California Conservative

Alot of pieces of the Hillary/Harry Reid/Senate Democrats puzzle fell into place after I read this article. The article tells about the comunications Hillary had with David Brock when he was putting Media Matters together. It talks about Hillary’s advising Harry Reid about putting a Senate Democrat War Room. Before we get started with the heart of the article, here’s a little background on who’s involved:

The first decision Hillary faced as she took over the [Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee] in early 2003 was whether to keep the staff director, Jodi Sakol. Sakol, in her early thirties, was already a communications veteran, having worked the beat for Al Gore when he was vice president and during his 2000 presidential campaign…

Ms. Sakol eventually got involved with this:

Concurrently, and on her own time, Sakol was involved in discussions about the
formation of another nonprofit, left-leaning group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which focused on government corruption. It was Hillary’s “proactive” efforts in this area and her desire to “beat the GOP at their own game” that prompted CREW’s founder, Melanie Sloan, a former prosecutor, to invite Sakol to the initial brainstorming sessions in 2003 where CREW was born. CREW was organized as a tax-exempt nonpartisan group, and on occasion, it has taken on Democratic targets. But since the Congress and the executive branch were in Republican hands at the time of its founding, its investigations were bound to focus on Republicans.

Sakol alerted Hillary and her staff about the newly forming group and its need for “Democratic progressive money.” The hope was that CREW would prove to be a perfect counterbalance to Judicial Watch, the corruption watchdog that had tormented the Clintons with lawsuits and press conferences throughout the 1990s. Hillary’s pollster and strategist Mark Penn became a director and vice president of CREW. “CREW could do things the senators couldn’t do,” Sakol said. And once CREW’s charges “were out in the press,” Sakol noted, other people could cite the findings of the group, which was usually portrayed as nonpartisan in news accounts.

CREW was touted as a nonpartisan watchdog group to the Lapdog Press, who bought it hook, line and sinker. That’s what the Lapdog Press would dutifully report whenever there was a news story involving CREW. CREW is Soros-funded hit squad whose goal is to smear Republicans. That’s only a bit of what I found on this alliance. Here’s another tidbit of information that needs to be told:

Brock’s nonprofit, a Washington-based media-monitoring venture called Media Matters for America, found a temporary home in early 2004 at the Center for American Progress. Already providing its daily news summary to Hillary, the center helped Sakol get the daily media analysis prepared by Media Matters in order to help shape the Senate war-room activities.

Media Matters is another liberal hit squad that touts itself as a watchdog group. As we can clearly see, that’s insulting to anyone who knows anything about the organization. Let’s show what a genuine watchdog group does, then compare that with Media Matters does.

CGAW is a legitimate citizen’s watchdog group. Their Waste Watch report rates how each representative did in terms of wasteful spending. For instance, Robert Wexler, (D-FL) had a 2 percent rating in 2006. Rep. Wexler has a lifetime 8 percent rating from CAGW. According to CAGW’s rating system, that puts him in the hostile to citizens category, meaning he’s a wastemonger.

Let’s now look at what Media Matters is noted for:

Although it was independent, Media Matters had among its earliest supporters and
advisers long-standing allies of Hillary and the Democratic Party. One of them, Kelly Craighead, who planned Hillary’s trips for eight years when she was First Lady, advised Media Matters “on all aspects” of its launch. And the new group wasted no time becoming an aggressive protector of Hillary’s reputation and boasting about its role as truth police, forcefully going after journalists for what the group deems to be leaving out key information or cherry-picking material. In three years, the group has cited more than seven thousand examples of “conservative misinformation,” Brock said.

Hillary, though not a close friend of Brock’s, advised him and “quietly nurtured” his nonprofit empire. The watchdogs at Media Matters often rushed to Hillary’s defense…

TRANSLATION: Hillary advised terminally unethical David Brock, a former enemy of the Clinton’s. In return, “Media Matters often rushed to Hillary’s defense…”

Some watchdog.

This week, Media Matters used their time-tested method of funneling misinformation into the Senate War Room, where senators got their talking points. Harry Reid picked up on Media Matters’ misinformation about what Rush said. Reid threw a hissy fit with the misinformation when he reached the Senate floor.

Here’s a simple question worth asking: Do watchdog groups work hand-in-hand with one political party while attacking the other? That’s what Media Matters is doing. In fact, that’s what they proudly state in their About Us page:

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive
research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

A large part of Media Matters’ funding comes from a liberal umbrella group titled the Democracy Alliance:

Media Matters for America is funded in part by the Democracy Alliance.

Stripped to its essentials, Media Matters is nothing if not an important organization in the Clinton media network. I’d bet that most people would agree with me that that isn’t what watchdog groups do.

Here’s more information on the Democracy Alliance:

Some alliance members are close to Hillary; by 2007, the alliance was run by Kelly Craighead, a longtime member of Hillaryland. The alliance has some firm rules: Members must donate at least $250,000 per year to approved causes, and the groups seeking their backing must submit proposals to the alliance for screening and agree to keep secret the source of their donations.

Since when do watchdog groups get a significant portion of their funding from organizations who “agree to keep secret the source of their donations”? The watchdog groups I’ve heard of make a big issue out of transparency. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a supposed watchdog group accept financing from an organization sworn to keeping their funding secret.

As Republican activists, we’ll need to take on this network of liberal misinformation. there’s no denying that this is a daunting task. The good news is that one man armed with the truth is totally capable of slaying that misinformation network. The better news is that an Army of Davids, armed with the truth, is even more capable of refuting the misinformation coming from the Clinton War Room.

We can’t succeed without everyone doing their share of research. We can’t succeed if we don’t print the truth daily. We can’t succeed if we don’t refute the misinformation with mounds of irrefutable logic and verifiable facts.

If we make those sacrifices, we’ll win. It’s that simple.

Technorati Tags: Hillary, Harry Reid, David Brock, Media Matters, Democracy Alliance, Jodi Sakol, CREW, Clinton War Room, Watchdog Groups, Right Blogosphere, CAGW, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 8:06 am and is filed under Activism, Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, DNC, Election 2008, Hillary, Internet, Liberals, Media, Special Interests, Subversives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.