According to some estimates, Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally drew almost 300,000 people to Washington D.C. on August 28. Had it been a rally led by Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, the mainstream media would have used precision camera angles to exaggerate the number of participants and revel in the fact that there had been another “Million Man March.” Instead, it was just 300,000 conservatives converging on the nation’s capital, so writers like the New York Times’ Frank Rich had to strain to find some way to pervert the reason behind the gathering or defile those who supported it.
In the end, Rich settled on defiling the financial backers of the rally by “outing” them. In fact, he was so diligent in publishing their names, discussing their opposition to liberalism, and cataloging the massive amounts of money they’ve given to conservative causes, that it almost seemed like he had an axe to grind.
For example, after fingering Rupert Murdoch, Rich pointed to David and Charles Koch as the “fat cats” behind the Tea Party movement, noting that TEa Partiers “may not know who these brothers are,” (which is liberal-political-speak for “I’m getting ready to give you all the dirt I can on these two guys”).
Rich then spent the remainder of the article listing every political cause the Koch brothers support or have supported. From the fact that David Koch is “founder of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation” to the fact that the Koch family foundations gave $12 million to Republican stalwart Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks to a putrid description of the $50 million-plus Koch Industries spent lobbying for the same kinds of business-friendly energy laws that Exxon Mobil supports, Rich really threw back the covers on the Koch brothers.
But unless one reads carefully between the lines, the reader might miss the fact that the real reason Rich is upset isn’t that such funds have been given but that the Koch brothers have yet to face serious leftist pushback over supporting conservative causes. Therefore, throughout the article, intermixed with Rich’s description of the kind of conservative groups and activities the Koch brothers support, he throws in lines like: “New Yorkers who associate the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet [will find it] startling” that the Koch brothers also support political activists opposed to President Obama.
This is a classic liberal move whereby soreheads like Rich employ the tactic of shame in hopes of causing Manhattan’s elites to rethink their relationship to the brothers, perhaps even shunning them socially.
Yes it’s a cowardly, low, and deceitful way to go about things, but what else can we expect from Frank Rich?