While on Lebanese television, Media Matters ally Max Blumenthal fabricated several quotes and attributed them to Herman Cain. Only Blumenthal knows whether these fabrications were intentional, so as to discredit Cain maliciously, or born of Blumenthal’s poor recollection ability.
Let’s review.
BLUMENTHAL QUOTE:
” … who has said that he would impose loyalty oaths for any Muslim who wanted to serve in the federal government. Completely unAmerican.”
ACTUAL CAIN QUOTE:
” … I would ask certain questions, John. And it’s not a litmus test. It is simply trying to make sure that we have people committed to the Constitution first in order to for them to work effectively in the administration.”
BLUMENTHAL QUOTE:
” … he said that mosques should not be built in American communities …”
CAIN:
Wallace: So you’re saying any community, if they want to ban a mosque?
In the ignoble quisling tradition of “Hanoi Jane,” Max Blumenthal recently traveled to Lebanon to trash the American media, denounce Israel, and reinforce conspiracy theories about the power of the “Israel lobby” in U.S. politics.
Blumenthal, who is linked to Media Matters for America, told the host of “Transit” on Lebanon’s Future TV that the American media censors criticism of Israel: “There’s no mainstream American television program, cable program, that would allow me to speak as freely as I’m speaking to you right now about some of the issues that I talk about.”
He added, gratefully, that he’s reached a global audience through Al Jazeera, which “everyone watches in the United States.”
Shortly thereafter, Blumenthal slammed Israel: “[D]uring the Second Lebanon War, when Israel was attacking this country, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister at the time, went to Jewish groups in the United States and said: ‘Every Jew in the world is fighting this war.’” (My emphasis.)
Blumenthal did not mention that the war was started by the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which targeted Israeli civilians, Jewish and Arab, throughout the war.
There are two reasons for Blumenthal’s bias and cowardice: first, his own far-left agenda; and second, the fact that Hezbollah dominates Lebanese politics and media today. Blumenthal had the “courage” to attack the American media and American democracy on Arab television, but didn’t offer the slightest criticism of Hezbollah or terrorism in general on television in a society where he knew he could suffer real consequences. (Hezbollah members were recently indicted by the UN in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who founded Future TV.)
The rest of the interview is filled with lies, demonstrating Blumenthal’s willful ignorance of the peace process and his enthusiasm for tales of “extremely radical” Jewish political donors who he claimed are “sheep for the directors of AIPAC” in U.S. congressional elections.
Blumenthal told viewers in a country whose politics are overshadowed by a tottering Syrian dictatorship, a murderous terrorist mafia and a meddling Iranian theocracy that American democracy is a sham in which the “Israel lobby” writes legislation that the Congress hurries to pass on its behalf. Along the way, he slandered Christians who support Israel and referred to George W. Bush as “the most white president” in American history.
Blumenthal also proudly proclaimed that he will never work as a “staffer” in the American media. Perhaps he could join Cynthia McKinney as a contributor to Iranian state TV?
Politicizing any tragic event for the sake of political posturing is despicable. And that’s exactly what the left did on Saturday before the bodies of the victims of Lee Loughner’s massacre were even cold. It’s deplorable to point fingers and play the partisan game, but the right has to respond to the left’s rhetoric. Citing blogs and tweets to point out hypocrisy of the left’s behavior concerning an incident of such horrible violence makes me sick to my stomach. But if we don’t engage the left, even at their most disgusting states, they will dominate the narrative. If the left had their way, they would have you believe that the responsibility for Saturday’s events rested solely on the shoulders of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart. It’s disgusting, despicable, insensitive to the victims and provably false. But that’s how the left wants this event to go down in the history books and those of us on the right have to engage.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw in my news feed on Twitter that morning. I assumed it would be updates and conflicting reports of the chaotic events (which there was plenty of that). But within 30 minutes of the story catching fire, my timeline was filled with radical leftist ranting against the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Andrew Breitbart.
Eric Boehlert first re-tweeted someone blaming Palin for the shooting. I don’t necessarily equate re-tweets as an endorsement so I let that one slide past without comment. I just couldn’t believe that even someone as ridiculous as Eric Boehlert would actually ascribe blame and political posturing before any facts were known about the incident. Minutes later Bohlert linked to Andrew Breitbart’s breitbart.tv livestream of the CNN coverage citing a commenter as “proof” of the approval of violence from the right. Disgusting.
I’ve had $100,000 burning in my pocket for the last three months and I’d really like to spend it on a worthy cause. So how about this: in the interests of journalistic transparency, and to offer the American public a unique insight in the workings of the Democrat-Media Complex, I’m offering $100,000 for the full “JournoList” archive, source fully protected. Now there’s an offer somebody can’t refuse.
Yes, the mainstream media that came together to play up the false allegations that the “N-Word” was hurled 15 times by Tea Party participants at the Congressional Black Caucus outside the Capitol the day before the “Obamacare” vote, is the same MSM that colluded to make sure the American public accepted the smear, and refused to show the exculpatory videos that disproved the incendiary charges of Tea Party racism.
Ezra Klein’s “JournoList 400” is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism. Now that collusion has been exposed when one of the weakest links in that cabal, Dave Weigel, was outed. Weigel was, in all likelihood, exposed because – to whoever the rat was who leaked his emails — he wasn’t liberal enough. (more…)
Who else could utter such fatuous nonsense with a straight face but “Booger” Max Blumenthal, ”independent journalist” and son of Clinton flack Sid “Vicious” Blumenthal, who takes to the Independent Film Channel tonight with a documentary about, what else, the “far right” and the Tea Party movement. If these snarky, sneering teasers are any indication of the kind of sophisticated analysis we’re in for, we can hardly wait:
The people I’ve written about have called me everything from a left wing hack to a sociopath to even a self-hating Jew.
Meanwhile, Max — who’s plainly terrified by inanimate objects — fears for the future of a Republic that has such folks as these in it:
Lest we forget, this memorable moment in Blumenthalism: (more…)
Max Blumenthal, a blogger who has frequently accused prominent conservative activists of racism, has trashed a highly respected annual report on antisemitism as “propagandistic.” The report, by the Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, is the product of meticulous research by a team of scholars that collects and scrutinizes data from all over the world.
Yet to Blumenthal, the Roth Institute and its “collaborators” (more on that word later) “appear more interested in insulating Israel from scrutiny…than in generating education and dialogue to combat bigotry.”
He claims that the Roth Institute shares the objective of the Israeli government “and its international supporters” (again, more on that curious choice of words below) to undermine criticism of Israel’s policies.
As someone who has witnessed the last decade of anti-Israel protest–first as a freelance journalist, and then as a pro-Israel activist–I can testify to the truth of what Blumenthal so blithely denies. At the University of Chicago last fall, outside a speech given by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, I photographed anti-Israel demonstrators carrying swastikas, and was taunted by shouts of “Hitler was a great guy.” (more…)
Andrew Breitbart’s recent smackdown of Max Blumenthal at CPAC (for his vicious smears against James O’Keefe) serves as a reminder to us all that when Liberal “journalists” attack, they have one goal – and it isn’t reporting the truth. It is to win at any cost no matter what the damage is to the victim. It is called the politics of personal destruction and it reflects the utter nihilism of Liberalism.
The tactic has been used repeatedly by the left (see Sarah Palin), but is particularly disturbing when used as a cudgel to destroy decent, hard-working Americans. One such decent, hardworking (and extremely patriotic) American is Barrett Moore, founder of Triple Canopy.
I met Barrett a couple of years ago in Chicago at a luncheon for Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell author of the bestselling novel, Lone Survivor and boy do the Liberals hate him.
As I mentioned, Moore was the founder of Triple Canopy, one of America’s first private military companies (or PMC) and under his stewardship, he assembled one of this nation’s most impressive fighting forces – most of whom were retired members of the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D) (Delta Force) – and sent them overseas to help carry our burden in Iraq. What’s more, he did it at a fraction of the cost and much more efficiently than the American government ever could. That’s private enterprise for you, but because his private enterprise involved guns, the Liberals focused on him like a laser beam.
Their attacks would come not only while he was at Triple Canopy, but even more devastatingly once he had been forced out. (more…)
Without Noah Webster’s knowledge, the definition of a “racist” has been diluted and redefined to mean “a person who disagrees with a liberal,” or in more explicit terms, “any individual who uses logic to divulge evidence of liberal malfeasance.” For years, the left has used race as a bully tactic to smear and debunk those on the receiving end of the label. This desperate and exploitative attempt at winning political arguments comes at a great cost to democracy, interpersonal relations and our nation’s internal progress.
The latest James O’Keefe saga exemplifies the left’s common practice of exploiting the issue of race for personal and political gain. Liberal journalist Max Blumenthal’s devoid-of-logic theoretical construct (that O’Keefe is a racist) exemplifies the desperate measures some will take to avoid the pains of reality. Blumenthal bases his racism charge on O’Keefe’s alleged disdain for affirmative action, his efforts to expose ACORN and his attendance at an event that featured a “white nationalist.”
The merits of these accusations have already been brilliantly challenged by Larry O’Connor and others, but to quickly provide summary thoughts: Opposition to affirmative action is not inherently racist. In fact, the majority of Americans oppose affirmative action practices. Furthermore, even if O’Keefe is a racist (which he’s not), the allegations against ACORN would still be pertinent; the organization is responsible for its behavior regardless of who or what O’Keefe is said to be. Finally, the “white nationalist” event was essentially a panel discussion on a college campus. Thousands of universities hold events with controversial speakers and wingnuts (many of these fringe individuals are, themselves, college professors); mere attendance means nothing in itself. (more…)
Max Blumenthal has an amazing thesis: All conservatives and Republicans are beneath contempt. He also has an amazing line of work. He is underwritten by various media organs to prove his thesis.
The Blumenthal operation is now under the extremely close scrutiny of a camelid named “Retracto.”
The movement formerly known as the “Tea-Baggers” (with their flip cameras and new media skills) and various conservatives who have had enough with the excessive Alinsky tactics used most egregiously by Max and Sid but representative of main stream media’s odious guilt-by-association, repeat-the-same-lie-until-it-sticks, smear-any-conservative-as-racist-sexist-homophobic skill set, are now fighting back.
If the last two weeks have not humiliated him enough — and this Huffington Post rage-fest from yesterday with its title “Feeling the Hate at CPAC 2010 With Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Giles and the Crazy Mob” suggests they have not – then perhaps this coup de booger will tell him that we say what we mean and we mean what we say.
Max gallivanted around CPAC looking for prey. He was treated with respect as he sought to make good and decent people look foolish on camera. He decided he would go after a 20-year-old girl, one Hannah Giles. And perhaps due to sexism or ageism he underestimated her ability. Max should have called Bertha Lewis before he went after this young heroine. Instead, he went to a gunfight with a knife – and a dirty nose.
Ladies and gentlemen, the much awaited, “Max Blumenthal Picks a Booger Out of His Nose at CPAC” video:
Max Blumenthal, this is what you do for a living. I can do it too (**wink **wink** Independent Film Channel).
Salon has already corrected his initial attempt to paint James O’Keefe as a White Nationalist. They corrected his baseless assertion that O’Keefe planned the “Race and Conservatism” forum held at Georgetown Law Center, but he continues to hold that James O’Keefe is a racist, and that he was in some way involved with the “execution” of the forum. His source for this claim? Daryle Jenkins, whose credibility was recently eviscerated by Kevin Martin from Project 21.
“We got him. We got him.” – Mediaite White House reporter Tommy Christopher to a few people just after badgering Andrew Breitbart with a race-baiting question.
My first CPAC and my first first-person look at how the corrupt left-wing media operates. I can’t pretend that anything surprised me, because as Mama used to always say, “Evil is as evil does.” But yes, Max Blumenthal, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher and some guy named Daryle Jenkins with something called One People’s Project stalked into CPAC like three old-media hitmen ready and eager to do some dirty work. So eager, in fact, that you could picture them the night before lying in bed at their parents’ house with visions of ambushing right-wingers in their heads.
There was only one problem: the unholy three appear to have forgotten that in this digital age everything’s changed. It‘s no longer just the elites who come heavy. We all carry videos cameras and we all have access to a distribution system Al Gore named the Internet. So a funny thing happened while Max and Daryle were driving dad’s car home, maliciously editing manipulated footage in their heads (you know, kind of like this – gee, Max, what happened to Larry O’Connor catching you in a big fat lie? ), Big Journalism published the unedited footage for the whole world to see, and what the world saw was a raw look at how Journalistic Rendition operates.
While some people debate the merits of the current healthcare legislation in Congress, or attempt to expose corruption in our government, Max Blumenthal instead engages in character assassination using the most questionable sources.
Recently, as has been well-documented on BigJournalism, Blumenthal branded James O’Keefe a racist for attending a debate at which Jared Taylor spoke. He did this despite the fact that O’Keefe sided with Taylor’s opposition, a black conservative named Kevin Martin.
The video below summarizes Blumenthal’s Alinsky tactics and highlights clips from the most recent CPAC where he continues his viciousness. As Andrew Breitbart wondered, what does Blumenthal really stand for, if it isn’t for destroying people’s lives?
**Post updated with higher quality video and audio.
For those you who haven’t been following our extensive coverage of Max Blumenthal’s character assassination attempt of James O’Keefe, a fringe blog called One People’s Project was the key source in Blumenthal’s research. Darlye Jenkins, who runs the blog One People’s Project, stopped by CPAC, according The Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel, “for the express purpose of confronting [Andrew] Breitbart.” Here is footage of that confrontation:
The reason why One People’s Project was not the focus of our ire during the Blumenthal scandal is because, as Breitbart succinctly put it in this video, they are not accountable to any standard of journalism. Unlike for Salon.com, there is little at stake for them if they fail to tell the truth (not to mention the scope of their readership and influence is comparatively minuscule). That still is the case, and it goes without saying we are giving Mr. Jenkins and his blog publicity simply by posting this video, but we’ll indulge him this time around.
We’ll indulge him because we believe this encounter is illustrative of tactics the left employs far too often when they engage in verbal fisticuffs–calling their ideological opponents “racists” or some other invective, selectively ignoring essential details of the story when it’s advantageous to their cause–but it’s also illustrative of tactics the right doesn’t use often enough. Breitbart is one of the few high profile conservatives in the media today ready and willing to take the fight to the left the way they’ve always taken it to us (I’m a former Berkeley College Republican, I know). As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina famously said, “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard.” Breitbart has turned the left’s tactic back on them and the net result is an offensive conservatism that’s been largely absent from political discourse in recent memory. And if the cheers at the tail end of this video are any indication, we would probably benefit from a few more confrontations like this one. (more…)
**Post updated with higher quality video and audio.
A funny thing happened on the last day of CPAC. Max Blumenthal, recently corrected and embarrassed “journalist” from Salon.com paraded through the convention with a camera crew. Like last year, he was looking for a confrontation of some kind. I’m not sure what Max uncovered in his fact-finding mission, but I know that as he was leaving, a confrontation found him.
As luck would have it, Andrew Breitbart was walking in the front door of the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel at the exact moment Blumenthal was walking out. Breitbart took this opportunity to address his beef with Blumenthal head-on and assailed Blumenthal for his attempt to link James O’Keefe to white supremacists.
Toward the end of the conversation, Blumenthal says to Breitbart that he did not call anybody any names. At this moment I jumped into the fray and challenged him on the point. I reminded him that he had, in fact,called O’Keefe a racist. Blumenthal attempted to deny it, but as you can see from the video, he was only able to stick to that story for so long.
Next we’ll hear that James O’Keefe attended a dinner party honoring Apartheid South Africa’s former president, P. W. Botha. If so, and the accusation verified, O’Keefe’s “insensitivity” to human (and civil) rights would barely register against that of Max Blumenthal’s boss at The Daily Beast, Tina Brown.
I’ll report. Y’all decide:
“N**ger!” taunted my jailers between tortures,” reported the world’s longest suffering black political prisoner about his suffering. “We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!” laughed my torturers. For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell. That’s four feet high, so you couldn’t stand. But I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide.
I do not refer to Nelson Mandela. No, the prisoner was a black Cuban named Eusebio Peñalver, whose incarceration and torture at the hands of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s Stalinist regime stretched to 29 years, surpassing Nelson Mandela’s record in time behind bars and probably doubling the horrors suffered by Mandela during this period.
“The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. When during a 1959 press conference a Cuban black asked Guevara, “what his Revolution would do for blacks?” Che sneered: “we’ll do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!” (more…)
Greg Marx at the Columbia Journalism Review has come out with his report on the James O’Keefe/Max Blumenthal/Salondust-up last week, and the results are not pretty:
UNFORCED ERROR AT SALON
“O’Keefe’s race problem” story goes astray on key detail
… At issue here is a more specific point: Blumenthal’s claim in the original story that, “Together, O’Keefe and [fellow conservative activist Marcus] Epstein planned an event in August 2006 that would wed their extreme views on race with their ambitions.” That was the line that most directly tied O’Keefe to Epstein, whose record includes a subsequent arrest for assaulting an African-American woman, and that most directly gave him ownership of the event.
The problem is that, as it appeared in the Salon story, the source for the claim was unclear. And, as became apparent over the next couple days, Blumenthal’s sources—including Daryle Jenkins, director of a racism watchdog group called the One People’s Project, which monitored the event, and a pseudonymous freelance photographer known as Isis—did not actually know whether O’Keefe had planned the gathering.
But as a journalist, it’s incumbent upon Blumenthal—and any outlet that publishes his work—to distinguish between what his sources actually observed and what they believe to be true. A journalist’s claim to an audience’s trust is based on the implicit promise that he will take that step. And that responsibility, obviously, doesn’t go away just because you’ve got a good story or a worthy target. (more…)
Every generation feels misunderstood by those preceding it. And it doesn’t help matters that the older generations, and establishments, feel obligated to wield the Hammer of Thor against every move and thought we make. Yet, this is how societies develop, grow, evolve and ultimately survive. It’s like passing a torch in life’s grand race.
The thing is, my generation has some problems with the torch we are about to take off with, and we aren’t shy about letting the uppers know.
Boldness, zeal, angst, creativity, action and openness are characteristics of youth. Life is a mystery and the brevity of our lives prevents us from accessing many of its clues. We want meaning, purpose, acknowledgement and the ability to prove to the older generation that we are indeed serious about our roles in life, even if we don’t know what that is. And so we take actions, we unite behind leaders and explore the depths of our persona.
It is when we act, and act effectively, that the big dogs get frustrated. By acting, and establishing our generational brand, we force the established thoughts, groups and figures to not only question their life’s work and purpose, but to recognize the inevitable passing of the torch. (more…)
It’s quite a stretch to call The Nation’s Max Blumenthal a journalist.
A real journalist is free to have an opinion and even to express it, but he doesn’t fabricate things to make his subject look bad. A real journalist tries to understand his subject and help his audience understand it instead of just subjecting it to abject ridicule.
Blumenthal, who leaped to conclusions in his since-corrected Salon.com article to slander Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe, is an ethically challenged agitprop creator and self-indulgent performance artist. His slurring of O’Keefe, who helped to expose the criminal inclinations of ACORN, as a racist is the same thing that ACORN does when it’s attacked. If you disagree, you’re a racist. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!
This left-wing extremist, who wrote the book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, is so consumed by his hatred of the other side that he can’t think straight. His work is littered with factual errors, non sequiturs, selective use of evidence, glittering generalities, and hyperbole.
Blumenthal hates the Christian right, evangelicals, supporters of Israel, tea party activists, conservatives, and Republicans. This is not an exhaustive list. To him, conservatives are a “movement that’s filled with people who can’t handle individual freedom and the pressures of democracy.” Conservatives also are needy losers seeking redemption, according to Blumenthal: (more…)
At his personal website he recounts a discussion he had with “Isis,” a photographer who, according to Blumenthal “does tend to be a little apprehensive about speaking to folks.” It seems that at this point, “Isis” is the last remaining eyewitness that Blumenthal says supports his assertions made on Wednesday at Salon.com.
As a reminder, here are the assertions that Salon.com made that “Isis” is supposed to corroborate (there are many, many more false allegations at Salon.com, and Blumenthal has not made any attempt to retract or explain them, but these are the assertions that are related to the mysterious “Isis”): (more…)
You know you’re having a bad day, Joan Walsh, when it’s just you and Max Blumenthal alone in a foxhole while you’re being overwhelmed by the truth. Because David Weigel, one of your sources for Blumenthal’s story and Max’s own blog posts that James O’Keefe once helped organize a “racist conference,” has now “clarified” his remarks and guess what? Your story just fell apart. Read it and weep:
On Wednesday, I wrote a post reacting to Max Blumenthal’s story “James O’Keefe’s Race Problem” and was too quick with a description of the August 30, 2006 Robert Taft Club event on “race and conservatism.” Specifically, I wrote this:
In a later post, I walked this back: While I’d been at the event, it was Isis, a photographer/investigator for the One People’s Project, who told me that her photo was actually a picture of O’Keefe at a table of controversial literature. But several e-mailers and commenters have pointed out that my first post appeared to endorse Blumenthal’s whole story. I want to quickly walk through that story and point out the parts that, based on my experience at the event and interviews with Isis and event organizer Marcus Epstein, were not true.
There follows five points of material error in Blumenthal’s story and in the original post at the “anti-racist” website, One People’ s Project (whose site is adorned with the old Soviet Union colors of red and gold, and features a Soviet-style logo). Among the revelations: (more…)
The Washington Independent’s David Weigel has added some clarity to the story of James O’Keefe’s role at a 2006 “Race and Conservatism” event in D.C. that featured the controversial Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist American Renaissance magazine, as a participant.
We also cited a Salon story by Max Blumenthal, “James O’Keefe’s race problem,” that talked about O’Keefe’s staffing a table that was “filled with tracts from the white supremacist right.” We mischaracterized the role in the event of the Leadership Institute (O’Keefe’s employer at the time).
Weigel, who says he attended the event, points out in a post this afternoon that it was “a debate, not a forum for Taylor.” (more…)
On my Twitter account, I follow a few hundred mainstream media-types (keep the enemy closer, right?), and unless I've missed it (and I hope I have), not a single one has spoken out in defense of Roland Martin. Not one. How scary is that. The politically correct Groupthink...
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