Media Matters for America (MMFA) was created in spring 2004 in time for the presidential election campaign. Funded by an estimated $2 million in contributions, the group promotes itself as an online watchdog protecting the public from the deceptions and errors of the mass media that has been bullied or blinded by conservatives.
In fact, MMFA is a cog in the growing machine of “progressive” activist and advocacy non-profits, including the online radical agitators at MoveOn.org, the liberal policy wonks at the Center for American Progress and the Democratic get-out-the-vote forces at America Coming Together. These groups were obsessed with defeating President George W. Bush in the 2004 election. Having failed, they have grown increasingly angry and determined.
MMFA has a staff of 59 and is headquartered at 1625 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. in Washington, D.C. MMFA employees have at various times worked for Al Gore, John Edwards, Barney Frank, Wesley Clark, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Center for American Progress, Greenpeace, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (recently rechristened the American Association for Justice) and the Alliance for Justice.
Led by a Confessed Liar
MMFA is the creation of David Brock, a self-described “hit man” and self-confessed liar and gossip peddler. Brock’s own past casts a shadow over his current self-proclaimed dedication to truth-telling. At one time or another, Brock has viciously attacked the Clintons and the Bushes, Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and National Public Radio, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Each time he recants a prior assault, he lunges out at a new political enemy.
Brock puts himself in the position of someone who says, “I’m a liar. Believe what I tell you.” Reviewing Brock’s 2002 memoir, Blinded by the Right, journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote, “I would say without any hesitation that he [Brock] is incapable of recognizing the truth, let alone of telling it. The whole book is an exercise in self-love, disguised as an exercise in self-abnegation.” Cultural critic Camille Paglia, a left-leaning Democrat, ridiculed Brock’s confession: “Behold, the writhing snake pit of amoral media ambition!”