O’Reilly: How the Liberal Media Smear Machine Slimes Conservatives

The liberal media isn't going to spell out exactly how it goes about smearing conservatives, so Bill O'Reilly helpfully explained it last night on "The O'Reilly Factor."

Boiled down it goes like this: George Soros (and others) fund one of the left's most prominent noise machines, Media Matters for America, which distorts statements made by conservatives and then urges reporters to provide saturation coverage of such statements as proof conservatives are hypocritical and sinister.

In his "talking points" segment, O'Reilly references the Obama administration's strategy of attempting to marginalize its most vocal opponent, radio talk show giant Rush Limbaugh (video available at YouTube): 

BILL O'REILLY: The Limbaugh-Obama controversy is thankfully just about over, but the far-left smear machine that propelled it to our attention is just getting started.

At the top of the smear chart is the MoveOn organization. George Soros [is] heavily invested in that. The propaganda arm of MoveOn and other far-left pressure groups is Media Matters, run by a guttersnipe named David Brock. Brock and his character assassins distribute out-of-context statements to a carefully selected group of corrupt media, headed by MSNBC, and to the Internet. Sometimes the entities even cooperate. The aforementioned Newsweek, for example, provides far-left commentators to MSNBC on a daily basis. The goal, of course, is to smear conservatives in the media, to convince ill-informed Americans that those on the right are racist, homophobic, extremist, whatever.

Unfortunately, the smear machine works on some levels. The Obama administration apparently picked up on a poll done by Democrats that showed Mr. Limbaugh's popularity to be low among Americans under 40. Then the president's men tried to portray Limbaugh as actually running the Republican Party. Short term, it worked. A controversy exploded and the head of the RNC, Michael Steele, came off looking bad.

But as I wrote in my newspaper column this week, a backlash is in the air. Americans want the economy fixed, not silly games.

As for Limbaugh saying he wants Obama to fail, here's something you'll never hear on NBC News or read in The New York Times. According to a FOX News poll taken in August 2006, 51% of Democrats said they wanted President Bush to fail. Fifty-one percent. I believe NBC and the Times were in that group.

The Obama administration should understand that Americans are wising up to the smear factory. [...]

O'Reilly has performed a valuable public service.

But in his brief op-ed, he left out a few details some may find helpful.

George Soros, the hedge fund tycoon and currency speculator, is the preeminent funder of America's left. Soros is rarely depicted by the media as a political puppet master. Usually, he is portrayed as a wise elder statesman-like figure or a visionary. Last month Bloomberg News gave him an opportunity to dishonestly denounce America's financial system as an example of free markets run amok.

Soros bloviated about "market fundamentalism," while ignoring the role that the U.S. government played in the crisis, e.g. the Community Reinvestment Act, artificially low interest rates, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so on. (BB&T chairman John Allison has demolished the argument that the free market caused the subprime mortgage collapse. In a recent talk available here he shows that the financial services sector is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in our economy.) 

Soros and Brock work closely together. Last year they collaborated on a project called Progressive Media USA that vowed to spend $40 million trashing GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

Media Matters for America is a well-funded slander shop run by discredited journalist David Brock. It exists solely to combat what it calls "conservative misinformation."

Even the New York Times describes Media Matters as "highly partisan." 

Apart from the occasional profile of Media Matters, don't expect to hear more from the media about how the left manipulates the news.

(crossposted at Capital Research Center's blog)