Drudge screws up again

It never gets old pointing out when right-wing blogger Matt Drudge screws up a story.

According to Media Matters, Drudge has claimed that Media Matters is a "[George] Soros operation."

No so, says the Website:

"In fact, Media Matters has never received funding from progressive philanthropist George Soros," read a statement earlier today on the site.

Soros has donated millions of his billions to liberal causes and organizations, including about $25 million of his own money in 2004 to PACs to try and get President Bush out of the White House.

My guess is, MM irks Drudge by exposing his lies. MM does it in quick fashion, too - I'm not sure how many people work for the Website, but they are always on top of questionable stories from the right-wing noise machine.

If you aren't familiar with MM, and you enjoy reading the news behind the news, then MM is a can't-miss Website. MM was founded in 2004 by David Brock to fight back against right-wing talk radio, Fox News and any other right-wing leaning organizations that don't have any problem putting misleading stories in the media.

Brock is an ex-conservative - he used to write for The American Spectator, a far-right, conservative magazine. During the Clarence Thomas hearings, Brock famously wrote in the Spectator's pages that Anita Hill was, "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." He also participated in a few of the more notable stories to attempt to discredit Bill Clinton before and during the early years of his presidency, including Troopergate and The Arkansas Project.

Brock repented and wrote Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative and never looked back. He even apologized to President Clinton, Anita Hill, and many other people he smeared during his career as a right-wing hatchet man.

Founding Media Matters for America is part of his transformation.

Gone are the days when people like Drudge can print something with the flimsiest of proof (if any), only to take the story off of his Website when the truth came out (if, in fact, it did at all).

Drudge's clumsy attempt to smear CNN's Michael Ware, after he made a fool of Judas John McCain about Iraq, fell flat. And Drudge's motives were transparent, too - Ware made McCain look bad, so it was payback time.

I urge you to visit MM often, and support the site if you have the means. It really is a one-stop shop for the liberal looking to debunk the right's lies, distortions and smears.

I click it every day and use a great deal of the media available on the site.

It's Nancy smearin' time! Yee Haww!

This flattering picture of Nancy Pelosi, the (hopefully!) future Speaker of the House, appeared on The Drudge Report today, with another ham-handed attempt at a smear. Read on...

This one's got my blood boiling a bit. As any reader of my blog knows, I'm a fan of Media Matters, a Web-based, non-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. So basically, it debunks conservative bullshit in the media. It's a big, tough job - there's a lot out there.

MM is headed by David Brock, a former conservative media talking head who played integral roles in the smearing of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings (Brock opined that Hill might be "a bit nutty and a bit slutty") and also the Troopergate story that led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. In short, Brock had some making up to do, and he's done just that. He's authored a must-read for people interested in what he calls the Republican Noise Machine called Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. (Confession, I have it, but am yet to read it - too many other books keep getting in the way, but it was a NYT best seller, and I've heard and read nothing but good things.) Okay, back to my boiling blood...

I caught this one today and it just had me laughing. It's a revealing journey that reveals how hacks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Lielly and worst of all, Matt Drudge, plant exaggerated stories, half truths or outright lies in the media, and they get picked up and reported as news. Drudge is the biggest offender of all; he's been doing it for years, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Normally, I don't like to cut/paste stuff to my blog, but this one is worthy. It'd be more entertaining if so many people didn't obediently hear/read this stuff and believe it without questioning it.

Anyway, there it is - my comments are in (italics).

Where is Nancy Pelosi? A 'How To' Guide for Advancing Conservative Misinformation
How a Bogus Claim from a GOP Organization Ended Up on MSNBC

From Media Matters, November 3, 2005

Washington, DC -- The Republican noise machine is at it again. In a last-ditch effort to distract voters, Republicans are playing pickup game of "Where is Nancy Pelosi?" It began with a widely distributed email, obtained by Media Matters for America (See it Here), claiming that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is almost entirely absent from the campaign trail. The email landed on the Internet gossip site Drudge Report, and the story reached a peak today when MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell asked NBC correspondent Mike Viqueira where Pelosi has "been in the last week."

In fact as the blog ThinkProgress.org noted, on November 1, "Pelosi appeared at a sold-out rally at the Warfield Theater with former President Clinton. Portions of the rally were broadcast on television." On the same day CNN aired a feature interview with Pelosi.

Jamison Foser, Managing Director of Media Matters for America, called the media out for participating in the GOP's election-year stunt.

"This is a textbook example of a journalist mindlessly repeating false Republican spin designed to muddy the waters and distract the public. The media have a responsibility to check the facts instead of simply parroting GOP operatives," Foser said. "Better yet, they should focus on substantive issues that matter to real people instead of these increasingly absurd efforts to change the subject."

The Freedom Project sent out the email, titled "Where is Nancy Pelosi?" on October 31, claiming that Pelosi has been absent from the campaign trail and posing possible reasons why. It wasn't long before the claim was picked up and mentioned in the mainstream media. Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a report on November 2 repeating the Freedom Project's false claims. Drudge wrote: "The woman who would be speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has oddly stayed out of the national spotlight in the week leading up to the big vote." The following morning, on the November 3rd edition of MSNBC News Live, O'Donnell brought up the issue with Viqueira. (Watch it below)



Three Easy Steps to Advancing Conservative Misinformation
1. Write a scathing email or press release. Resist the use of facts. Rely heavily on buzzwords and spin.
2. Distribute the email or press release far and wide. Pray that someone in the mainstream media picks up the story. If that doesn't work, make sure you get a copy of your hit piece to the Drudge Report.
3. Watch and smile as the mainstream media report on Drudge Report items as legitimate news. 4. Complain about a liberal bias in the press.

Thankfully, Viqueira shot down O'Donnell's question by refuting the blatantly false idea, forwarded by "Republican operatives," that Pelosi is "trying to run out the clock instead of engaging in the issues that matter to the American people." Viqueira went on to note that Pelosi has continued to do fundraising and media interviews.

###

So, there you have it - I guess O'Donnell's idea of doing legwork for political stories is to simply read Drudge's Website.

A few thoughts on this...

1. Hey GOP blowhards, um, wasn't Pelosi just on 60 Minutes recently? (Which, by the way, was an outright disgrace, where Pelosi had to suffer the indignity of Leslie Stahl's remarks about her clothing, what she ate, as well as Stahl's blatantly misogynistic and provoking questions. Watching the interview, I thought she was working for the Bush White House, but I digress.)

2. For those of you reading who think I'm full of it about Matt Drudge being in bed with the Republican Party, think again. One, if you read his site, you know it's true, but, most importantly, GOP leaders have acknowledged as much in interviews. Ken Mehlman, the head of the RNC, feeds talking points to Drudge regularly. Knowing that, you don't think that some misleading and/or false material finds its way into those updates? You'd better believe it. Drudge has had to publish several retractions for things that were outright lies.

Funny how that never gets much press.