Rare News Desk
On my radio show, I talked about a report by Watchdog.org that showed MSNBC poster-girl Rachel Maddow lied about the Koch brothers involvement in a Florida law that would have required welfare recipients to take drug tests. Her claim is based on the loosest of relationships that bloggers and mainstream outlets alike have debunked, calling into question her rationale and, as I have, her decency.
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The bigger question is, why hasn’t MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast, done the same?
(Read related: Check out Rachel Maddow’s embarrassing misreport on the Koch Brothers)
Maddow’s thesis is that the Koch brothers have given $40,000 over eight years to the State Policy Network (SPN) – an affiliation of numerous conservative think tanks, groups and other organizations. One of these members, the Foundation for Government Accountability, supported the Florida law. For Maddow, that meant that the Koch brothers supported testing welfare recipients. For Maddow, this remarkably flimsy connection meant placating her base and continuing the myth that the Koch brothers are evil, and all conservatives along with them.
Daniel Schulman, a reporter with the left-leaning Mother Jones and who, according to Legal Insurrection, is writing a book about the Koch brothers, called Maddow’s game of connect-the-non-existant-dots “tenuous.”
What Maddow failed to mention is that while the Koch brothers had this donation to SPN, they also made a donation to the American Civil Liberties Union. The same ACLU that pushed to have the Florida law on drug tests overturned. Their donation wasn’t to any umbrella group with fairy tale ties to other organizations; it was a direct donation. And it wasn’t $40,000, it was $20 million. Yes, shocking but true. The (according to Maddow) evil, horrible, horrific Koch brothers donated $20 million directly to the organization that worked to overturn the law that Maddow was so opposed to.
Nothing is worse than those who have traded their humanity for their ideology. Maddow is that “worse.” Her business is placating those who shares her humanity/ideology transplant. But is that also the business of Comcast?
It’s clear – Maddow lied about the Koch brothers. But to add to the “worse,” she failed to explain that the Koch’s were not alone in this “support” of SPN.
As reported by John Hinderaker at PowerlineBlog, one of the many companies that has supported SPN is – wait for it – Comcast, the owner of MSNBC. Rachel Maddow has accused the Koch brothers of supporting the same organization that Comcast supports, but has not attacked them on her show. The question for Rachel Maddow is why not?
Maddow has yet to apologize or correct the record. Is this kind jouranlistic apathy approved by Comcast? MSNBC is not a “news” organization and Maddow does an opinion talk show, so let’s ask the question a different way: does Comcast find it acceptable that its MSNBC hosts lie? If not, then why does it happen so often on the network? Maddow on the Koch brothers, on the Wisconsin budget, about abortion. Then, of course, there is the selectively edited video and selectively edited audio.
The question for Comcast is why are they ok with liars like Rachel Maddow?
