The idea of Fox News getting high and mighty about Media Matters' DropFox campaign is, well...laughable. However, what might be even more laughable is the idea that they can start a campaign to strip Media Matters of their tax-exempt status. They should be careful what they wish for.
In this clip, viewer Dana Martin from New Orleans tells Fox and Friends why she is so convinced that Media Matters tax-exempt status must be revoked. So convinced, in fact, that she filled in a web form to send a complaint to the IRS about their tax exempt status. And guess where that web form is? On the Fox Nation web page, of course, where else?
But as I said, they should be careful what they wish for. Let's look at some other tax-exempt organizations who also undertake "campaigns" with taxpayer subsidies. There's the Media Research Center, headed by Brent Bozell, who routinely appears on Fox News as a commentator. One look at their website shows that they have some 'projects' of their own which are clearly not educational at all, but purely political.
And of course, there's the US Chamber of Commerce, also fully subsidized by taxpayers just like the Citizens United Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. Continuing on, we can also include the Catholic, Mormon, Presbyterian and Baptist churches as tax-exempt organizations which should be carefully scrutinized as to the legitimacy of their tax exemption. And those are just ones that come to mind quickly.
This is Media Matters' mission statement:
Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
Seems to me they're being perfectly consistent in their purpose, but this campaign put on by Fox shows just how effective they've been in actually accomplishing it. If I take a deep breath, I'm sure I can smell Roger Ailes' aggravation from here. Or stench. Or something.
Update:Here are two clips from this morning, too. It's a series! And it's all George Soros' fault! And only charities we like should be tax-exempt!
Sarcasm aside, there's nothing quite like the politics of personal destruction as played out by Juan Williams in this segment. Williams dons his intellectual dishonesty hat to be outraged -- outraged, I tell you -- at the nerve of that David Brock to actually go after lies and expose them. It also makes me laugh to see them publicizing the DropFox campaign so freely.
