It’s a good thing we have Rachel Maddow to help us understand the “way more interesting” things that are going on “underneath the surface.” And by “interesting,” Maddow means “gross.”

Nevertheless, we’re lucky to have Ms. Maddow to disambiguate such dense political thickets as the one discussed in this clip from Friday’s show. Without Maddow’s atomizing tutelage, we’d no doubt remain clueless dolts, easy prey for calculating connivers like Richard Berman.

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There’s so much wrong in Maddow’s faux-polemic it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start with the smart-mouth.org vs. smartmouth.org and cspinet.org vs. cspinet.com non-controversy. Maddow devotes 45 percent of her nearly-six-minute alarm to the efforts of Berman to undermine the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Berman, Maddow claims, purchased domain names nearly identical to CSPI’s in an effort to steer traffic to shadow websites, which purportedly dispute CSPI’s beliefs about nutrition. Berman’s tactics, Maddow enlightens, are “deliberately confusing” and “muddy the waters.”  

One can debate whether Berman’s tactics as a watchdog of watchdogs are ethical or not. But there are harsh laws that protect intellectual property, such as corporate identity. If CSPI’s management believes  Berman has violated its rights, it can sue his organization.

What’s more interesting is this Maddow statement:

It’s deliberately confusing… It uses the good name and reputation of a reputable group to smear people… and confuse people about those groups.

Apparently, in the Maddovian thesaurus, offering an alternative viewpoint means “smear.”

I myself tried numerous times, from different computers, to be spirited away to Berman’s guerrilla sites—each time without success. Whenever I enter the insidious www.cspinet.com or www.smartmouth.org, I wind up at the nice CSPI website, not the nasty Berman site. Maybe Maddow will explain in a follow-up segment the correct way to step into Berman’s ambush. But it appears that CSPI has taken proper precaution in protecting its corporate identity.

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Since I can’t find Berman’s mirror sites, I can’t say whether his attack on CSPI amounts to a smear or just opposition. But to give Maddow the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume Berman does in fact “smear” that “reputable group.” If CSPI believes it’s been libeled, it can sue Berman in a court of law.

All this CSPI stuff was merely preamble to show how sneaky some people can be when espousing a cause. The real purpose of Maddow’s piece is to disparage a new organization called CRL, Consumers Rights League, for deigning to use the same acronym as the Center for Responsible Lending group it opposes. To Maddow, the new CRL has “muddied the waters” by using “that patented Rick Berman tactic.” (FYI: Maddow consistently misspeaks, calling CRL “Consumer [sic] Rights League.”)

To prop up her case, Maddow twice states that the Consumers Rights League has “a very similar name.” Huh? An identical acronym, yes, but a “very similar” name? Center for Responsible Lending, Consumers Rights League. Not exactly TV’s Duke cousins. Concluding her admonition, Maddow warns her viewers to watch for “corporate-funded fake activist groups and the right-wing media… to really start screaming about this.”


This is Nanny-think at its most evolved. Perhaps Ms. Maddow can explain how the mere assertion, sans evidence, that the Consumers Rights League “is all for payday lenders” makes that the Truth.

One of the great things about Constitutionally protected free speech is that it allows both sides of an argument to be presented and the stronger one to prevail. The CRL duel is reminiscent of the recent Alan Grayson debate in Florida, where a PAC started a website to refute Grayson’s www.acongressmanwithguts.com website. Their site is called www.mycongressmanisnuts.com. Grayson’s attempt to close the opposing site on legal grounds failed.

Both CRLs have every right to espouse their contrarian viewpoints, no matter who funds them. To posit the Consumers Rights League’s funding source (“Republican bankers,” claims Maddow) somehow pollutes the validity of its message is just one more example of the liberal diversionary tactic now in vogue. Tea Party members know this tune by heart.

What matters isn’t who’s behind the message—it’s the message. And if the new CRL is using clever cybertactics—a la those activists in Florida—that’s the beautifully-partisan, ever-ingenious American political system in action.  In the end the American people are smart enough to separate substance from surface. Let them go to both websites and educate themselves, rather than accepting as truth the premasticated pablum of a political pundit.