If there are any cowards of conscience remaining on the fringe Republican right, David Brock is probably their bogeyman of choice. A former flunkey of Richard Mellon Scaife and other wingnut financiers who wrote hit pieces against the Clintons and others through the 1990s for publications like The American Spectator, Brock turned on his erstwhile masters with a vengeance in his memoir Blinded by the Right. The book exposed just how deep the hypocrisy runs on the other side, and unearthed a lot of skeletons from a lot of closets. (Brock himself came out of the closet around the time the book was released, and included some bitchily funny digs at Matt Drudge and others in his volume.)
Now he's back with an incredibly useful and timely website that should quickly takes its place alongside Air America, Daily Kos and other touchstones of the progressive blogosphere: Media Matters. Brock's intention is to spotlight the most disgraceful, offensive, and flat-out false incidents of vocal flatulence from the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Foxfolks of this world, and he's off to a pretty kick-ass start. Here are some of the initial headlines:
- Hannity & Colmes guest compared U.S. soldiers' maltreatment of Iraqi POWs to "frat hazing"
- Novak distorted Kerry's defense record, denied that Cheney cut defense
- Limbaugh: Women "Actually Wish" for Sexual Harassment
And here's Brock himself on the what and the why:
The conservative media machine dominates our discourse, not because it is based in fact or logic but because it operates with almost total impunity. That ends today, as Media Matters for America puts in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation -- every day, in real time -- in 2004 and beyond.
As William Shatner once said: This is gonna be big. Bravo, David Brock.
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