Pro-Romney SuperPAC Calls Obama A Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln

Posted by on May 17, 2012 at 12:06 pm. 8 Comments :

I can hardly wait for this ad to hit the air. Joe Ricketts, A pro-Romney billionaire, is considering a new political attack on President Obama centered on his past association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The campaign would be funded by $10 million of Ricketts fortune and produced by his SuperPAC, Ending Spending Action Fund.

In a document obtained by the New York Times, the group of “high-profile Republican strategists” is planning on revealing Wright’s “influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way.” Finally! The secret story of Rev. Wright that was suppressed by the liberal media four years ago will be exposed to a nation that has never heard of him and his power over our puppet-like president. Never mind the fact that according to the PEW Research Center, the controversy generated by Wright “made more news than both Hillary Clinton and John McCain” in the spring of 2008 at the height of the presidential primaries. By summer PEW’s analysis showed that…

“The story-line or event that has received the most coverage so far is Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which accounted for 6% of all stories and dwarfed all of the other episodes or storyline of the campaign that didn’t have to do with the horse race itself.”

Metrosexual Abe LincolnNow Romney’s wealthy backers have determined that America was deprived of this highly pertinent information and they are promising to reach back to the past and dredge it all up again. The twist that they are proposing is to racialize this attack even more than previous attempts. The proposal refers to Obama as a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln” (whatever that is), and in order to to respond to any charges of racism, they plan to hire as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American.” I wonder if that’s anything like the IWSB (intelligent, well-socialized black) that noted racist John Derbyshire aspired to befriend.

The Romney campaign has issued a rather tepid response that merely stated their intention to focus on economic issues. That is in sharp contrast to the McCain campaign that decisively rejected these sort of character attacks, although some on his campaign (i.e. Sarah Palin) advocated for them. One of the strategists for the pro-Romney PAC, Fred Davis, is a former McCain adviser who pushed for more emphasis on Wright, but was shot down by McCain. Davis is also the genius behind the inadvertently hilarious “Demon Sheep” ad that so embarrassed Carly Fiorina in 2010.

The purpose of this project is clear. The extremists behind it have determined that they can’t beat Obama as long as he is regarded so favorably by a majority of the public. They note in their proposal that Americans “still aren’t ready to hate this president,” so they have taken it upon themselves to manufacture reasons to do so. It is a cynical and divisive strategy that concedes that Romney is so unlikeable that there is no positive argument to make for voting for him.

It didn’t work in 2008, and there is no rational reason to expect that it would work now. It would only serve to further embarrass those associated with such a repugnant effort to smear a president who is popular and well-liked. And that’s why I can’t wait see them follow through. Although there is already speculation that they are chickening out due to the publicity they are receiving. Too bad. But I have great confidence they’ll come up with something just as embarrassing before long. It’s what they do best.

[Update] Romney is now “repudiating” the Ricketts plan. However, his surrogates on the right are going all out in pushing the Rev. Wright theme. Sean Hannity is featuring the disreputable author Ed Klein on his program to discuss Wright. Glenn Beck has offered Wright $150,000 to tell him “the truth” about Obama. So Romney has merely stepped aside to let his comrades mount the attack.

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Obama Surging Ahead Of Romney In Fox News Poll That Fox News Ignores

Posted by on May 17, 2012 at 3:35 am. 12 Comments :

For additional evidence that Fox News is the PR agency for the Republican Party, note the feverishly excited treatment that Fox News gives to polling when the results favor Mitt Romney:

Fox Nation Polls

In the past two months Fox Nation has posted at least seven articles on election polling and every single one of them reported the results of polls that put Romney in the lead over President Obama. There were, of course, polls that had Obama leading, but the “fair and balanced” Fox Nationalists didn’t bother to report on those. Here are a few of the headlines from just April and May of this year:

  • Rasmussen Poll: Romney 50%, Obama 42%
  • Poll: Romney Beating Obama Among Women Voters
  • Poll: Romney Up Double Digits With Swing State Independents
  • NBC-WSJ poll: On economy, Romney Opens Up Lead Over Obama
  • Rasmussen Poll: Romney 48%, Obama 44%
  • Fox News Poll: Romney Edges Obama as Approval of President Drops
  • Two National Polls Show Favor For Romney

What makes this particularly interesting is that Fox News just released its own poll that showed the President pulling away from Romney. Obama leads in the Fox poll by 46% to 39%. But there was no mention of it on Fox Nation, and barely a mention of it on Fox News. So even when the poll was commissioned and paid for by Fox they bury the results if it looks good for Obama.

And it looks pretty darn good for Obama. Other results include a widening gender gap with women supporting Obama 55% to Romney’s 33%. Obama voters are far more satisfied with their candidate (74%) than are the Romney voters (59%) with theirs. That disparity could be because Obama’s supporters are backing him due to his job performance and positions (38%). Only 11% say they support him because “he isn’t Romney.” On the other hand, 43% of Romney’s supporters say they back him because “he isn’t Obama.” That sort of negative incentive from the Republicans often translates into low voter turnout.

There can be only one reason that Fox would so blatantly suppress these poll results. They obviously don’t want the public to be informed of the broad-based positive impression of the President that exists in the country. They have no problem publishing negative information about Obama. In just the past two days Fox published two stories that portrayed the Obama camp as worried about their allegedly dismal prospects. One article said that “Alarm Grows Among Dems About Obama’s Chances.” The other declared that “Team Obama Panics, and It’s Only May.” Both of those articles were analyses of recent election polls. But now that Fox’s own poll paints an entirely different picture, there is no corresponding article about how the Obama team is celebrating or how the Romney camp is panicking.

This is the way a public relations firm behaves on behalf of their client. And that is the best description of the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party. It is 24/7 spin for GOP interests. And they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. When Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends introduced a segment on the Fox poll, he comforted the Fox viewers, before giving them the news that Obama was out in front, by inserting this little ray of hope, “If the election were held today – don’t worry they aren’t going to be…” Wasn’t it thoughtful of Doocy to be so concerned about the worries of the Fox audience?


Fox Nation: The Virtual Book Tour For Right-Wing Hacks

Posted by on May 15, 2012 at 1:51 pm. 2 Comments :

What kind of a news enterprise would promote an author with a record of outrageous lies, uncorroborated allegations, and a stream of denouncements from across the political spectrum?

Look no further than the online community for Fox News that is published by a super-secret cabal that refuses to identify their editors: Fox Nation.

The author in this case is Edward Klein. He has spewed more delusional conspiracies and slanderous insults than anyone this side of Glenn Beck. He has called Hillary Clinton a lesbian, Bill Clinton a rapist, and, of course, Obama a Muslim usurper from Kenya. His previous works have been blasted by staunch conservatives like Kathleen Parker, John Podhoretz, and Peggy Noonan, whose Wall Street Journal review described his book as “poorly written, poorly thought, poorly sourced and full of the kind of loaded language that is appropriate to a polemic but not an investigative work.”

However, in the past few days the Fox Nationalists have posted six separate stories based on allegations from Klein’s new book. None of the allegations have been affirmed by any independent source, but they are repeated at Fox Nation as if they were facts. Here is the recent rundown of the phony articles:

Fox Nation

When was the last time Fox Nation featured six stories from any other single source? But now they have posted six articles all based on the same book by a notably disreputable character. That’s a pretty generous contribution of free PR for a marginal author and an untrustworthy collection of hearsay. There are only two reasons why the Fox Nationalists would go to these lengths.

1) The slander proffered by Klein achieves the primary goal of everything on Fox: disparage President Obama. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or even plausible. Just shout as loudly and as often as possible the most asinine garbage you can think of and you’re liable to get your book promoted by Fox.

2) Fox Nation is wholly unaccountable for their ranting. They do not publish the identities of any of their editorial or administrative personnel. No one can be held responsible or asked to justify their work product. That’s convenient because so much of what appears on Fox Nation is so childish and embarrassing that no one would want to take credit (or blame) for it anyway. It is highly unusual for a legitimate news organization to keep their editorial team secret. Fox Nation is the only one I can think of who does so, but then they have an excuse – they are not a legitimate news organization.

In this election season we can expect to see more of this. There will be other books by sleazeballs like Klein that will get the same treatment on Fox and other right-wing media platforms. These people are not concerned with journalism. They are focused only on negative propaganda. And for that you don’t need credentials or that pesky detail that honest journalists call truth. Fox News has perfected the promotion of this dreck, and they will surely continue to lead the way.


James O’Keefe Produces Another Embarrassing Flop

Posted by on May 15, 2012 at 11:01 am. 3 Comments :

James O'KeefeThe Borat of right-wing pseudo-journalism has just released the latest in his attempts to so thoroughly discredit himself that his mother would be ashamed to take his calls. James O’Keefe, a convicted criminal, has been trying to prove that voter fraud in America is at crisis proportions. But the only thing he has succeeded in proving is that he himself is a recidivist perpetrator of attempted fraud that ultimately fails. And he has never rebutted the studies that show that voter fraud is almost non-existent in this country.

O’Keefe’s latest insipidness is a video that purports to show that non-citizens are voting in North Carolina elections. His evidence is a non-citizen named Zbigniew Gorzkowski. The only problem, as ThinkProgess discovered, is that Gorzkowski is, in fact, a citizen and has been for about thirty years. When O’Keefe’s henchman tried to ambush Gorzkowski, he immediately smelled the deceit and repeatedly asked the henchman who he was representing. O’Keefe’s henchman not only evaded the question, at one point he blatantly lied, misrepresenting himself as being associated with an “agency” that implies some official authority.

James O'Keefe

This is the sort of willful dishonesty that is the hallmark of O’Keefe’s dubious career. His videos, this one included, are a jumble of deliberately deceptive scenes that have been edited to give false and negative impressions of O’Keefe’s victims. That’s why he pleaded guilty to crimes committed in Louisiana. It’s why he is being sued by former ACORN employees. And if that’s not enough, he has also been implicated in sexual harassment and potentially kidnapping and drugging a former female associate.

Any news enterprise that gives O’Keefe any attention to his ludicrous videos is demonstrating their own lack of credibility. That’s why the only place you can expect to see this garbage is on Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller and the late Andrew Breitbart’s sites. But it is still curious that there have no prosecutions of O’Keefe for the crimes he has committed in various jurisdictions while attempting to prove voter fraud. Investigations are progressing, but there is ample evidence to proceed at this point. And his probation officer should be looking into whether he is in violation of the terms of his probation by continuing to commit illegal acts.

James O’Keefe is behaving like a criminal and belongs in jail – the sooner the better.

[Update] ThinkProgress has confirmed that the other person identified as a non-citizen in O’Keefe’s video is also a citizen. So that’s two citizens about whom O’Keefe lied and perhaps libeled.


Bill O’Reilly Accuses Obama Of Political Terrorism

Posted by on May 15, 2012 at 2:09 am. 16 Comments :

Now that Glenn Beck has left Fox News and slithered off to the obscurity he so richly deserves, Bill O’Reilly is stepping up to fill the role of frothing lunatic that the network has missed since Beck’s departure.

Monday night’s program featured an interview with Frank VanderSloot, a wealthy businessman who is the finance chair of Mitt Romney’s campaign for president. VanderSloot has been the subject of a Murdoch Media blitz to defend him from what they have called a smear campaign. In fact, VanderSloot was merely identified factually as a major Romney supporter and his history of ultra-conservativism and anti-gay activism was truthfully reported. He has received the sort of attention that any prominent political operative might expect to receive.

However, in conservative circles that is regarded as something akin to McCarthyism. That’s the characterization that has been disseminated in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and Fox Nation. And now O’Reilly is chiming in with the most absurd and irresponsible rhetoric to date. Here is the exchange between O’Reilly and VanderSloot:

O’Reilly: Some believe this is economic terrorism…not economic, political terrorism. That targeting a business man like you, running an honest business, because of your freedom to donate to who you want to donate to, but try to ruin you personally and professionally, that’s terrorism. Political terrorism. Do you see it that way?

VanderSloot: Well, I have these two questions, Bill, to President Obama. Why did you publish a list? […] Then the second question is, who is supposed to receive the message? Is it only the liberal press that’s supposed to go after these folks, or is it also the agencies that he runs, that he’s in charge of, and that report to him and want to please him? […]

O’Reilly: They want to intimidate you from giving any money to the campaign, and others like you who might be thinking of it. Business people go “I’m not gonna do that. They might put my name on the web and I’ll lose customers. So I’m not gonna do it.” But that’s terrorism.

VanderSloot: I suppose it is.

Just to be clear, what O’Reilly and VanderSloot are describing as terrorism is actually just disclosure. They believe that transparency in political donations by powerful corporations and wealthy individuals is an unwarranted burden. They would much prefer to be able to buy elections and influence politicians in complete secrecy. And even though donors to candidates of both parties are subject to the same disclosure rules, only Republicans consider such requirements the equivalent of terrorism.

Aside from the obvious absurdity of attacking open and honest political disclosures as terrorism, this sort of discussion also trivializes the very real horrors experienced by actual victims of violence perpetrated in the name of intimidation and fear. O’Reilly and VanderSloot should be ashamed of themselves, but instead used the occasion of this madness to solicit donations for Romney. They closed the segment by celebrating VanderSloot’s new donation of $100,000 to Romney’s SuperPAC.

Seriously, when is the Federal Elections Commission going to start monitoring Fox News for its in-kind contributions to Republicans? The network is a non-stop ad for the GOP.


Mitt Romney’s Impotent Response To Obama’s Campaign Ad

Posted by on May 14, 2012 at 2:19 pm. 4 Comments :

As I reported earlier today, the Obama campaign released an ad that criticized Mitt Romney’s failed record of job creation while at Bain Capital. Now Romeny’s camp has weighed in with their own ad that seeks to rehabilitate Romney’s reputation.

My earlier article noted the rapid response attack on Obama’s ad by Romney’s comrades at Fox News. I also noted that their attack was a pathetic effort that failed to make their case against the President. If they are interested in learning how a credible rebuttal is constructed, they should pay attention to the way ThinkProgress has responded to Romney’s ad. Firstly, ThinkProgress noted that the Romney ad…

“…implies that the plant would not have been built without Romney’s assistance. Steele Dynamics ‘almost never got started,’ the narrator says. ‘When others shied away, Mitt Romney’s private-sector leadership team stepped in.’

“But the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported at the time (via Nexis), that Bain was just one of eight financiers for the project — hardly the lone white knight.”

They went on to reveal that in addition to the numerous investors in the business, it also was not the free-market miracle that Romney implied. In fact, it received millions of dollars from local and state funding, including revenue generated specifically by raising taxes to support the new company. In other words, just about every point that Romney made was rendered moot by a recitation of the facts.

I would add to this analysis that, while the citizens featured in Obama’s ad were all identified, those in the Romney ad were all anonymous. For all we know they were actors, because there is no way to certify their identities or their glowing accounts. Which is further evidence that Obama’s ad team produces documented facts while Romney’s people pump out propaganda.

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Fox Nation’s Impotent Attacks On Obama’s Campaign Ad

Posted by on May 14, 2012 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

The Obama campaign released a new ad today that points out Mitt Romney’s failed record on job creation as the CEO of Bain Capital. It tells the story of former employees of a company that Bain drove into bankruptcy, destroying the jobs and dreams of the people who worked there for decades.

It didn’t take long for Fox to ramp up a rebuttal to the ad. In fact, they rushed two responses to their Fox Nation web site in the hopes of quickly diminishing the impact of the ad. Unfortunately, they neglected to insure that their rebuttals made any sense.

Fox Nation

In one of the articles the Fox Nationalists assert that the “Obama Camp Attacks Capitalism.” However, nowhere in their article do they support that assertion. It is just a dangling notion that appears to rest on the fact that the Obama ad criticizes Romney for presiding over the loss of thousands of jobs while he ran Bain Capital – which is unarguably true. In fact, Romney’s own response to the ad doesn’t argue with its truthfulness. It said simply that “We welcome the Obama campaign’s attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record.” It never disputed the facts presented in the ad. However, it did make a laughable attempt to tie Obama to “wealthy campaign donors,” apparently forgetting that it is Romney who is most dependent of such support.

The other article makes an even more blatantly false claim that Obama’s ad had been debunked. The substance of the debunking consisted of presenting a timeline that supposedely absolves Romney of any responsibility: “Romney’s departure from Bain: 1999. GST Bankruptcy Filing and layoffs: 2001.”

That’s true, but it neglects to note that it was Romney’s actions while at Bain that resulted in the bankruptcy. As noted in the ad: (and at Obama’s RomneyEconomics web page) 1993: Romeny and his partners invest $8 million to acquire GST. 1995: Merger creates $378 million in debt. 2001: GST files for bankruptcy with $500 million in debt. With Romney at the helm, Bain had sucked the blood (and money) out of GST leaving it unable to meet its obligations. The profits Bain secured were all prior to his departure in 2001. The fact that the shell of the company didn’t collapse for a couple of years after Romney left is irrelevant.

So neither rebuttal to the ad hits home if all the facts are presented. And it’s notable that even Romney’s response did not dispute the facts in the ad. But none of that prevented Fox from posting not just one, but two lame rebuttals that will be devoured by their dimwitted audience.


Fox News Culture War: Obama’s Gay Marriage Endorsement Like Another 9/11

Posted by on May 14, 2012 at 11:34 am. 2 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to escalate every political discussion to a nuclear holocaust. In the wake of President Obama’s personal support for gay marriage, Fox, and the rest of the Right-Wing Noise Machine, has declared yet another “war.”

Fox News Culture Warrior

And if it’s not enough that Fox characterizes a position with which the majority of the country concurs as hostile, they up the ante by posting an item on their Fox Nation site that compares this position to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists quote controversial right-wing pastor Dwight McKissic, who has a history of virulently anti-gay rhetoric. He has said that the Anti-Christ will be gay and that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath on the “sinners” of New Orleans. He also says that the gay rights movement was inspired “from the pit of hell itself.” Now he says of Obama’s remarks that…

“The moral impact of this day and decision is equal to the military impact of AL-Queda when they attacked the Twin Towers on 911.”

Of course. It’s exactly the same thing. Who could deny the similarities between extremist religious zealots murdering thousands of innocent people, and the President’s expression of support for unconditional love. If there is any similarity it is between the Muslim radicals who hate homosexuality as much as Christian radicals do.

Fox, for its part, is demonstrating their innate bigotry by providing a national platform for McKissic’s repugnant views. They are giving a megaphone to a known homophobe and professional hate monger. And nowhere in their reporting do they elaborate on the character of McKissic. They do, however, go out of their way to note that McKissic is black, a fact that has no bearing on the subject other than as an attempt to create a wedge between the African-American community and the President.

The Fox faction is again demonstrating their desperation to smear the President because they have no substantive case to make for their own candidate, Mitt Romney. Expect to see more of this culture war propaganda as the campaign progresses. It’s the only thing that Fox and their GOP enablers have to talk about.


Fox News Full Court Press Promoting Disreputable Author

Posted by on May 13, 2012 at 2:23 pm. 3 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch’s regime is coordinating closely to disseminate false allegations from an author that even conservatives regard as disreputable.

Edward Klein just released a book that alleges that Bill Clinton called Obama an amateur and tried to persuade Hillary to resign as Secretary of State and run against him in the 2012 primary. However, Klein is a sordid character whose work has been repudiated by fellow journalists. He has even been denounced by right-wing pundits like Byron York, and Fox’s own Greta Van Susteren. But that hasn’t stopped Murdoch’s Machine from blanketing his “news” assets with new accusations from Klein:

Fox Nation

The headline on Fox Nation, “Report: Obama Campaign Offered Jeremiah Wright Cash To Keep Quiet,” is sourced to Klein’s latest book of lies. Note that the allegation against the Obama campaign was not an accurate representation from Klein’s book where a go-between was cited as having made the alleged bribe. Fingering the Obama campaign was Fox Nation’s idea and, recognizing their own dishonesty, they later changed the false headline to say “Report: Obama Ally Offered Jeremiah Wright Cash To Keep Quiet.” It’s still false but maybe one degree less so. [Update: Fox Nation changed the headline yet again, this time to make it sound more scandalous: Obama Team Tried to ‘Bribe’ Rev. Wright: Book]

This same story was pumped out by Murdoch’s Fox News and New York Post. Clearly there is a coordinated effort to push this fakery and to reenergize the ancient Rev. Wright controversies. That suggests a fair measure of desperation on the part of Murdoch and his rightist cohorts who feel it’s necessary to rerun already debunked smears from a four year old campaign. And they didn’t work back then either.

Klein’s past excursions into Fantasyland have included assertions that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian; that Bill raped her; and that old stand-by, Obama is a Muslim from Kenya.

ThinkProgress has a more detailed bio of Klein and his past record of disinformation and deliberate dishonesty. Suffice to say that he is a weaver of tall tales that have no basis in reality. Which makes him a perfect source for Fox News and a desirable guest for Fox’s Lou Dobbs, where Klein is scheduled to appear next week.

It’s funny, in a despicable way, that the conservative media is hyping nonsense like this, while simultaneously accusing the President of not wanting to run on his record. The truth is that Obama has been highlighting his record at every public appearance, while the GOP harps on ancient irrelevancies. Did I mention that they were desperate?


The Wall Street Journal: Standing Up For Poor, Defenseless Billionaires

Posted by on May 12, 2012 at 11:18 am. 47 Comments :

When Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal there was anxious speculation about what would become of the respected financial clarion. Many critics (myself included) predicted that the paper would devolve into a partisan tool for the advancement of Murdoch’s uber-conservative agenda. Now we have confirmation of the worst of our reckoning.

A few weeks ago, the Journal’s Kimberley Strassel wrote a column complaining about an Obama campaign web page that identified a few of Mitt Romney’s wealthy donors and described their inherent interests in helping Romney to buy the presidency. Strassel’s take at the time was a departure from rational thought as she dredged up delusions about McCarthyism and enemies lists. She portrayed the introduction of Romney’s contributors as an attempt to intimidate them, as if being branded a Romney supporter was in itself an insult from which they must be shielded.

The truth is that Strassel was acting as a defender of the super-rich who prefer to operate in anonymity in order to achieve their self-serving ends. And while criticizing wealthy Republicans was tantamount to treason, she had no such sympathy for the likes of George Soros or George Clooney who somehow deserved the exposure and criticism they endured. Strassel is nothing but a mouthpiece for her boss, Murdoch, who is rushing to aid his aristocratic comrades. That explains how Strassel’s looney observations traveled so briskly from the Journal to Fox News and other right-wing media.

But apparently her article didn’t do the trick. So yesterday she followed up with another piece that sought to shelter one particular Romney supporter from the slings and arrows of outrageousness due to his vast fortune. Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca, an Amway-ish multi-level marketing enterprise. He has been described as an ultra-conservative and virulently anti-gay activist who generously spreads his wealth in pursuit of his politically narrow and socially constricting goals. [For a revealing look at VanderSloot see Glenn Greenwald’s excellent and in-depth essay in Salon].

The focus of Strassel’s new column is her dismay that VanderSloot is the subject of research by presumably Democratic operatives. Once again, the notion that wealthy power-players should be exempt from scrutiny is the core of her complaint. She even begins her article by saying…

“Here’s what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent.”

First of all, VanderSloot is not what any objective person would describe as just a “private citizen.” He is a prominent, big-money backer of political issues and candidates and he is the national finance co-chair of the Romney campaign. That makes him a very public person whose activities are relevant. Strassel’s position is that he is off-limits for public discourse despite making himself a notoriously vociferous spokesperson for his conservative views. This is a common stance from the right wherein they assert that they can say anything they want about anyone, including slanderous attacks on the President, but if the targets of these attacks dare to respond they are guilty of intimidation and suppression of free speech.

Just as with her previous column, this one also made the journey from print to television. Fox News committed significant airtime to the story. Megyn Kelly interviewed Strassel in one segment of her program, then came back with another segment pitting a couple of political analysts against each other. Later, Neil Cavuto did a report on the subject for one segment, and returned to “interview” a couple of right-wing, Fox legal contributors. That’s a lot of airtime to devote to protecting a billionaire from having to be accountable for his political actions.

Poor Frank VanderSloot. What a burden it must be for him to have people discover what he’s up to with his campaign spending. And what a blow to his dignity that he should have to answer questions from the peasants he is seeking to control through disbursement of his wealth. It’s a good thing he has Rupert Murdoch, and the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News to cover for him because he surely doesn’t have any means of defending himself. He can now join the Koch brothers who were aided by the Murdoch Machine earlier this year when the Journal gave space to their attorney, Ted Olsen, to make largely the same arguments that Strassel is making about McCarthyism, just because they experienced some push-back for their right-wing advocacy.

It’s startling how thin-skinned these billionaires are. With all of their financial resources, media access, and Washington connections, they still cry like babies when confronted. And it’s pathetic what the Wall Street Journal has become as it seems to be destroying it’s reputation for the sake of a few wealthy patrons.