Anatomy of a Smear-How Media Matters Invents/Exploits Fake Charges of Bigotry to Protect George Soros

Part 1:What is Media Matters?

You may not believe this  part of the story but it's very true. Somewhere under a giant rock, located by the northern part of the Potomac river where it splits and forms a pattern that kind of looks like a wishbone, there is a secret lair filled with computers and television screens. The people who work there spend all day watching Fox news, reading conservative columnists; listening to talk radio and surfing the net trying to identify anyone who disagrees with a project that George (Spooky Dude) Soros is behind. The name of this nefarious organization is Media Matters and its mission is to lie ---tell half-truths, let’s face it, they will do anything except deal with the facts in order to try and discredit anyone who disagrees with the “Dude” of “Spooky.”

Maybe I should walk back what I just said just a little. No it’s not true that Media Matters operates in a secret underground lair. It’s also not true that they work under a rock, it just sometimes seems they have to crawl out from under a rock to see the light of day. I am not even sure that they all work in an office filled with computers and TV screens, for all I know they are all freelancers.

The rest, lies, half-truths, ignoring the facts, and serving the “Dude” of “Spooky,” all that is the absolute truth. And on top of all that, they have a rule which says, “If a progressive and a conservative do the same exact thing, only the conservative is to be criticized."

Today, Media Matters ignored the facts and told half-truths to try and discredit a piece I wrote called Groups Whose Quotes Used By Soros Group to Attack Glenn Beck, Repudiate Anti-Beck Effort, but my “relationship” with Media Matters goes back four months before that, back in October when Media Matters initiated their quest to brand Fox News’ Glenn Beck as an anti-Semite to deflect criticism of the progressive movement and it’s Sugar-Daddy George Soros.

Before continuing, I would be dishonest if I didn't point out that listening to Glenn Beck’s radio show is part of my everyday routine. I don't always agree with him, actually sometimes he makes me want to punch the laptop that streams the show, but he always makes me think, and always entertains

But I would be just as dishonest if I didn't also point out that this spat with the Soros-controlled hit squad is not about Glenn Beck. False charges of Antisemitism are a particular hot button of mine. For some silly reason, every time I hear of someone being bullied with false bigotry charges I feel the need to act (and usually when I act, the bully's anger is deflected in my direction).

Part 2: The Origin of a Smear/ Who's Smoking Dope?

The Media Matters hit job on Beck started in October during Beck’s three-day TV series outlining George Soros’ political network and looking at Mr. Dude’s background in an attempt to discern what drives his progressive policies. Part of the “Dude’s” biography covered his history as a currency speculator whose sometimes underhanded dealing brought down the British pound sterling. He has also been accused of triggering the economic meltdown of Southeast Asian currencies in 1997.

Beck claimed Soros "rolled the dice in '97 in Asia, and many, including the Malaysian prime minister, believe it was billionaire speculator George Soros who helped trigger the economic meltdown that spread through Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines."

Media Matters took the fact that Beck related this story and invented some crazy, twisted logic. Try to follow this--- since Beck mentioned Soros was accused of doing underhanded dealing by the Malaysian Prime Minister---and since the PM is a serial anti-Semite who once said Soros’ currency dealings were part of a Jewish conspiracy--and since Soros is Jewish---well then that must mean Beck must be a Jew-hater who believes that Jews run the banks. Understand? No, I didn't think so. It reminds me of those weird questions you used to find on the S.A.T. exam. Remember? ---Cat is to Dog as hamburger is to automobile and you would be scratching your head for a few days trying to figure out what the person who created the exam was smoking.

The problem with Media Matters charge (besides the fact that it isn’t true) is Beck did not mention or even hint at the word Jew in his discourse. In the Media Matters playbook that shouldn't concern anyone because truth is a secondary consideration. When attacking the Media Matters claim, I pointed out if giving the title of underhanded currency speculator to George Soros made one an anti-Semite, there was going to be some real dirty looks when I next attended Shabbos services at Shul, since I have made similar accusations about Soros.

What I didn’t realize at the time, this was actually the beginning of “Spooky Dude” and his team of progressive cronies' new strategy.

Part 3: Dumb and Dumberer


What I didn’t realize at the time, this was actually the beginning of “Spooky Dude” and his team of progressive cronies' new strategy. Since they didn’t have the capacity to argue with the Fox Commentator’s logic, they would do whatever they could to brand him as an anti-Semite. Maybe they believed in the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews controlled the media, so all that was needed to rid themselves of Beck was to convince the media’s Jewish overlords that Beck hated Jews. Granted that is a ridiculous theory but wait till you see what Media Matters did next.

On November 9th they attacked Beck-owned website,The Blaze, using a charge that will rank as probably the lamest allegation of Antisemitism made since God told Abraham to leave Ur, the land of his birth, his kindred and his father's house, move to the Holy Land to create the first "Jewish neighborhood.”

The Blaze’s infraction was quoting Zubi Diamond, author of The Wizards of Wall Street" in order to push the claim that George Soros may be "betting on U.S. financial collapse." According to Diamond, Soros' agenda is "to destroy capitalism." According to Media Matters, when Diamond called Soros the "mastermind" behind of a "cabal of slithery rich" who "visited financial violence on the American people to get Barack Obama elected,” He was referring to Soros’ anti-Semitic imagery. No really, they actually said that.

Interestingly when Mr. Spooky (or is it Mr. Dude) used the anti-Semitic canard that the Jews control everything they were silent "The pro-Israel lobby [a polite way of saying, those dammed Jooose] has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism."

They were also silent when General Merrel McPeak, former Obama for President Co-Chair, was asked during an interview why there isn't peace in the Middle East. He answered, "New York City. Miami. We have a large vote -- vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it" (In other words those pesky Jews, who control America's policy on the Middle East).

And there are plenty of other examples, comments made by one-time Obama appointee Chas Freeman, Obama Campaign adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Progressive Congressmen Moran and Ellison just to name a few—all ignored by Media Matters.

A few days later, Progressive leader Abe Foxman, head of the ADL who often works harder for progressive issues such as abortion rights and amnesty for illegal aliens, than Jewish issues criticized the way Beck handled his discussion of Soros’ youth in Nazi Hungry saying,” Glenn Beck's description of George Soros' actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.” This started the whole Beck and the Holocaust craze.

But unexpectedly Foxman had to “walk back” his criticism when Beck revealed a letter he received from the ADL guru praising the offers to Israel and the Jewish Community. Most of the progressive-skewing Jewish community newspapers reported Foxman’s initial reaction without the walk-back part.

In December, disgraced progressive heroine Helen Thomas went on another one of her anti-Semitic diatribes. Thomas claimed that "You cannot say anything (critical) about Israel in this country”. And that was the nicest thing Thomas said all night. In her speech about discrimination against Arabs she launched into an anti-Semitic tirade about how those rich Jews control America. Thomas drew a standing ovation when she talked about

"the whole question of money involved in politics. We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is…We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”

It was an incredible performance, almost as if Thomas was reading directly from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, at an anti-Bias conference!!!

OK maybe relating it to Protocols is an exaggeration, it was more like the recent piece written by Media Matters' MJ Rosenberg and published on their site, which implied that the Jews ran the government, the media, and if it wasn't for those dammed Jews the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran would be practically "kissing cousins."

The Thomas incident had no connection to Media Matters except for the fact that it made me wonder if Soros’ media hit men exerted all of that effort on fake charges of Antisemitism against Glenn Beck, would they put in any time criticizing a real example of Antisemitism, Helen Thomas. So I offered a challenge:

…since you folks have set yourselves up as the “protector of all Jews” will you now write something that criticizes the real Antisemitism spewed out by the progressive Helen Thomas? (When the Helen Thomas video broke on June 4th, Media Matters took three days to report it and tried to whitewash her comments by calling them anti-Israel ). So, my progressive friends are you going to finally accept the fact that it is humanly possible for a progressive to be a hater? If you can, maybe you can follow-up by going after some real haters, two of the most anti-Semitic sites on the internet, the progressive Daily Kos, and the progressive Huffington Post. That’s of course, if George Soros allows you to.

A similar challenge was repeated in an article written for Big Journalism a week later. Yet there was no answer and not because Media Matters wasn’t reading my posts (at least the ones on the Breitbart sites). Between July 2010 and Jan 2011 they read and criticized at least six pieces I wrote for the Breitbart Big Sites. In fact, on the final occasion it was very obvious that the reviewer didn’t realize the story was a satire, which led me to end the next Big Journalism post with;

Note to Media Matters: Based on the fact that you didn’t realize that a recent Big Journalism post of mine was a satire I feel compelled to explain this one to you. No It is not really my intent to actually blame President Obama and the left for inciting the Tucson violence that would make me as crazy as…well ..Keith Olbermann or Congressman Clyburn. Using a literary tool this article exploited a small item in the NY Times and blew it out of proportion to show how ridiculous the claims that Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and/or Right Wing Radio had anything to do with the incident. Hopefully you will understand this time.

 Part 4: Four-Hundred Rabbis Choose Politics Over Faith/Attacked by a "Professional

After the horrible tragedy of the Tucson shooting Media Matters and Uncle George cooled it on the Antisemitism slander for a while, not because they were heeding the President’s call for toning down the dialogue, but because they were too busy blaming, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh and other for the Tucson shooting.

Just before the weekend of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the “Glenn Beck hates Jews” machine re-started its engines as the Soros-affiliated Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ) delivered a petition to Fox headquarters criticizing Glenn Beck for comments he made about George Soros back in October (the same ones Abe Foxman criticized). JFJ embellished the original Foxman allegation with a false charge that Beck used Holocaust terms to describe people he disagreed with “hundreds of times.”

Two weeks later in the January 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal was an advertisement/open letter signed by four-hundred Rabbis via JFJ. Repeating the libels found in the petition delivered earlier that month, the letter added a demand that Fox News Chief Roger Ailes disrespected the group because when JFJ announced they were preparing a complaint signed by four hundred Rabbis, Ailes dismissed the threat by describing the group as “Left-Wing Rabbis who don’t think anybody should be able to use the word Holocaust on the air.” Ailes of course was completely incorrect as the group was composed of Left-Wing Rabbis who don’t think anybody but progressives should be able to use the word Holocaust on the air as evidenced by the references to the Holocaust in the video below, none of which elicited a peep out of Media Matters, Jewish Funds For Justice, USCJ’s Rabbi Steven Wernick or his 399 Rabbinical colleagues.



The Rabbinical letter broke the Jewish laws against loshen hora (evil speech). Using Jewish Law, something the 400 should be practicing, I explained how before they could make charges against Beck as they did in the letter, the Rabbis had to, among other things, research the veracity of the accusations and examine the motivation of the accuser. Jews are taught that even if the charges are true (which was not the case this time) in the vast majority of cases Jews are commanded to keep that kind of talk to themselves. Because of ignoring the rules they are supposed to be teaching, these 400 “teachers” brought shame upon themselves, their holy profession, the entire Jewish people, and even worse, have committed a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God's name).

A Facebook conversation with one of the signers, Rabbi Steven Wernick of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (the branch of Judaism which my Synagogue is affiliated) followed, but it only raised more questions, (which as of this moment the Rabbi still hasn't answered).

Further investigation showed that most of the people/or organizations whose quotes were used in the body of the JFJ letter to corroborate their slander against Fox and Beck were rebelling against the Soros effort. Out of the five quotes, three weren't contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided. And, not surprisingly, the only group/person not raising an objection has multiple connections to the Dude himself.

Today Media Matters decided to weigh in and as their usual practice; they used half-truths and distortions in an attempt to discredit. But the new evidence must have truly disturbed them as they brought out the heavy ammo, Senior Fellow (for he’s a jolly good?), Eric Boehlert to comment on my work. How exciting, an experienced writer with all of the financial backing of the Spooky Dude, looking at the work of little old me, an unemployed marketing director. I was trying to cut it as a blogger and he wrote a book about being a blogger, here was an opportunity to pick up tips from a professional so I could hone my craft.

Sadly I was disappointed, it was obvious that Mr. Boehlert did not spend much time with my piece. Well either that or he was deliberately trying to mislead his readers. But that wasn’t possible Eric Boehlert wrote a freaking book about blogging, he wouldn’t break rule one, being honest with ones readers, it must have been that he was forced to do a rush job.

Allow me to explain.

Mr. Boehlert began his article saying

The sweeping denunciation clearly touched a deep, right-wing nerve, since it prompted hysterical reactions like this one:

[T]he rabbis efforts brought shame upon themselves, their holy profession and the entire Jewish people.

A bit over the top, no? Or do rabbis no longer enjoy the freedom of speech if that speech includes criticizing Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes

To my surprise, Mr. Boehlert ignored the link which led to the explanation the reason for that sentence which he called over the top. If he had read the section carefully he would’ve realized that no, it wasn’t over the top when you examine what the Rabbis are supposed to be teaching. Freedom of speech and the US Constitution had nothing to do with my reaction, it was the fact that the Rabbis had ignored the religious tenets inherent with their sacred profession.

At this point allow me thank the Senior Fellow for linking to my post at the beginning of his comments, the traffic is always welcome (though not to be ungrateful, the next time it would be nice if he reminded his readers to click on an ad or hit the tip jar, they are a bit stingy. I don’t have George Soros to help pay my salary).

Boehlert continued with a weird attack on the main thrust of the piece.

From the site Yid With Lid:

Groups Whose Quotes Used by Soros Group to Attack Glenn Beck, Repudiate Anti-Beck Effort

And this [emphasis added]:

Over the past few days, three of the groups used to corroborate the false charges raised by Jewish Funds For Justice have repudiated the letter arraigned by the George Soros proxy. All three weren't contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided.

And...this is just dopey for the very simple reason that all the JFSJ did in its ad was reference public quotes attributed to the three Jewish organizations (the Anti-Defamation League, Commentary, and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors). They are quotes critical of Beck's Nazi rhetoric.

Sorry Mr Boehlert, but as my kid would say, "DUH Captain Obvious!"

Nowhere did I say you were not allowed to use the quotes, what I said was the people whose quotes were used were upset their quotes/ organizational names were associated with the bogus letter your Soros sister organization issued.

Those quotes are all on the record, and none of them are in question. Why would JFSJ need to 'contact' the groups before referencing their quotes? Why would JFsJ need to make sure the groups would be "happy" to be mentioned in the ad? It's absurd. The JFSJ never claimed the groups were sponsors in the ad in any way

You are 100% right Mr. Boehlert, the JFJ ad never said the people or organizations were sponsors of the ad. Although by neglecting to mention that they weren't connected with the Soros-led effort it misled the reader into thinking they were connected, and worse it caused the people who objected to think JFJ was trying to tie them into their little hate project.

Come on, let’s be a little truthful here, if that kind of disingenuous connection was made by a conservative you would have not spared a penny of Spooky Dude’s billions to bash that fake claim from here back to Mr. Soros’ birthplace in Hungry.

Just curious Eric (I assume I can call you Eric because we have been conversing for almost 200 words now). How come you didn’t comment on all the charges and research presented in the first post last week? Or answer any of the questions raised in the Facebook conversation with Rabbi Steven Wernick? Why didn’t you bother to answer the specific objections made by the people whose quotes were misused. For God’s sake, one of them was Abe Foxman, the progressive’s progressive. Losing Abe was the progressive equivalent of LBJ's losing Walter Cronkite.

It’s just so hard for me to understand, on one hand, Eric Boehlert is professional, he wrote a book on blogging, and wouldn’t leave out parts of the story on purpose just to skew it in one direction or another. Besides he works for Media Matters an organization dedicated to exposing falsehoods in media reports.
On the other hand, why would my new friend Eric do a rush job? He is a professional dammit!

See my conundrum? I can understand how George Soros, Media Matters and the rest of the progressive army would exploit anti-Semitic bigotry to discredit Glenn Beck and protect George Soros; they have been pushing that strategy at least since October of last year. But I have to reject every explanation as to why Eric Boehlert would ignore part of the story or mislead his readers, because he is a professional and not simply a writer of progressive propaganda.