn't mention any of this in his "inside story" about Imus's downfall. What a convenient and interesting omission.
A Troubled Childhood
Brock's 2002 book, Blinded by the Right, is quite extraordinary in that it begins with a prologue admitting that the author was responsible for telling "lies" and ruining reputations. Assuming some parts of the book are true, at least those concerning Brock personally, it describes a young man struggling with an immoral lifestyle. Writing about college, for example, he says, "With some hesitation, during my freshman year, I went on uneasy dates and had hurried sexual encounters with other guys in neighboring dorms." Later, he writes that he would go "out to bars looking for one-night hookups with some frequency, always by myself, very late at night, with few knowing, and no one caring, who I was."
Today, out of the closet and a certified "progressive" activist with money from the Clinton machine, George Soros, and other big-name liberals, some people know who Brock is because his group has emerged as the moral arbiter, along with Al Sharpton, of what should or should not be said on the airwaves. It would be laughable were it not so serious for the future of freedom of speech and broadcasting in this country.
AIM editor Cliff Kincaid's only encounter with Brock came when he was a conservative and wanted help with an article he was writing about the left-wing Christic Institute. Kincaid had researched the organization extensively and had debated its leader on C-SPAN. He provided much of his research to Brock, who came into his office on the condition that he credit Kincaid in his piece. He did not.
Years later, when he became an ex-conservative, his Media Matters group published an item falsely implying that Kincaid had fabricated a letter from the Afghan Ambassador. The Brock group rushed into print with this defamatory item without checking the facts beforehand. Then it refused to retract or apologize after being caught. Like Brock, the organization can't be trusted to say or do what is right.
The Soros Connection
In the same vein, the organization tries to mislead and confuse people about its connection to George Soros, the left-wing billionaire convicted of inside trading in France, and who finances the ACLU, the Drug Policy Alliance, and other such groups. Although Media Matters receives funding from the so-called Democracy Alliance, which is funded by George Soros, it falsely claims that it has "never received funding" from him. It had previously denied receiving funding "directly" from him. The group defends Soros, describing him merely as a "progressive philanthropist," about as frequently as it defends Hillary.
Prominent members of the Democracy Alliance, in addition to Soros, include insurance magnate Peter Lewis, another supporter of drug legalization who was arrested in New Zealand several years ago after customs officers found marijuana in his luggage. The Democracy Alliance was started by Rob Stein, a former Clinton official.
Demonstrating the sensitivity of receiving money from Soros, Media Matters admits receiving money from "donors" to the Democracy Alliance but claims, in the face of the evidence about how the organization is run, that it doesn't take any money from Soros himself. This is an untenable and false position to assert, as published reports about the organization in the Washington Post and even The Nation magazine have never indicated that Soros money has been segregated so as not to go to certain groups like Media Matters.
Links To The Democratic Party
The connections of Media Matters to the Democratic Party are also substantial, suggesting that the organization functions largely as a Democratic Party front. The group's "senior adviser," Dennis Yedwab, served as the director of strategic resources at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and research director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Other staffers have come from the Al Gore campaign, the Clinton-Gore 1996 Committee, the ACLU, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (which also gave Media Matters some office space when it was being formed). John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, served as chief of staff to President Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001.
Katie Barge, the former director of research for Media Matters, became research director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), only to resign under fire when she was alleged to have participated in an effort to fraudulently obtain a credit report on Maryland's Republican Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, who was running for the U.S. Senate. Her subordinate at the DSCC, Lauren B. Weiner, was charged with a crime in the case but there was no explanation of why Barge was not.
Imus Vs. Hillary
Although Imus was not a conservative, he was a critic of Hillary Clinton. And that made him a target for Media Matters.
As the Media Matters/Olbermann attack on Tumulty suggests, the Imus affair is all about politics and protecting Hillary. Imus, who endorsed and opposed candidates for office, including the presidency, was considered very influential. That is why so many politicians went on his show. He was beginning to emerge as a major thorn in the side of Hillary, just as her competition with Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination was heating up.
While Imus had allowed Obama to come on his show, he had steadfastly refused to permit Senator Clinton to appear. Imus had been on the outs with the Clintons for many years, with some of the hostility stemming from his performance at the Radio/TV Correspondents Association Annual Dinner in 1996. Among other things, Imus had made fun of the former president's womanizing.
Before he was fired by NBC News and CBS last week, one of Imus's sidekicks regularly imitated Bill Clinton on the air, reminding people of how this potential First Husband had become a first-class national embarrassment and disgrace when he was having sexual relations with a former White House intern and lied about it. It was one of the truly funny bits on the show.
If you think the Hillary connection to the Imus firing is a stretch, consider the fact that David Brock wrote a sympathetic book about Hillary during the time of his transition from closeted homosexual to ex-conservative.
Hillary's Aide
As we noted in an article back in 2002, "Brock got a million-dollar advance for a book on Hillary Clinton, but while writing it, he underwent a transformation. Instead of an exposé, the book was so soft on Hillary that it bombed. In two Esquire articles, Brock repudiated his Clinton muckraking and apologized to the president. His flip-flop appears to have been related to the close relationship that Brock, a closeted homosexual, established with Hillary's openly gay press secretary, Neel Lattimore." The Advocate, a homosexual magazine, had described Lattimore as one of Hillary's "closest confidants" during her White House years.
This is the same Neel Lattimore, according to the September 7, 2006, article by Glenn Thrush of Newsday, who would become "special projects director" for Media Matters.
Thrush also reported that "Kelly Craighead, one of the Clinton's closest friends, served as one of Brock's top advisers during Media Matters' formation in 2004. She was paid as part of a $202,781 contract with the consulting company of her husband, Erick Mullen, tax records obtained by Newsday show." Craighead had served as assistant to President Clinton and director of the advance team for then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is reported that when Craighead married political consultant Erick Mullen, a former aide to Senator Charles Schumer, in 2001, Hillary Clinton performed the civil ceremony. Mullen was an informal senior advisor to Mrs. Clinton's run for the Senate in 2000.
The Hillary Network
More recently, Lattimore has emerged as an official spokesman for the Children's Defense Fund, headed by longtime Hillary friend Marian Wright Edelman. Hillary had served on the Board of Editors of Yale Law Review and Social Action and had interned with Edelman. After graduating from Yale, Hillary served as an adviser to the Children's Defense Fund and then as its chairperson from 1986 to 1992.
For her part, Mrs. Clinton had denounced Imus's Rutgers comments as "bigotry and coarse sexism," adding, "I've never wanted to go on his show and I certainly don't ever intend to go on his show, and I felt that way before his latest outrageous, hateful, hurtful comments."
For his part, Obama denounced Imus and called for his firing. He had to do this, considering the pressure on Imus being exerted by Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But Obama may have lost a valuable ally. Imus had supported John Kerry for president in 2004 and regularly denounced Bush Administration officials as "war criminals" for their conduct of the Iraq War. His views on Iraq were in tune with those of Obama and, despite his long-time backing for Republican Senator John McCain, Imus may have been laying the groundwork for supporting Obama, at least in the Democratic presidential primaries, in 2008.
Who Benefits?
Perhaps that is the main reason why, after years of insulting scores of people, with the quiet acquiescence of so many in the liberal media, the latest insult was seized upon and proved to be his undoing. In terms of who benefits politically from Imus going off the air, Hillary Clinton emerges above all others, even above Sharpton and Jackson.
Media Matters, which openly supports the return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine in order to muzzle conservatives, will now move on to its next target. One thing is certain: it will be a political opponent of Senator Clinton.
What You Can Do
Please send the enclosed cards or cards and letters of your own choosing to GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, and Brian Williams of NBC News.
CLIFF'S NOTES
by Cliff Kincaid
DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG: April 20, 2007
NBC NEWS IS ONE STRANGE NEWS ORGANIZATION. IT FIRES DON IMUS for making racial comments about a group of mostly black basketball players, but it aired the rantings and ravings of the Virginia Tech killer, with the NBC News logo and NBC peacock implanted on them, on the grounds that we all need to know more about his twisted mental attitude. Imus's comments didn't physically hurt anybody. The killer, Cho Seung-Hui, killed 32 people. The reaction to NBC News was reflected in signs appearing on the Virginia Tech campus that said, "Media Stay Away." Family members of victims cancelled their appearances on the NBC Today Show because they were very upset with NBC for airing the material. NBC Today Show co-host Matt Lauer disclosed that there were "some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all…"
IN OUR STATEMENT TO THE MEDIA, WHICH WAS PICKED UP BY A CHICAGO TRIBUNE columnist, Phil Rosenthal, we said that "The Virginia Tech killer's death wish has come to pass. NBC is playing into the cold dead hands of a mass murderer, exploiting his paranoid delusions for ratings and profit. This is exactly what he wanted." NBC anchor Brian Williams' description of the material as the killer's "multimedia manifesto" struck us as an unseemly attempt to sensationalize and hype the story. At the same time, we questioned why NBC has held back some of the materials it was sent that could shed light on a possible political or religious motive in the attack. Our position was that NBC should quit exploiting the most sensational material on the air and make all of it immediately available on an NBC News website for public inspection. Is there something in this material about why he chose NBC as his propaganda vehicle? NBC could not stop others from exploiting the material, but it could have refrained from doing so. It could have set the right tone. It did not. And for that, as blogger Hugh Hewitt suggested, NBC News President Steve Capus should be fired or resign. AIM will be at the annual meeting of GE, the parent company of NBC, on April 25, to raise these and other issues. Please send the enclosed postcard to GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt about this.
THE OBVIOUS DANGER WAS THAT THE AIRING OF WHAT NBC ANCHOR BRIAN WILLIAMS called "the words of a murderer" could inspire more copycat killings and that more bloodshed may have been one of the motives of the killer in releasing the material to the network. The killer's rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech was itself a copycat crime, coming on almost exactly the eighth anniversary of the Columbine killings of 13 people at a Colorado high school. The materials mailed to NBC by the killer, Cho Seung-Hui, reveal that he idolized the Columbine killers, calling them martyrs. Since the Virginia Tech massacre was itself a copycat crime, it has to be assumed that the killer wanted to see more such crimes. This kind of coverage could easily provoke other mentally disturbed or alienated individuals into thinking that killing large numbers of people is an automatic ticket to media notoriety and publicity for their cause. NBC may have laid the groundwork for more senseless death and destruction.
NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT KRISTEN DAHLGREN ACKNOLWEDGED ON MSNBC ON APRIL 20 that Virginia Tech was at first welcoming to the media after the tragedy but that after the airing of the killer's video tapes, photos and statements, the attitude changed to the point where students and others became "very vocal" against the media and "They want us to leave at this point."
ON THE ISSUE OF WHY THE KILLER SENT HIS MATERIALS TO NBC, RUSH LIMBAUGH commented, "He could have sent it to talk radio, but he chose NBC, and I would love to know why. Maybe it's the only address he had. I don't know why. But can you imagine if this guy had sent this stuff to me, what they would be saying? I'm going to tell you, if they had sent it to me, I would have contacted the authorities; I would have turned it over and I would have not aired it because I don't want to be involved. I would not want to compromise any investigation that's going on or anything of the sort. NBC is out there saying, 'Oh, no, no, no! We turned this over to the authorities.' Well, they did, but that was after they made copies of it and started using it before the authorities down in Virginia had gotten a chance to analyze it..." On the issue of Imus, racism, and NBC, Limbaugh noted that Jesse Jackson had complained that MSNBC was too white all night, meaning that all of the hosts from 3:00 p.m. on to 9:00 p.m. were white. So Limbaugh asked people to vote on which MSNBC anchor should resign to make room for a minority host. The results, as of April 20, were Chris Matthews (49 %), Keith Olbermann (47 %) and Tucker Carlson (4 %). Please send the enclosed postcard to Keith Olbermann, asking that he submit his resignation first.
THE IMUS FIRING, AS THIS AIM REPORT MAKES CLEAR, HAS PROVIDED THE OPENING FOR THE "progressive" left to move forward with demands for the return of the Fairness Doctrine. We have been very disappointed with the decision of Bill O'Reilly, one of the left's new targets, to seek cover in the arms of civil rights agitator Al Sharpton. O'Reilly was listed as a "special guest" at the "Keeper of the Dream VIP Reception" at Sharpton's National Action Network convention. The convention line-up was like a "who's who" of the national Democratic Party. As John Perazzo made clear, in an article published on Frontpagemag.com, the idea that Sharpton is committed to improving race relations is worse than the bad joke that Imus told about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Discussing the Brawley case, in which Sharpton was convicted of defaming a former prosecutor by accusing him of raping a black woman, Perazzo wrote that, "In comparison to what Sharpton did, Don Imus' recent transgression seems rather minor, doesn't it? And unlike Imus, Sharpton has never—in twenty years—had the courage or the decency to acknowledge what he did and to apologize for it. Never."
IT TURNS OUT THAT O'REILLY WASN'T THE ONLY MEDIA FIGURE SELLING OUT TO Sharpton. The actual "Keepers of the Dream Awards Dinner" was supposed to feature Soledad O'Brien of CNN. But that wasn't all. Incredibly, Sharpton's convention included a media panel on the subject of "Does the Media Fairly Cover People and Issues of Color?" The scheduled panelists included Mike Wallace, veteran correspondent of 60 Minutes; Brian Williams, NBC Evening News; Martin Bashir, ABC's Nightline; Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's Scarborough Country; Rita Cosby, Emmy award-winning TV Host; and Paula Zahn of CNN. Please send the enclosed postcard to NBC anchor Brian Williams about appearing at the Sharpton conference.
HOW DOES ONE EXPLAIN OUR MEDIA'S BLATANT HYPOCRISY IN RELATION TO IMUS AND Sharpton? The answer, quite simply, is fear. They are scared of what Sharpton and his tag-team partner, Jesse Jackson, can do to them. So they cultivate the civil rights agitators in the hope that they will be spared their wrath. After all, they don't want to suffer the Imus fate. At AIM, we're not afraid of Sharpton, Jackson or the media. With your help, we'll take them all on.
For Accuracy in Media,
Cliff Kincaid
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