What happened yesterday to silence and bully a private citizen into submission was not only un-American but more proof that the corrupt JournOlist never went away but only reorganized its wicked self elsewhere. With marching orders from this New York Times article, and in obvious coordination with the Obama campaign, the institutions of the mainstream media rose up in unison to intimidate into submission a man named Joe Ricketts and to send a threatening message to the rest of America’s super PACs.
The same media that did everything in its power in 2008 to downplay Barack Obama’s disturbing 20 year mentoring relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright is obviously terrified private citizens will do their job for them in 2012, which is the only explanation for why a full out MSM assault was launched after it was discovered Ricketts’ super PAC had received a proposal to produce a series of television ads tying Obama to Wright.
If you were paying attention yesterday, every network, every newspaper, and every MSM website and left-wing site (like there’s a difference) — was fully armed, positioned, and ready to do battle first thing yesterday morning. There’s no way this wasn’t organized, and there’s no way this assault was going to stop until Obama’s Media Palace Guards had bullied Ricketts into compete submission.
And the subtext of these attacks was clear:
“Those are some nice businesses you got there. Would be a shame if anything happened to them.”
Ricketts eventually caved; he really had no choice. But in a victory lap today, The New York Times wants everyone to know, especially wealthy Super PAC funders with something to lose, that effective attacks on Barack Obama are now off limits:
Word that Mr. Ricketts had considered bankrolling a $10 million advertising campaign linking President Obama to the incendiary race-infused statements of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., brought waves of denunciation from Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign and much of the rest of the political world.
Highlighting the perils of mixing partisan politics and corporate citizenship, the reverberations also swept through the Ricketts family’s business empire.
Liberal groups encouraged like-minded investors to drop their accounts with TD Ameritrade, the brokerage firm Mr. Ricketts founded. His family’s plan to seek public financing for improvements to Wrigley Field, home of their baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, ran into new political opposition. And he was forced to write a letter to reporters at his New York news organization, DNAinfo.com, assuring them he believed that “my personal politics should have absolutely no impact on your work.”
By early afternoon, Mr. Ricketts had announced that he had rejected the ad campaign as out of keeping with his own political style, a day after his aides indicated that it was still under consideration.
This is an important reminder that old media still has power and that we Citizen Journalists have a lot of work to do.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.