This is one of the most dishonest, despicable things I’ve ever seen in politics. TPM and Think Progress published a purported “smoking gun” memo from an anti-health reform group that they were pushing as a blueprint for action that protestors at town hall meetings were following to disrupt the proceedings.
There’s only one problem: The group that is responsible for writing the memo are a bunch of bush leaguers with no more influence than my pet cat Aramas on demonstrators protesting anything:
When the “manufactured” outrage the Left is trying to demonize lines up so inconveniently with public polling, it’s sometimes necessary to create evidence for the “manufactured” storyline.
Enter Think Progress, which unearthed this shocking, secret memo from the leader of a small grassroots conservative organization in Connecticut, which allegedly instructs members on “infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress.”
Right Principles PAC was formed by Bob MacGuffie and four friends in 2008, and has taken in a whopping $5,017 and disbursed $1,777, according to its FEC filing.
“We’re just trying to shake this state up and make a difference up here,” MacGuffie told me during a telephone interview. He’s surprised at his elevation to national rabble-rouser by the Left.
Right Principles has a Facebook group with 23 members and a Twitter account with five followers. MacGuffie describes himself as an “opponent of leftist thinking in America,” and told me he’s “never pulled a lever” for a Republican or Democrat on a federal level. Yet this Connecticut libertarian’s influence over a national, orchestrated Republican health-care push-back is strong, indeed, if you listen to liberal pundits and the Democratic National Committee, who have crafted a nefarious web out of refutable evidence.
Think Progress highlighted his memo’s directives to “‘Yell,’ ‘Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’,” calling it a “right-wing harassment strategy against Dems.” The blog falsely connected MacGuffie to the national conservative group FreedomWorks through the most tenuous of threads. The Think Progress link that purports to establish MacGuffie as a FreedomWorks “volunteer” leads to his one blog posting on a Tea Party website (on the free social networking site, ning.com). Think Progress calls Tea Party Patriots a “FreedomWorks website.”
The problem is it’s not a FreedomWorks site, according to FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon. FreedomWorks is a “coalition partner” of TeaPartyPatriots.org, but does not fund the site in any way.
“There is no formal structural connection,” Brandon told me. “Never has been. Never will be. We’re just fellow travelers in the movement.”
There is no “memo” that tells protestors what to do. If anyone else besides this guys mother, grandmother, and maiden aunt saw this “blueprint” I would be enormously surprised. It was a wholly manufactured piece of “evidence” - along with the ridiculously tenuous connections - by TPM.
Josh Marshall bragged to high heaven about the George Polk Award for journalism he received. I am going to write the award committee and ask them to rescind it. This isn’t even yellow journalism. It is propaganda, as Marshall and the rest of the left (who are, in fact, the ones who receive instructions on a daily basis about how to frame issues through their exclusive email list) can’t be bothered with the facts, can’t be bothered with the truth, and are only concerned about demonstrating their rank partisanship and shocking demagoguery.
Of course, it is impossible for the truth to catch up to the lies at this point. We will see the left pointing to this ridiculous memo for the duration of the health care reform debate as “evidence” that the outrage is “manufactured” and not genuine. Nor will the media take the time or make the effort to differentiate between the vast majority of demonstrators who are locally organized and the few agitators who have come in from out of town. Ignorance of the nature of the protests and who is taking part extends to the White House, as this email I got proves:
There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.
The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.
“Largely paid for?” Who is paying what to whom and why? If this is true, how come we never hear any names of these evil companies or individuals? So far, all we’ve got is a memo from a guy running a PAC out of his basement. Specifically, which companies are paying the protestors? Which lobbying groups are giving people money to disrupt the town halls? If you don’t have any names, it’s a base political smear, nothing more.
Are big insurance companies paying people gas money to drive the few blocks to where the town hall meeting is being held? Isn’t the White House aware that the tea party groups have been organizing since February and have email lists of hundreds of volunteers in the area? Why do they need help from lobbyists to send out a couple of hundred emails?
The facts are a little less dramatic. And while Marshall and his cohort of lock-step liberals in the media drum on about “astroturfing” and “mobs,” the protests go on. Not always with the decorum and reasonableness that such a weighty subject demands. But as I said yesterday, that kind of disruptive action hurts much more than any fakery the liberals can come up with to delegitimize the protests.
7:17 pm
What’s the difference between Birthers and Town Hall/Tea Bag Party conspiracy theorists? Nothing. The lunatic left is in full moonbat mode again, and that’s a good thing. Let them connect dots that don’t exist, and 2010 not only will be a referendum on Obama but the whack jobs in his party—you know, the types who think ordinary folks meet with health insurance industry titans in dark basements.
This is batshit crazy. Sure, Marshall is a liar and fraud. But most of these left-wing loons actually believe this crap. Birthers look sane by comparison.
7:27 pm
Rick,
Yesterday you had a blog pointing out that people being unruly/angry at meetings was not a good representation of either their personal selves or their genuine concerns about ObamaCare. Look at how these leftists treat them.
Josh Marshall represents the essential dishonesty and the insecurity of the Left. Remember, he is one of their “mainstream” bloggers. We are not talking DemocraticUnderground or firedoglake or anywhere close to the fringe. This is what he calls “muckracking”.
It startles and stuns the liberal left that people do not support their version of health care “reform”. The liberals cannot help wonder, that after all the soaring insurance costs, how could people not take the public option with open arms and instead protest against it? They MUST BE SENT by “astroturfers” and lobbyists !
Some one, that no body outside of his family in Connecticut knows about is now the great instigator:-) He must be seriously wondering, how it got to this.
Notice, how Marshall and his fellow leftists automatically judge that these people cannot think for themselves and could only be “fed lies by the lobbyists” ! And even then, you have to ask what is the point of going to townhalls and protesting ? What do they get from all this ?
It is only those union idiots who go on strike that get paid by the hour for holding protest signs. These are people doing it on their own dime and own time. If these morons knew what astroturfing truly was ( just ask David Axelrod !), they would not be making fools of themselves.
It is stunning to these statists that people could do all this on their own, without realizing “what is good” for them. Cue Andrea Mitchell.
Josh Marshall reminds us again what the so called “mainstream” leftists can do. Imagine the leftwing loons on the fringes.
God save this country.
8:24 pm
Well I stand corrected. I think I actually proved the point you made yesterday though. I reacted to those videos with anger and was ready to believe a conspiracy.
But a more respectful discussion would lead to average people seeing that we need to do something to fix health-care in this country so the boorish behavior is probably the best tactic from a teabagger point of view.
9:31 pm
You say:
“This isn’t even yellow journalism. It is propaganda, as Marshall and the rest of the left (who are, in fact, the ones who receive instructions on a daily basis about how to frame issues through their exclusive email list)”
This statement of yours ruined this entire post for me.
“The rest of the left”??…Please…That’s a pretty large group that you’re accusing here.
“Instructions on a daily basis”??…From who exactly?
Like you say…”If you don’t have any names, it’s a base political smear, nothing more.”
We all know that both the left and the right engage in this sort of thing. It’s politics as usual in the internet age. For you to imply that there are no right wing email networks spouting talking points and strategy seems naive to me.
Then you say:
“There is no “memo” that tells protestors what to do. If anyone else besides this guys mother, grandmother, and maiden aunt saw this “blueprint” I would be enormously surprised.”
So you think that MacGuffie wrote his instructions, and then didn’t even try to spread the word? He is a self described “opponent of leftist thinking in America” after all. It’s his job to get the word out.
Whether you prefer to call it a “blueprint” as opposed to a “memo” is your perogative…but I don’t think that you can deny it’s existence, or suggest that he wrote it and then just left it on the kitchen table hoping that someone would read it.
You may be “enormously surprised” by the size of the email list that a guy like MacGuffie can compile…Ever thought of that?
And this is the internet…people tend to forward emails to there own lists, making information enormously surprisingly widesread in a very short amount of time.
How long after the MacGuffie memo did angry citizens begin disrupting town halls?…About a week maybe?
I’d say MacGuffie got lucky this time…He’s probably pretty pleased with himself that the right picked up on his instructions and ran with them.
9:51 pm
The word is “widespread” not “widesread”
I do agree with you that the left is taking political advantage here, but I don’t find that anymore “dishonest” or “despicable” than the right implying that the Obama health care plan means certain death for the elderly.
6:53 am
Democrats Plan to Ignore Constituents on Healthcare…
Just a few quick thoughts on the latest idiot move by Democrats. They have been getting earfuls at townhall meetings, so instead of legitimately listening, they are pretending these are not their constituents’ views. They want to delude themsel…
7:00 am
Blueprints for a townhall meeting? Not so much. Being prepared to see if your congressman has even read the salient points of the health-care bill? Check out this link for a few questions you should be prepared to ask your congressman about the bill:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/05/questions-for-your-health-care-town-hall-meeting/
8:08 am
The left has no concept of individual freedom and responsibility. Our speaker of the House can give a crowd at an immigration rally the idea federal immigration laws mean nothing and high profile senators can dismiss responsibility for reading legislation they vote for. Statists approach the people as vassals, useful only for advancing the goals of the political entitlement class. Hypocrites all.
8:35 am
Great post Rick.
8:56 am
After reading the “secret” memo, I must say that it really isn’t that “secret” or shocking. Most Leftists who did any protesting in college should find the techniques mentioned in the memo familiar … it even mentions “Use the Alinsky playbook of which the Left is so fond: freeze it, attack it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Better yet, it outlines how to box in a cagey politicians who are used to answering questions without actually answering them.
Mahatma Gandhi would be proud to espouse and use the techniques described. Frankly, what is missing is any mention of violence or rushing the stage, a staple of Leftist attempts to suppress free speech on college campuses.
Is being effective at a gathering for public discourse a crime or unethical ? … what’s the big deal ?
Where’s the smoking gun that shows the $40 million dollars being pumped in like ObamaCare’s proponents are doing ? .. all those “paid” volunteers.
Once again Think Progress shows that they do neither.
11:32 pm
So, a tiny Right wing group drafts a memo and it gets reported and somehow the commie-pinko-left is to blame?
Tough cookies, neo-cons. I guess it really hurts to see your own tactics used against you. Get over it.
Where do all the screamers and hysterical nuts at Town Hall meetings come from? They just materialize?
At least the people you see as your enemies are not totally fabricating stuff, like Palins “death panel”, claims. Perhaps they should…