Saturday, Breitbart News reported that Media Matters for America, the left-wing media enforcers funded by George Soros, attacked the left-wing New York Times over a report critical of the financial mismanagement and cronyism at the Clinton Foundation. Tuesday, David Brock, the chairman of Media Matters, hit the Times again. Apparently, he was irked over the delight Rush Limbaugh took in the story:
I am writing to express my concern about a recent string of reports and columns from your publication that have done nothing but use false pretenses to cast a shadow on Bill and Hillary Clinton. It says a lot that Rush Limbaugh applauded your “injurious” work on the former first family yesterday afternoon on his radio program. This recent pattern is all the more worrisome in light of your political editor’s decision to assign a reporter to cover Hillary Clinton, now a private citizen with no announced political plans, more than three years before the next presidential election.
Brock goes on to criticize the Times for ignoring the open letter Bill Clinton wrote in response to the attack on his foundation, reserves an entire paragraph to complain about opinion columnist Maureen Dowd, and “respectfully asks” that the Times do four things:
1. Correct the record regarding errors of fact and context in the Foundation news story;
2. Refrain from negatively pre-judging the Clintons in the manner of your political editor;
3. Correct the anti-Clinton animus consistently exhibited by one of your columnists; and
4. Resist the temptation to create purely speculative news in your new Clinton “beat.”
While the Times has yet to respond to Brock, one thing that has not changed is the ignoring (by both Clinton and Brock) of the Times more serious charges. Again, from our Saturday report:
Like Bill Clinton’s letter, however, Arrowood’s blog post sidestepped the Times’ more serious charges of cronyism and conflicts of interest and ducked altogether the Breitbart News report last week featured on Drudge Report that chronicled additional Clinton Foundation conflicts of interest not included in theTimes’ original report. As Breitbart News reported, by 2008, the Clinton Foundation raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, and other foreign governments with whom Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would later negotiate. In her role as a New York Senator, Hillary Clinton also reportedly helped New York developer Robert Congel win millions of dollars in federal assistance after Congel donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Then there is the case of Teneo. According to the Times, the Clintons, Band, Teneo, and the Foundation were entangled in a web of crony alliances and conflicts of interest.
Brock’s complaint regarding the Times’ decision to assign a reporter to the “Clinton beat” is even stranger than his frustration with an opinion columnist. Hillary Clinton is quite intentionally thrusting herself in the spotlight. Last week she gave a highly promoted speech about voting rights, and announced immediately afterward that she would be giving a number of other high-profile policy speeches.
As of now, everyone believes Clinton intends to run for the presidency in 2016, and Clinton Land is only fueling that speculation. Moreover, should she run, right now every poll taken indicates that she will be the next president of the United States.
It seems absurd for Brock to write off Clinton as a “private citizen” or to take umbrage with the fact that Times is merely treating Clinton like she wants to be treated: as a very serious contender for the most powerful office in the world.
Brock’s genius, though, is in his tactic, not the details within. In those extremely rare instances when a member-in-good-standing among the left-wing media dares report anything critical about a Democrat like Clinton or Obama, Media Matters is right there making them pay for their honesty. There are a number of reasons the media has gotten even more partisan and rabidly anti-conservative over the years, but fear of disapproval from Soros’ minions can definitely be found in the top three.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC