Media Matters for America’s Lying Continues Unabated

Left-wing fabulist Eric Boehlert of the character-assassination factory, Media Matters for America, has outdone himself this time.

At the George Soros-sponsored smear site Boehlert falsely accuses Michelle Malkin of defending racist skinheads because she criticized the Department of Homeland Security’s report that labels all conservatives, libertarians, and returning veterans as potential terrorists.

Quoting left-wing fanatic David Neiwart (who considers all right-of-center political speech to be hate speech by definition) Boehlert disingenuously notes that

The [DHS] report — which in fact is perfectly accurate in every jot and tittle — couldn’t be more clear. It carefully delineates that the subject of its report is “rightwing extremists,” “domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups,” “terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks,” “white supremacists,” and similar very real threats described in similar language. Nothing about conservatives. The word never appears in the report.

This is too cute.

The infamous DHS report that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has publicly defended does not use the word conservatives, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t referring to them.

In fact, the report lumps all political beliefs and movements on the right together, putting Nazis and skinheads together with people who think their property taxes are too high. Here is the explanation of “rightwing extremism” found in the DHS report:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Indeed, that’s pretty broad.

But the kind of distortion that Boehlert uses here is standard operating procedure both for Boehlert and his colleagues at Media Matters.

I profiled Media Matters in the current Townhall magazine. (Read the article here.) I wrote that Media Matters commentary can be

petty, mean-spirited and deeply personal. On the group’s blog, Eric Boehlert committed to text a puerile hissy fit against Matt Drudge’s influential Web site, the Drudge Report. The site “has become largely irrelevant,” and Drudge’s personal influence on the news cycle has “cratered,” he wrote in October posts.
“[A]s the White House campaign hits its final stride under the ominous shadow of the Wall Street meltdown and the deep recession that’s hurtling this way,”
Boehlert wrote, “perhaps the only silver lining—the one unexpected pleasure—has been watching the Drudge Report be completely neutered by current events.”

Boehlert also pushed the all-conservatives-are-crypto-terrorists theme in another Media Matters post, implying that David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh, and accused Pittsburgh cop killer Richard Poplawski  somehow inspired or were connected to the recent tea party protests.

Expect the smears from Media Matters, which is run by serial liar David Brock, to continue and probably intensify.