Media Matters:Watergate In Everything But Name

bitterlyclingin

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Aug 4, 2011
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[The LeftMedia's not even breaking into a sweat over this: First of all these things are only illegal if Republicans do them. Secondly, there's that air of mystery surrounding Barry, that unique Chicago mens club membership and all that, that indicates he's really, truly one of them and must be protected at all costs. Thirdly, if push comes to shove over this, they can always do their tried and true Three Monkey's Routine: "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Do No Evil". Far, far too early to even consider whistling past the graveyard]

"To be specific, Mr. Ulasewicz was…. well, let's let the late Theodore H. White describe Tony's job. Mr. White won a Pulitzer Prize for his The Making of the President 1960, kicking off a series that covered presidential campaigns through the Reagan-Carter showdown in 1980.

But Teddy White also wrote another book during that 20-year period. That would be Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon. As it were, a blow-by-blow account of the un-making of a president. Mr. White discusses Tony's role precisely:

His assignments, as he recalls -- and he might get thirty or thirty-five assignments a year -- concerned the sex, drinking and family problems of political opponents of the President, or contributors to the President's rivals. All reports were verbal -- to Caufield. Where they went, up from there, he did not know.

Tony's first assignment? What was Ted Kennedy doing that night at Chappaquiddick with Mary Jo Kopechne?

Noted Theodore White of this business:

Whether or not a White House counselor is entitled to command intelligence operations by agents on the official White House payroll is questionable, but probably legal. Whether a White House intelligence operation can, however, command intelligence, search and espionage paid for by private political funds is something else again.

Now. Let's pull out the news quotes from these two graphs about Tony Ulasewicz and put them together:

His assignments, as he recalls -- and he might get thirty or thirty-five assignments a year -- concerned the sex, drinking and family problems of political opponents of the President, or contributors to the President's rivals. All reports were verbal -- to Caulfield. Where they went, up from there, he did not know.… Whether a White House intelligence operation can, however, command intelligence, search and espionage paid for by private political funds is something else again.

What exactly, in the increasing flow of information from the Daily Caller about the Obama White House and Media Matters, sounds strikingly similar to the Watergate tale of Tony Ulasewicz?

That's right. It's this:

A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it's no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010,[Media Matter founder and head David] Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president's closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.

It's not clear what the four spoke about -- no one in the meeting returned repeated calls for comment -- but the apparent coordination continued. "Anita Dunn became a regular presence at the office," says someone who worked there. Then-president of Media Matters, Eric Burns, "lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of matters."

Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama's deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011.

So. Media Matters, we learn, is having weekly strategy calls with the White House, they meet with Obama aide Jarrett and ex-aide Dunn, who returned to the White House for the meeting after she departed. Anita Dunn also "became a regular presence" in the Media Matters offices, the then-president of Media Matters "lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of occasions."

And what else? What raises the specter of Tony Ulasewicz?

This. From Media Matters' Karl Frisch:


"We should hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of Fox News anchors, hosts, reporters, prominent contributors, senior network and corporate staff."

Now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is exactly the behavior that got Tony Ulasewicz parked in a chair in front of the Senate Watergate Committee, sitting under the hot klieg lights staring into television cameras on July 18, 1973. Being grilled by Tennessee Republican Senator Howard Baker and liberal Connecticut Republican Senator Lowell Weicker. Ulasewicz proved to be a hilarious witness, his breezy descriptions of delivering cash in paper sacks finally causing his interrogators to laugh. But in light of what we now know about Karl Frisch, David Brock, the relationship of Media Matters to White House aide Jarrett, ex-White House aide Dunn and the money paying for Media Matters' operations, it's worth a look back at some of Baker and Weicker's grilling of Tony. Because in the end, what Tony was talking about helped send John Ehrlichman to jail -- and force Richard Nixon to resign on threat of impeachment:""

The American Spectator : Is Media Matters Obama's Watergate?
 
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Jeez...still think that crook Nixon got railroaded?

Getting upset that Media Matters is playing the FOX NEWS game? Boo hoo. Spare us your crocodile tears.
Funny how you screech about this without ONE IOTA of law-breaking or wrong doing on MM's part. I wonder if you were this vocal about how Rupert Murdoch operates HIS media empire? Or is hacking the phone account of a dead girl, giving her parents false hope, morally superior than what you accuse Media Matters of doing?

Trying to project a air of moral superiority only works if you're moral to begin with.
 
Trying to project a air of moral superiority only works if you're moral to begin with

So we can count on democrats STFU
 
As long as their's no "coordination" with the Obama campaign, how's this Watergate? You've got to prove Step #1 first.
 
All those words to build a case for something that didn't happen and that is not illegal anyway. Wake-up accept that the media digs into the lives of public figures and get on with your lives. This is nothing more than an attempt to discredit MM before Fox ramps up the smear machine and boy are you people falling for it just like you will greedily lap up every overblown smear job that Fox will manufacture this year.
 
Trying to project a air of moral superiority only works if you're moral to begin with

So we can count on democrats STFU


Let me know when democrats rise the level of lying so we could murder 100,000 innocent Iraqi CIVILIANS and 4000+ of our troops FOR NONEXISTENT WMD's?

Then you can come back and pretend ReTHUGliCONZ don't live in a moral cesspool.


halliburton-highway-sign.jpg
 
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This. From Media Matters' Karl Frisch:


"We should hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of Fox News anchors, hosts, reporters, prominent contributors, senior network and corporate staff."

Exactly where is that quote from? When and where did Karl Frisch say it?
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.

You are missing the legalities involved. Read the articles.
 
Jeez...still think that crook Nixon got railroaded?

Getting upset that Media Matters is playing the FOX NEWS game? Boo hoo. Spare us your crocodile tears.
Funny how you screech about this without ONE IOTA of law-breaking or wrong doing on MM's part. I wonder if you were this vocal about how Rupert Murdoch operates HIS media empire? Or is hacking the phone account of a dead girl, giving her parents false hope, morally superior than what you accuse Media Matters of doing?

Trying to project a air of moral superiority only works if you're moral to begin with.

You should heed that advice....
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.

You are missing the legalities involved. Read the articles.

Legalities.... you think the left care about their side breaking the law?
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.

You are missing the legalities involved. Read the articles.

a lot of widely spaced dots connected by speculation does not equal conspiracy. If there was anything to this it would be more fully supported. This story is no more than something to point to this year when MM exposes yet more bald faced lies on Fox that you will gullibly take as the gospel, that is it's only purpose and the extent of this conspiracy theory.
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.

You are missing the legalities involved. Read the articles.

The only situation that would possibly be illegal is if the White House had instructed MediaMatters to "investigate" FOX.

There is no evidence of that at all.
 
Media Matters has come under fire after the Daily Caller exposed the liberal watchdog group for accepting a $50,000 grant to monitor and probe religious outlets. The Christian Post first reported that the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), an association of broadcasters and Christian communicators, was anticipating an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service into whether or not Media Matters violated its 501(c)(3) status when it collected money from a special interest group to scrutinize religious conservatives.

NRB Executive Board Treasurer Janet Parshall (left) questioned Media Matters’ attacks on religious broadcasters — such as Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson and the late Jerry Falwell — asserting that she would "be curious to see if someone is going to vet this organization [to ascertain] that in fact they haven’t violated their 501(c)(3)."

Under IRS requirements, organizations under 501(c)(3) status "are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct."

"If you start looking into who the donors are, where the funding mechanisms that started coming into Media Matters [came from], you realize that these are not tabula rasa, these are not blank slates, these are people who have [a] particular worldview, a particular agenda legislatively, politically, and they want Media Matters as someone to help shape and mold the debate," Parshall affirmed, indicating that the organization will be unmasked as a front group for progressive advocates.

The organization openly acknowledges its political agenda and the practices it takes to correct "misinformation" in the media:

Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation — news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda — every day, in real time.

Media Matters works daily to notify activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation, providing them with the resources to rebut false claims and to take direct action against offending media institutions.

The dispute in question is a $50,000 grant delivered in 2006 from the liberal Arca Foundation "to support a Religious Broadcasting Project to expand the monitoring and fact checking of religious broadcasts." Since the grant was awarded, Media Matters has published at least 65 articles about the Christian Broadcasting Network, with titles such as "Is there any tragedy Pat Robertson won’t exploit?" and "Robertson blamed [Ariel] Sharon stroke on policy of ‘dividing God’s land.’"

"I’m wondering if Media Matters needs to re-state in its 990 to the IRS, ‘Oh yeah, our charitable purpose is to conduct Spanish inquisitions of Christian broadcasters and drive them out of the media market place,’" Parshall said in an interview.

"We take ourselves very seriously," she added Monday. "We tell our people to ascribe to high ethical, financial standards and also good reporting techniques."

The Daily Caller recently reported on another controversy, finding evidence that Media Matters has worked closely with the White House and the Democratic Party:

Religious Broadcasters Urge IRS Probe of Media Matters
 
The double standards of journalistic ethics on this issue is absolutely appalling and yet amusing at the same time. Quit falling for the smear job here, hate MM if you must but at least quit acting as if digging into the lives of the public figures they cover is somehow unique to them. Want a list of everyone who Fox has investigated? Write down a list of everyone Fox has ever done an expose' piece on.

You are missing the legalities involved. Read the articles.

The only situation that would possibly be illegal is if the White House had instructed MediaMatters to "investigate" FOX.

There is no evidence of that at all.

That is a pretty low bar.
 
I think if the writer has to spend six paragraphs of obscurew background laying out why Media Matters is like Watergate, then it probably isn't anything like Watergate.

Media Matters was around a lot longer than the Obama Administration.

Not to say that there isn't a lot to criticize about MMFA. It's a shrill partisan website that even goes after the liberal media for reporting fact they don't like.

Just nothing criminal about it.
 

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