From Bashing to Cashing: Mother Jones Seeks Direct Mail Loot in O’Reilly Attacks

The philosopher Eric Hoffer once observed that movements go through a predictable cycle: They start out as crusades, turn into businesses, and end up as rackets.

That can be said of Mother Jones.

The original Mother Jones, Mary Harris Jones, was a left-wing crusader who died in 1930. The lefty publication named after her, Mother Jones, was founded in 1976.

For nearly four decades now, MoJo, as it likes to call itself, has been bumping along in the lower reaches of the left-wing media apparatus.  Along the way, the magazine has made plenty of mistakes and had to issue plenty of retractions.

But now, MoJo has reached a new low: In the wake of its swing-and-miss attack on Bill O’Reilly, which even the liberal-leaning Politico dismissed and Jon Stewart mocked, the money-losing outlet is now seeking to raise funds based on its O’Reilly attack.

So welcome to the wacky world of left-wing “journalism,” where even reportorial misfires can be expected to fire up the fundraising. Yes, even when MoJo gets something wrong, it is still shameless enough to seek to try to make money off its errors.

And MoJo has been joined in attack-mode by David Brock’s Media Matters for America, which is hot for O’Reilly’s head. Indeed, speaking of rackets, a quick introduction to Brock’s sleazy fundraising methods can be found in this recent investigative report in The New York Times.

For his part, O’Reilly has moved on; after blasting MoJo on his show on Monday—which drew huge ratings, by the way—the Fox News man ignored the MoJo story for a second night in a row on Wednesday. And Fox, too, has moved on. In a statement, Fox said:

Bill O’Reilly has already addressed several claims leveled against him. This is nothing more than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates Mother Jones and Media Matters. Responding to the unproven accusation du jour has become an exercise in futility. FOX News maintains its staunch support of O’Reilly, who is no stranger to calculated onslaughts.

That’s O’Reilly, and that’s Fox: Cool under fire, as always.

No wonder the channel has been Number One in cable news for the past 14 years.