Actor D.C. Douglas has produced and released an online music video today entitled “A Sarah Palin/Michele Bachman Ticket” in an effort to galvanize the Tea Party and ultraconservative Republican base. The music video features imagery of America’s Founding Fathers against a political anthem for the GOP primary race and an ultimate Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann ticket.
You may remember Douglas from having been fired by GEICO for having left a disparaging voicemail for the folks at FreedomWorks.
Hannah Giles, the partner of right-wing propagandist James O’Keefe, who assumed the role of a prostitute in a series of videos designed to smear ACORN, is very upset about a documentary that she says intends to “shape a narrative that will change public opinion through the use of deception.” This critique will surely go down in the Annals of Irony with Colonel Sanders’ denunciation of animal cruelty.
Giles has taken to Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollywood blog to post a scathing critique of a documentary set to air on PBS’s POV series this fall. It’s called “Better This World” and PBS describes it as…
“The story of Bradley Crowder and David McKay, who were accused of intending to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention, is a dramatic tale of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal. Better This World follows the radicalization of these boyhood friends from Midland, Texas, under the tutelage of revolutionary activist Brandon Darby. The results: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high-stakes entrapment defense hinging on the actions of a controversial FBI informant. Better This World goes to the heart of the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.”
I haven’t seen this documentary and cannot comment on its presentation or accuracy. But I do find it ironic that Breitbart chose Giles to articulate this preemptive hit piece. It was Giles who gave birth to the ACORN project. She worked closely with O’Keefe to produce a video crockumentary that has since been proven to have been deliberately edited in order to embarrass its subjects and destroy the reputation of an organization they considered to be a political enemy.
Giles is, therefore, poorly suited to be a custodian of journalistic virtue. The only contribution she can offer this discussion is her intimate, personal knowledge of how to produce a dishonest work of fiction and present it as fact. To demonstrate her skill in this area she misrepresents the comments of the two filmmakers by juxtaposing answers to two completely different questions and reversing their chronological order to give the impression that they were related. Then Giles contends that this mash up was an admission on the filmmakers part to falsifying the narrative. Hannah sure knows her stuff.
In addition to the ironic absurdity of relying on someone like Giles to defend documentary integrity, Breitbart commits the sin of failing to disclose a glaring conflict of interest. The “revolutionary activist Brandon Darby,” who is an integral part of the story in the PBS doc, also happens to be a contributor to Breitbart’s web site. But rather than have Darby author his own first-person account of the events, Breitbart hands the job to Giles and nobody mentions Darby’s connection. They are, in effect, disparaging a documentary that they believe is unflattering to one of their associates without disclosing the association.
This is typical of Breitbart’s modus operandi: Lash out viciously at perceived enemies while accusing them of heinous acts that he engages in himself. You have to admire the audacity of Breitbart and Giles stepping up to accuse others of misleadingly editing film. These people have made lying an art form.
Ken Vogel at Politico has published a story that examines what he portrays as a new effort by Republicans and the right to dig up dirt on Democrats. The article raises an important question, but not the one Vogel may think. The question is: What rock has Vogel been residing under?
While the article correctly notes the recent arrival of Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS to the Dem Bashing party, the notion that the right has not been sufficiently aggressive with their opposition research is absurd to the point of delusion. In past election cycles we’ve seen Barack Obama slimed with “oppo” aimed at his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayres. We’ve seen John Kerry’s military service demeaned by the Swiftboat Liars. Established media hacks like Bill Kristal, George Will, and Rush Limbaugh have been hammering the left for decades. And Fox News was built from the ground up for that purpose. What’s new about any of this?
The article quickly descends from delusion to comedy when Vogel quotes Matthew Vadum, a conservative activist who puts forth his view that the right is just too darned principled to immerse themselves in the dirty side of politics:
“A lot of conservatives think that you have to abide by Marquess of Queensberry rules even if you’re in a knock-down, drag-out bar fight,” said Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a conservative non-profit that researches liberal donors. “And it’s good to be ethical, but sometimes maybe you need to explore new frontiers to reflect the changing nature of political combat in modern America.”
I would love to see a list of the conservatives who abide by any rules of civility and eschew negativity or hardball tactics. Vadum says there are a lot of them, but I can’t think of a single one.
Vogel briefly mentions rightist propagandists like Andrew Breitbart, Tucker Carlson, and James O’Keefe, but despite the impact they’ve had on people (Van Jones) and policy (health care), Vogel shirks them off as afterthoughts. He asserts that the right has nothing to match Media Matters or the Center for American Progress. Someone should introduce him to the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute.
The right could justifiably be credited with inventing the most vile tactics of political combat in modern America. Yet Politico publishes this article that asks its readers to take seriously the contention that conservatives are floundering politically because their hearts are just too pure.
Right. And all Hannibal Lechter wanted was a tasty appetizer that went well with a supple Pinot Noir.
[Update:] Matthew Vadum takes umbrage at my comments and at the same time proves that right-wingers are a-holes by calling me a moron.
Also, he doesn’t bother to make any sort of substantive rebuttal to anything I said. I guess he thinks that lying about a veteran’s war record and saying that a presidential candidate is “palling around with terrorists” isn’t “sliming.”
Once again the evil winds of Fox News are blowing across the land and threatening to whip up a Perfect Storm composed of nothing but disinformation and unfounded fears. As part of their all-to-predictable criticism of President Obama’s efforts to prevent carnage in Libya and to support democratic reformers, the Fox brigades have unleashed a torrent of lies and irrational arguments that amount to siding with Qaddafi against American interests.
As usual, Glenn Beck is leading the charge with his typically factless assault and incitement to panic. The target this time is Samantha Power, the Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights for the National Security Council. Just as he did with Van Jones last year, Beck has begun a barrage of invective aimed at slandering Power. Day after day he repeatedly denounces her while playing a context-deprived video in an endless loop.
The thrust of Beck’s squabbling is his contention that Power is the source of the administration’s policy in Libya. In his pseudo-professorial style Beck mis-educates his gullible viewers as to the roots of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) initiative endorsed by the United Nations. R2P sprung from the post-WWII determination that the community of nations are morally obligated to act in opposition to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.
In short, Beck falsely asserts that the UN got the idea from George Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only flaw in that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of a UN commissioned report on the subject, so it could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. And the UN’s report was based on the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” when Soros was a poor, eighteen year old Holocaust refugee and student in London, and well before Power was even born. Also notable is the fact that R2P was adopted when John Bolton was the ambassador to the UN and both Israel and the Bush administration supported it. These facts, however, don’t prevent Beck from inventing a conspiracy that defies the linear confines of time.
The video Beck has on auto-replay shows an excerpt of Power discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and suggesting that a “mammoth protection force” may be required. Beck alleges that she is promoting this protection on behalf of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and he extends that dimwitted analysis to imply that Power, Soros, and Obama have designs on attacking Israel under the provisions of R2P. In fact, a full playing of the video reveals that Power was not advancing her own solution to the ongoing Middle East hostilities. She was responding to a question that posed a hypothetical scenario wherein one side or the other was engaging in genocide. Her answer proposed a protection force that would be neutral, along the lines of a conventional UN peacekeeping mission.
The reality could not be further from Beck’s gyroscopic spinning of an imagined international military assault on Israel. Beck couples these allegations with a reference to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, Cass Sunstein, whom Beck calls “the most dangerous man in America.” Sunstein is Power’s husband. Consequently, Beck now calls her “the most dangerous woman in America.”
The problem that Beck’s vile disinformation campaign presents, other than advancing the progress of stupidity, is that the Obama administration has been notoriously hypersensitive when it comes to criticism, especially from Fox News. In addition to their knee-jerk reaction to Beck’s demonization of Van Jones, the White House also jettisoned Yosi Sergant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture, over phony controversies promoted by Fox and other right-wing media.
This Foxophobia manifests itself in dangerously careless decision making that not only unfairly punishes staffers who did nothing wrong, it encourages the Becks of the world to persist with their character assassination crusades.
In this regard it is imperative that Obama not buckle under to the smears that Samantha Power is now suffering. The President needs to demonstrate that he has the fortitude to ignore Beck and Fox and the rest of the conservative hate machine that is itching to claim another scalp. Power is a brilliant, dedicated, and effective public servant and deserves the support of the President. She must not become another casualty in the war on competent White House advisors (which is really just a war on the White House by proxy).
My message to Obama is this: You cannot placate your foes by giving in to them. They feed off of that sort of weakness and become even more voracious. By denying them their little victories you retain trusted advisors, enhance your reputation, and starve the beast that stalks you. So, Mr. President, don’t make the same mistakes you made with Van Jones and the others. Stand by Power. Scoff at Beck. And exhibit some of the backbone that your position imparts onto you.
[UPDATE 4/6/11:] Just a few days after this startling April 1st revelation was published, Glenn Beck and Fox News announced that Beck’s program will end later this year.
[BREAKING: April 1, 2011, New York, NY]
In recent weeks there has been growing speculation as to the future of Glenn Beck on Fox News. Several events seem to be foretelling an imminent severance between Fox and their resident End Times correspondent. For instance:
1) Beck’s ratings are in an unrelenting freefall. The latest quarterly numbers reveal that, compared to just one year ago, Beck has lost 30% of his total audience, and amongst viewers between the ages of 25-54 he’s dropped 37%. He was even bested by Rachel Maddow a couple of weeks ago.
2) David Carr of the New York Times reported that Fox insiders have begun “contemplating life without Mr. Beck.”
3) Joel Cheatwood, Fox’s dedicated executive nursemaid for Beck, is leaving Fox to join Beck’s production company, Mercury Radio Arts – a sign that the network no longer requires a minder for Beck.
4) When Beck was on vacation last month, Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano filled in for him and the ratings barely budged – a signal that Fox could replace Beck at any time without suffering any ill effects.
5) Growing numbers of conservatives are repudiating Beck’s increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories.
6) Seven radio stations have dropped Beck’s show this year (so far). This corroborates the weakness seen in his television ratings.
Apparently these facts are being taken very seriously in the Fox News executive suites. News Corpse has exclusively acquired a confidential memo that cryptically discusses the “WK Day 5pm” time period and lists potential hosts that are under consideration.
The document identifies ten notoriously conservative “candidates” that could conceivably fill Beck’s shoes. The list is duplicated below along with a brief appraisal of the candidate’s pros and cons.
This memo is the strongest evidence yet that Beck’s days are numbered. His contract expires at the end of the year, but there’s even money that he doesn’t even last that long. Perhaps this is what Beck is referring to when he warns of the Coming Insurrection. It isn’t so much a Perfect Storm that is threatening to engulf the world – just Beck’s world.