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More stories by Andrew J. Weaver, et. al.
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Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D. and Lawrence H. McGaughey, Esq.
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Andrew J. Weaver, et. al.
June 19, 2008
Karl Rove's Trojan Horse among the SMU Mustangs
Summary
To obtain the George W. Bush presidential library, Southern Methodist University has been required to accept an autonomous partisan institute on campus. Karl Rove is in the middle of the planning of and fund-raising for this Trojan horse project. The institute will give Rove the resources he needs to try to re-write the narrative of the Bush presidency, as well promoting his larger vision -- the domination of the right-wing of the Republican Party in American politics. In July the United Methodist Church, which owns SMU "lock stock and barrel," has one last chance to stop Rove.
Death Penalty Two at SMU?
The "Mustangs" of Southern Methodist University (SMU) are the only football team in history to receive a "death penalty" from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). In 1987 the NCAA required, among other things, that the university cancel its football season (White, 1989), citing the need to "eliminate a program that was built on a legacy of wrongdoing, deceit and rule violations" (McNabb, 1987). The scandal was a humiliation, centering on the misconduct of several trustees, especially the Texas governor, Bill Clements, who had been chair of the SMU trustees during the height of the scandal. There was also a lack of meaningful oversight by the United Methodist Church (UMC) bishops in the region (Wangrin, 2007; The Bishops' Committee Report on SMU, 1987). During the football debacle, Governor Clements' key political advisor was none other than Karl Rove, who was caught up in a scandal of his own (apparently he bugged his own office in an attempt to blame his client's political opponent in a close race, somehow escaping prosecution) (Dubose, 2001; Ivins, 2006).
The embarrassment brought to the university and the UMC by the football debacle will quickly pale in comparison to the disgrace soon to befall SMU if the UMC does not intervene. On February 22, 2008, SMU signed an agreement with Bush's foundation allowing the building of a partisan institute on campus that will report only to the foundation instead of the university (Weaver, 2008). A Bush insider told the New York Daily News that the mission of the institute will be to hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies" (DeFrank, 2006). According to numerous respected experts, the agreement to build the institute runs counter to fundamental academic safeguards (Jaschik, 2006; 2008; Ogden, 2007).
Rove at Work
On September. 2, 2007, U.S. News and World Report wrote that Bush's trickster, Karl Rove, "is planning to take charge...of the design, fundraising, and planning" of the Bush presidential complex at SMU. Benjamin Johnson, a history professor at SMU, attended the 2007 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. Several colleagues there reported that Karl Rove had been traveling around the country examining research facilities and discussing how to select Bush institute fellows (Johnson, 2007a). One prominent library director said, "Rove seems to know exactly what the square footage is of the building that will be at SMU and where it will be located on campus" (Johnson, 2007a).
Mark Langdale, president of the Bush library foundation recently confirmed that Rove is advising the organization, stating that he is "a critical resource about what happened in the administration, and he has a lot of good ideas about programming and positioning" (Meyers, 2008). This hands-on involvement by Rove demonstrates the importance of the proposed think tank at SMU to Bush insiders.
Unless the UMC takes a stand, neither SMU nor the UMC will have any say over the actions, agenda, or direction of an autonomous $500 million partisan-driven complex at one of its major universities. Karl Rove, who has a long history of hard-ball partisanship, will be in charge and he will roll out a giant Trojan horse and push it right through the front gate. The 99 year lease for a single dollar with a 249 year option (that the Bush foundation has required) means that after July, 2008 the next chance for the church to address the issue is the year 2357 (Peck, 2008).
A school of dirty tricks
George W. Bush sometimes calls Karl Rove "Turd Blossom," a Texas term for a flower that grows from a pile of cow dung. Time magazine, April, 22, 2001.
Rove has devoted his adult life to one vision -- the dominance of American politics by the right wing of the Republican Party at any cost (Borge, 2004). He will use all the resources at his disposal, particularly the Bush think tank proposed at SMU, to recruit, train, support, organize and deploy the next generation of right-wing political operatives.
As a 21-year-old Republican in Texas, Karl Rove was mentored in hardball politics by Richard Nixon's dirty tricks chief, Donald Segretti, later a convicted Watergate conspirator (Maden, 2002). Rove also learned from the late Lee Atwater, the Republican consultant who said of Michael Dukakis that he would "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate" (Herbert, 2006).
As national head of the College Republicans, Rove roamed the country instructing young Republicans how to play dirty against Democrats (Borger, 2004). "Rove's dirty tricks on behalf of Nixon's 1972 campaign catapulted Rove onto the national stage" (Maden, 2002). One of Rove's first swiftboatings was an attempt to paint World War II B-24 pilot and combat veteran George McGovern, a United Methodist whose father was a Methodist pastor, as unpatriotic (Maden, 2002).
Here are a few highlights among a long list of political intrigues with which Rove has been linked (Balz,1999; Basen, 2007; Borger, 2004; Davis, 2004; Dubose, 2001; Ivins, 2006; Maden, 2002).
- In 1970, College Republican Rove used a false identity to gain entry to the campaign offices of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon. There he stole letterhead and used it to invite hundreds of people to Dixon's headquarters opening, promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," disrupting the event. When later caught, he blew off his theft and fraud as a "youthful prank" (Balz,1999; Borge, 2004).
- In 1986, Rove was widely accused of bugging his own offices in order to blame it on the Democratic incumbent, Mark White, running against his candidate for governor of Texas, William Clements. The negative press about the bugging, weeks before the election helped Clements win a narrow victory (Ivins, 2006).
- When Rove was an adviser for George W. Bush's 1994 race for governor of Texas against Democratic incumbent Ann Richards, a whisper campaign in Texas falsely suggested that Richards was a lesbian. Texans also got calls from "pollsters" asking questions such as: "Would you be more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if you knew her staff is dominated by lesbians?" (Borgen, 2004). According to Texas journalist Lou Dubose, "No one ever traced the character assassination to Rove. Yet no one doubts that Rove was behind it" (Dubose, 2001). Governor Ann Richards, before her untimely death, was a faithful member of First UMC in Austin.
- In 1999, Rove is believed by many observers, including John McCain, to have been behind a whisper campaign against McCain during the race for the presidential nomination in South Carolina (Raw Story, 2008). The Boston Globe reported.
Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's [adopted] Bangladeshi-born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports.... The "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black (Davis, 2004). - In 2002, Rove helped to swiftboat Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a long-time member of the United Methodist Church. Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam. In his re-election campaign, he ran against a man who evaded service in Vietnam because of a "bad knee." In classic Rovian style, an avalanche of TV ads attacked Cleland's patriotism (McGrory, 2002).
- According to the investigation of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Rove played a central role in the outing of an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame (BBC News, 2007).
- Rove has ignored subpoenas to testify before Congress about the Justice Department controversy over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys (Greenberg, 2007).
- A Republican attorney claims that Karl Rove -- while serving as President Bush's top political operative -- intervened in the Justice Department's prosecution of Alabama's most prominent Democrat, Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama. Congress is seeking Rove's testimony in the case (Ricks, 2008).
Rove bonded to Bush
According to press reports, Rove grew up in difficult family circumstances (Borge, 2004). As a young man he found a place to belong and a new family among the George W. Bush tribe. Rove fell, politically speaking, in love with Bush at their first encounter. He described Bush as "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma -- you know, wow" (Borge, 2004).
He is deeply loyal to the Bush clan. It is significant that Rove could not avoid tears at the announcement of his leaving the White House. He is emotionally attached to Bush and can be expected to use all the resources available, particularly the partisan institute at SMU, to defend Bush and attack anyone who criticizes his close friend (Borge, 2004).
Re-branding Bush
Rove will need all the tricks of his trade to be successful at his first and most pressing task, the re-branding of the stained Bush name. Bush's approval ratings have hit an all time low of 28 percent, while 71 percent of the public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president. "This is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," reported Keating Holland, CNN's polling director (Steinhauser, 2008). The History News Network did a survey of 109 historians and found that a remarkable 98.2 percent considered President George W. Bush's presidency to be a failure, while 1.7 percent (2) thought otherwise (McElvaine, 2008). The highly negative view of Bush's presidency is all the more reason that Rove needs the partisan institute at SMU where Bush can be associated with a positive brand name -- Methodist.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in March 2008, "Methodists have the highest positive ratings of any religious or spiritual group in the United States" (Denton, 2008). Ninety-six percent of the 1,005 persons interviewed had either a positive or neutral view of Methodists, while only 4 percent had an overall negative view (Denton, 2008). With control of a partisan disinformation institute, attached to a quality university with the well-regarded name of a major Protestant tradition to exploit, Rove must be elated.
A recent attempt to re-write history on the PBS's Charlie Rose Show illustrates what Rove will be trying to do for Bush through the institute at SMU. Rove told Charlie Rose that it was Congress -- not the President -- who rushed into the Iraq war (Think Progress, 2007a). Rove was caught in a lie (Brownstein and Vaughn, 2005). This falsehood was so farcical that former Bush chief of staff, Andrew Card, stepped in to say Rove was talking rubbish (Think Progress, 2007b). Imagine the level of lies, dirty tricks and propaganda Rove can generate with a half-billion dollar partisan institute at his disposal, and no institutional opposition.
How did SMU get in this situation?
To answer that question one needs to look to the SMU board of trustees, particularly Texas billionaire, Halliburton board member and Bush loyalist, Ray Hunt. A long-time trustee (continuously since 1976), Ray Hunt served as the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee for George W. Bush in 2000 (Bryce, 2005). Hunt, who has given millions to both Bush Presidents, has already donated a whopping $35 million toward the Bush complex at SMU (Weaver, 2007). According to Forbes magazine, Hunt's personal wealth at the beginning of the Iraq war was $2.3 billion (Forbes, 2003). This year it was $4.0 billion (Forbes, 2008). Not everyone has been a loser in the "shock and awe" catastrophe in Iraq (Bryce, 2005).
According to knowledgeable UMC bishops, as well as several informed clergy and SMU faculty, Ray Hunt has been the key person in a successful effort to pack the SMU trustees with wealthy Republican allies of George W. Bush (Personal Communications, 2007; 2008). At least 26 of the 41 trustees have personal, financial, and/or political relationships with Bush, and many have been major fundraisers and contributors to his political campaigns (Weaver, 2007). Nearly all of the contributions to political candidates and campaigns by the trustees have been to Republican causes. In total, public records show that the SMU trustees have given $2,759,000 to Republican candidates and causes and $34,000 to Democratic candidates and causes in recent years (Campaign Finance in American Politics, 2007; Fundrace, 2007; NewsMeat, 2007; Public Citizen's Congress Watch, 2004; 2007).
A balanced, responsible board of trustees would have protected the interests of the university and the church. Granting George Bush or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama permission to build an independent institute on campus to promote his or her policies is something no self-respecting university board of trustees would permit. The trustees voted for the partisan institute without one dissenting vote, even after three bishops called for many of the trustees to recuse themselves because of apparent conflicts of interests (Weaver, Sprague, Hicks and Yeakel, 2007).
One last chance to stop Rove's Trojan Horse
The South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the UMC will meet July 15-19 to debate and then vote on whether to approve the leasing of land for the Bush library and think tank. There will be 290 United Methodist clergy and lay delegates at that conference representing 1.83 million church members from Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Louisiana. These delegates are the ultimate authority over the use of the land where the Bush project is scheduled to be built (South Central Jurisdiction, 2008). They have one last chance to just say no to Rove's Trojan Horse and the disgrace it will surely bring to SMU and the church that founded the school in 1911.
Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D., is a United Methodist minister and research psychologist. He is a graduate of Perkins School of Theology at SMU and lives in New York City. He has co-authored 14 books including: Counseling Survivors of Traumatic Events (Abingdon, 2003), Reflections on Grief and the Spiritual Journey (Abingdon, 2005), Counseling Persons with Addictions and Compulsions (Pilgrim, 2007), and Connected Spirits: Friends and Spiritual Journeys (Pilgrim, 2007). He was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Exemplary Paper on Religion and Behavioral Science three times.
REFERENCES
Abramowitz, M. (2007). Rove Doing His Part to Help Shape a Positive Legacy for Bush. Washington Post. March 8, 2007. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Balz, D. (1999). Karl Rove: The Strategist. Washington Post. July 23, 1999. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Basen, I. (2007). Media Watch. CBC News. Karl Rove and the politics of the base. Aug. 13, 2007. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
BBC News. (2007). Profile: Karl Rove. BBC News. August 13, 2007. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Berkowitz, B. (2007). Dubya's Tower of Babel. Mediatransparency.com. January 10, 2007. Retrieved on May 13, 2008.
Bishops' Committee Report on SMU. (1987). Report to the Board of Trustees of SMU from the special committee of Bishops of the SCJ of the UMC. June 19, 1987; Dallas: United Methodist Reporter.
Borger, J. (2004). The Brains. The Guardian. March 9, 2004. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Brownstein, R., and Vaughn, E. (2005). Timing Entwined War Vote, Election, Los Angeles Times. November 28, 2005. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Bryce, R. (2005). Top Secret Cronies. Salon.com. November 5, 2007. Retrieved on April 15, 2007.
Campaign Finance in American Politics. (2007). Campaignmoney.com. Retrieved on April 15, 2007.
Carney, J., and Dickerson, J. F. (2001). The Busiest Man in the White House, Apr. 22, 2001. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Davis, R. H. (2004). The Anatomy of a Smear. Boston Globe. March 21, 2004. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
DeFrank, T.M. (2006). W library in record book: $500M center would be priciest for a Prez. New York Daily News. Retrieved on April 2, 2007.
Denton, D. (2008). Gallup Poll Gives Methodists Highest Positive Ratings. United Methodist Communications. April 27, 2008. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Dubose, L. (2001). Bush's hit man: Karl Rove wins...by any means necessary. Texas Observer. March 16, 2001. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Forbes, (2003). Forbes 400 Richest in America: Ray Lee Hunt. Forbes. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Forbes, (2008). Forbes 400 Richest in America: Ray Lee Hunt. Forbes. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Fundrace. (2007). Fundrace 2004 Neighborhood Search. Retrieved on April 15, 2007.
Greenberg, J. C. (2007). E-Mails Show Rove's Role in U.S. Attorney Firings. March 15, 2007. Retrieved on May 20, 2008.
Hacker, H.K., Gillman, T.J., and Hodges, S. (2007). Methodist faction fighting Bush library at SMU. Dallas Morning News, January 19, 2007. Retrieved on May 2, 2007.
Herbert, J. (2006). Lee Atwater's sorrow for the road taken. San Diego Union Tribune. May 19, 2006.
Ivins, M. (2006). TruthDig. Karl Rove's early machinations. April 18, 2006. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Jaschik, S. (2008). SMU's Deal With Bush. Insidehighered. Feburary 28, 2008; Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Jaschik, S. (2006). Scholarly Archive or Ideological Center? Insidehighered. December 8, 2006; Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Johnson, B. (2007). Will Karl Rove be the First Head of the Bush Institute? Bush Libray Blog. April 7, 2007. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Maden, W. (2002). Exposing Karl Rove. CounterPunch. November 1, 2002. Retrieved on May 13, 2008.
McElvaine, R.S. (2008). HNN Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst. HNN. April 1, 2008.
McGrory, M. (2002). Dirty-Bomb Politics. Washington Post. June 20, 2002.
McNabb, D. (1987). SMU football canceled for 1987. Dallas Morning News. February 26, 1987. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
NewsMeat. (2007). Federal campaign contribution search. Retrieved on April 5, 2007.
Meyers, P. (2008). Rove advising on Bush library. Dallas Morning News. February 26, 2008. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Ogden, S. (2007). A gulf between institutions. Daily Campus. March 2, 2007.
Peck, J.R. (2008). Bush library opponents question process for approval. United Methodist News Service. Feb. 1, 2008. Retrieved on May 11, 2008.
Personal Communications. (2007; 2008). UMC bishops, clergy and laity told me that Ray Hunt has been the key person packing the board of trustees at SMU with wealthy allies of George W. Bush. A few years ago Hunt led an attempt to lower the required number of UMC members on the trustees. The church said no.
Public Citizen's Congress Watch. (2007). Bush's 2005 inauguration celebration: Brought to you by corporate America. Retrieved on April 27, 2007.
Raw Story. (2008). McCain and Rove form a tentative alliance. Raw Story. February 11, 2008.
South Central Jurisdiction. (2008). About the SCJ. May 19, 2008.
Ricks, M. (2008). Q&A With Don Siegelman: "I Think This Will Make Watergate Look Like Child's Play." The Anniston Star. May 18, 2008. Retrieved on May 21, 2008.
Think Progress. (2007a). Rove Tries To Rewrite History: Claims WH 'Opposed' Politicizing Pre-War Iraq Vote. Think Progress. November 22, 2007. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Think Progress. (2007b). Card Rejects Rove's Claim That Congress Pushed Bush To War: 'His Mouth Gets Ahead Of His Brain'. Think Progress. November 30, 2007. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Schutze, J. (2006). SMU's shame: Even people who like the President shouldn't want his library here. Dallas Observer. March 16, 2006. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Steinhauser, P. (2008). Most Unpopular President Ever. CNN. May 1, 2008. Retrieved on May 10, 2008.
Wangrin, M. (2007). 20 years after SMU's football scandal. San Antonio Express-News. March 3, 2007. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
Weaver, A.J. (2008). The "Fantastic Failure Institute" will undermine SMU. Daily Campus. 1/17/08. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
Weaver, A.J. (2007). Southern Halliburton University. Mediatransparency.org. June 4, 2007.
Weaver, A.J., Sprague, C.J., Hicks, K.W., and Yeakel, J.H. (2007). Trustees should follow lead of First Lady. Daily Campus; Southern Methodist University. Retrieved on May 20, 2008.
White, G.S. (1989). Gridiron Greed. New York Times. October 22, 1989. Retrieved on May 12, 2008.
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December 12, 2008
Media Matters Action Network acquires MediaTransparency.org from Cursor, Inc.
Today, Media Matters Action Network and Cursor, Inc. jointly announced the sale of Cursor, Inc.'s website MediaTansparency.org to Media Matters Action Network. Together they released the following statements:
“This sale is a win-win for both parties,” said Rob Levine, president of Cursor, Inc. “We've been trying for some time to institutionalize our organization and websites but have unfortunately been unable to raise the funds necessary to carry on our labor-intensive tasks. As the primary tool for tracking the funding of conservative organizations and their representatives who appear in the media, MediaTansparency.org is an excellent fit for Media Matters as they continue to expand their efforts to hold the media accountable.”
“MediaTransparency.org is a tremendous resource for anyone seeking to hold the media to task. We are thrilled to have this important and dynamic tool in our belt,” said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters Action Network. “Cursor, Inc., has done an outstanding job developing MediaTransparency.org, the most robust database of its kind available today. The wealth of data they have assembled on the funding behind conservative organizations is unparalleled.”
Bill Berkowitz
October 10, 2008
BornAliveTruth.org plays loose with the facts in targeting Obama
Head of anti-abortion group claims Obama 'supports infanticide'
Two weeks ago, BornAliveTruth.org, an anti-abortion group headed by Jill Stanek, launched a major attack on Sen. Barack Obama with a very personal and heart-wrenching television advertisement aimed at the voters in the toss-up states of New Mexico and Ohio. The ad, which according to Stanek cost the organization $338,000 to run -- in addition to what it is paying its public relations firm, CRC Public Relations -- was titled "The Gianna ad," and features Gianna Jesson, who is identified as an "Abortion Survivor."
"My name is Gianna Jesson, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion," Jesson states in the ad. "But if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here. Four times Barack Obama voted to oppose a law to protect babies left to die after failed abortions. Senator Obama, please support Born Alive Infant Protection. I'm living proof these babies have a right to live."
The ad, paid for by conservative philanthropist Raymond Ruddy, "singles out Obama's efforts while in the Illinois Senate to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act," according to the Associated Press' Jim Kuhnhein. The AP story reported that "Obama and abortion rights forces in Illinois have said the bill would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade."
The BornAliveTruth spot has garnered a great deal of media attention for both Jesson and Stanek. In a late-September telephone interview, Stanek told Media Transparency that both she and Jesson have made a number of television and radio appearances. According to Stanek, in its first two weeks, the ad garnered more than 200,000 hits on YouTube and other websites that have made it available.
Bill Berkowitz
September 26, 2008
PAC man
Our Country Deserves Better PAC aims to 'define' Obama's 'weaknesses' and make him 'an unacceptable choice to serve as our nation's next president and Commander in Chief'
He maintains that the newly-launched anti-Obama political action committee is not tied, nor related, to the campaign of Sen. John McCain and that it is not out to Swiftboat Sen. Barack Obama. The PAC intends to "define [his] weaknesses as a candidate, and thus make him an unacceptable choice to serve as our nation's next president and Commander in Chief." One of the group's earliest fundraising pitches, posted at the TownHall Spotlight, is titled "Barack Obama Sinks To A New Low." And among its ready-for-prime-time television advertisements are spots titled, "Obama Mocks America's Christian Heritage," "Obama's Patriotism Problems" and "Obama's Wrong Values."
He also pointed out that the PAC has clearly defined ethical lines that it will not cross when criticizing Obama.
Meet Joe Wierzbicki, the coordinator of Our Country Deserves Better PAC.
In the ever-expanding universe of Republican Party-sponsored/related groups attacking Sen. Barack Obama, add Our Country Deserves Better PAC to the list. Run by veteran California-based Republican Party conservative activists Sal Russo and Howard Kaloogian, Our Country Deserves Better PAC is a recently launched political action committee -- a committee organized to spend money for the election or defeat of a candidate -- that has several provocative pieces in the hopper.
In a series e-mail exchanges, PAC Coordinator Joe Wierzbicki told me that the Rancho Santa Marga, California-based entity hopes to "raise in excess of $1 million by Election Day," to run a series of anti-Obama television ads in as many as "ten states."
Bill Berkowitz
September 3, 2008
Freedom's Watch smearing Democratic Congressional candidates with false robo-calls
'Shady soft money group' going after Senate and House seats
Early last month the Republican lobbying group Freedom's Watch (FW) launched a series of television and radio advertisements criticizing congressional Democrats for going on vacation instead of staying in Washington and dealing with energy legislation. One ad urged supporters to "Tell Mark Udall," the Colorado Democratic Congressman now running for a Senate seat, "to show up to work and start fixing Colorado's energy crisis."
Freedom's Watch, which made its first public appearance with a $15 million radio and television advertising campaign aimed at maintaining Congressional support for President Bush's Iraq troop "surge" [escalation] just prior to General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's Congressional appearances in late-August 2007, is now attacking Democrats in a number of House and Senate campaigns.
Tony Feather, a veteran of past GOP campaigns, recently signed on "to run" Freedom's Watch's "new Senate-focused wing," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza recently reported. Feather, who will oversee the group's work in a number of Senate contests, was "intimately involved in the founding of Progress for America, a 527 group aligned with Republicans that spent millions on advertisements during the 2004 presidential election," the newspaper reported. Feather is a partner in Feather, Larson & Synhorst, "a do-it-all Republican consulting firm with strong ties to the Bush team."
In addition to its new focus on a handful of Senate seats, Freedom's Watch is commissioning misleading or false robo-calls in dozens of Congressional races. The House campaign is being led by Carl Forti, the former communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee. In early July, PolitickerOH.com reported that FW was running advertisements / robo calls "against nine state lawmakers in eight different states." According to Kyle Kutuchief, writing for The Point, the organization "has been making robo-calls into the 16th Congressional District falsely attacking Democratic Candidate John Boccieri for voting for a gas tax in the State of Ohio in 2003."
Bill Berkowitz
August 20, 2008
Republicans resurrecting Jeremiah Wright as campaign issue
Conservative philanthropy funded Media Research Center astonishingly claims news networks held collective tongues on the Wright affair
In 1962, two years after losing the presidency to John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon ran and lost the governor's race in California. At a post-election press conference, Nixon famously told reporters that they wouldn't "have Richard Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." It wasn't. He won the presidency in 1968, escalated the Vietnam War, was re-elected in 1972, and two years later he was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate Affair.
These days, one can easily imagine that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright might wish -- in his heart of hearts -- that the press, the cable news networks, conservative pundits, the headline writers and Republican Party operatives didn't have Jeremiah Wright "to kick around any more."
Thanks to conservative philanthropy and the Republican echo machine, the story about the relationship between the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Senator Barack Obama will be with us through Election Day and beyond. Whether Obama wins or loses, there will be much post-election analysis about how much the Wright Affair hurt the campaign.
Bill Berkowitz
August 14, 2008
David Bossie's big play
It won't be a post-Labor Day blockbuster or win critical acclaim, but Bossie's Citizens United is rolling out 'Hype: The Obama Effect,' an anti-Obama documentary that aims to make waves
Regnery has published a major anti-Obama book -- David Freddoso's "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate" -- and 2004 Swiftboater Jerome Corsi has written his -- "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality." All sorts of folks are peddling anti-Obama t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and more. Now it's David Bossie's turn for a big politico/merchandizing play.
Although still a relatively young man, Bossie, the president of Citizens United, has been a political mudslinger for a nearly two decades. He gained some national notoriety in the 1990s when he was relentless in his pursuit of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and later that decade was fired from his position as an investigator for a House committee. Earlier this year, Bossie "took out classified newspaper ads in Columbia University's newspaper and the Chicago Tribune ... searching for [Obama's] ... term paper," supposedly a thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament, Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer, reported in late July. Although he couldn't find it, he wrote in an e-mail to NBC News that "A thesis entitled Nuclear Disarmament, written at the height of The Cold War in 1983, might shed some light upon what Barack Obama thought about our most pressing foreign policy issue for 40-plus years (U.S.-Soviet Relations)."
Bossie's biggest play this election season is the production of an anti-Obama film: On the eve of the Democratic Party convention in Denver, Citizens United Productions will premiere its full-length documentary, "Hype: The Obama Effect." The film is unlikely to be a blockbuster, it thus far hasn't generated the buzz Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" did before its release, and will surely not be hitting the festival circuit. In fact, thus far, there are no movie houses listed under the "Theater" section of the hypemovie.com website, scheduled to show the film.
Bill Berkowitz
August 6, 2008
Defining Obama 24/7
Conservatives try to make presidential race about Democratic nominee, painting him as unreliable
As Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama trekked toward the final Democratic primaries, and it looked inevitable that Obama would be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, conservative pundits and cable television talk-show hosts, a host of blogs, and a number of newly formed organizations began intensifying their attacks on Obama, embarking on the early stages of one of Karl Rove's most effective political strategies: Directly attack the opponent's strengths. In the case of Obama, this means turning his very popularity into a negative, defining him as effete and more interested in celebrity before the Democrat can introduce and define himself to the larger nation.
Two new anti-Obama books, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality" (Threshold Editions, August 2008) by Jerome Corsi -- the co-author of "Unfit for Command," the 2004 book that contained false attacks on Senator John Kerry's military service -- and "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate," by David Freddoso -- a former writer for the conservative weekly, Human Events and National Review Online staff reporter -- are aimed at taking the attacks to a mainstream audience.
Bill Berkowitz
August 1, 2008
Anti-gay politics continues to drive Don Wildmon's American Family Association
California's Proposition 8 draws big-buck supporters, while Wildmon declares that outcome of 'culture wars' depends on turning back gay marriage
Two different -- yet ultimately interlinked -- issues relating to the "homosexual agenda" are agitating the folks at the Tupelo, Mississippi-based headquarters of Donald Wildmon's American Family Association (AFA) these days. One is your basic AFA-sponsored boycott; the other, according to Wildmon, will determine the final outcome of America's "culture wars."
Wildmon is simultaneously leading an effort to boycott the fast food giant McDonald's, and marshaling the troops in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that would reverse the state's Supreme Court recent decision in support of gay marriage.
Why McDonalds? A short time back, the home of the Hamburgler donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) in exchange for membership in the NGLCC and a seat on the group's board of directors. That outraged Wildmon, the undisputed kingpin of calling boycotts against companies that might have a scent of gay-friendliness.
Bill Berkowitz
July 11, 2008
A president desperately seeking a legacy
George W. Bush goes back to touting 'compassionate conservatism' and the 'successes' of his faith-based initiative
In 2004, at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, President Bush's contribution to the evening's entertainment was his narration of a slide show that pictured him looking around the Oval Office for weapons of mass destruction. In one of the shots, Bush is looking under some furniture and remarked: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere."
Flash forward four years: At this year's dinner, Bush played highlights from a number of his previous appearances. In a wise decision, he left the WMD skit -- which was roundly criticized for making fun of the issue that was the driving force behind the invasion of Iraq, which has led to deaths of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis -- out of the highlight package.
These days, Bush is no longer concerned about whether WMD existed in Iraq.
Instead, he is desperately seeking a legacy; anything that he can latch onto that might trump the fact that a majority of Americans believe that he will go down as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. His search for a legacy could prove as futile as the search for WMD. At this point, it appears that it has landed him back he started a week after his inauguration in 2001; touting his faith-based initiative and "compassionate conservatism."
On January 29, 2001, a little over a week after the start of his first term, Bush, surrounded by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim clergy, unveiled his faith-based initiative by issuing an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). He followed that up with another executive order that eventually established Faith-Based and Community offices at 11 federal agencies.
While Bush's faith-based initiative has spread its tentacles to a host of federal, state and local government agencies -- 35 governors and more than 70 mayors, both Democratic and Republican, have established programs modeled after the federal faith-based and community initiatives program – Congress has never even come close to passing legislation legally enacting it.
Bill Berkowitz
June 24, 2008
'Battling for America's Soul'
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property leaps headlong into the showdown over same-sex marriage in California
They've been around for more than 30 years; trace their roots to a Brazilian anti-communist dissident Catholic; wear colorful outfits during their protests on college campuses; and apparently have enough spare change to fund three 4,000+ word simultaneously-placed advertisements in three national dailies.
Of all the conservative organizations that will be getting involved in the same-sex marriage showdown in California, one of the least known is a Catholic outfit called the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP). TPF isn't a fly-by-night letter-head-only group that suddenly formed to get in on what promises to be one heck of a battle.
On June 5, in response to the California Supreme Court's ruling in support of same-sex marriage, TPF issued a press release announcing the publication of two-page advertisements critical of the decision, appearing "simultaneously" in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Times, costing the group perhaps as much as three-quarters of a million dollars.
The ads, which explicitly called for civil disobedience, were titled "Battling for America's Soul: How Homosexual 'Marriage' Threatens Our Nation and Faith -- the TFP Urges Lawful and Conscientious Resistance."