How The Right Wing Noise Machine Works

As if we needed another example.

But here it is anyway. From today's Tribune-Review:

Noted George Mason University constitutional scholar Ilya Somin writes (in the Richmond Times-Dispatch) that the states that have challenged the president's "individual mandate" prescription "have a serious case with a real chance of victory." That's far from the characterization of such Obama acolytes as Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell that the lawsuits are "frivolous." Let's hope Professor Somin is right -- and that the Constitution survives another in a long line of "progressive" potshots.

While we scoot over the debate over the "individual mandate" we wonder who this Ilya Somin is. The braintrust gives no clue to his identity beyond his being a "noted George Mason University Constitutional Scholar." One would think he's just a neutral observer just calling the constitutional balls and strikes.

Um, not so much.

He's also an Adjunct Scholar with the Cato Institute. You know what happens next, right? Yes, that's right. So how much money has Richard Mellon Scaife given to the Cato institute over the years?

Approximately $2.5 million.

Of course, no mention of the multi-million dollar financial connections between Scaife's op-ed page and the "neutral" source they quote.

That's how the right wing noise machine works.

But perhaps this is a tenuous connection (Somin to Cato to Scaife = politically biased). But take a look at another snippet from today's "Thursday Wrap":

National Review Online's Matthew Shaffer discovers that -- surprise, surprise -- nearly all of the members of two boards of directors involved with National Public Radio "have demonstrably liberal political sympathies." Ah, so a name change to National Progressive Radio really is in order, we see.

This is the NRO piece. And what do we see as the first example of the "liberal bias" of NPR?

Antoine van Agtmael (chairman of the NPR Foundation): He is a trustee of a liberal think tank, the Brookings Institution. He donated $1,000 to Obama for America in 2008, $2,000 to Kerry in 2004, and $1,000 each to Hillary Clinton and Terry Liermann in 2000. That’s $5,000 — every penny to Democrats. [Emphasis added.]

So the NRO can establish the political biases of the NPR board by listing their think-tank membership (and there by discredit them). Looks good enough for me.

Good for the goose and all that.