right wing

In case anyone doubts that some Republican leaders are racists, Chip Saltsman, a candidate to chair the Republican National Committee, has clarified things a bit by sending a Christmas gift to committee members that includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called "Barack the Magic Negro," which was first played on Rush Limbaugh's right-wing radio show. The song, performed by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, features Shanklin doing an impression of black Al Sharpton and mocks Barack Obama along with other black figures including Snoop Dogg and Louis Farrakhan. The song is part of a compilation of 41 similar conservative songs titled "We Hate the USA." Other selections include "The Star Spanglish Banner," an anti-immigration tune that begins, "José can you see..." Cultural critic David Ehrenstein, who was the original inspiration for "Barack the Magic Negro" by writing a column with that title in 2007, is gay and of partly African-American descent. He responded to the controversy over Saltsman's hateful holiday gift by pointing out that he was critizing Obama (for pandering to anti-gay Christians, among other things) even before it became fashionable for conservatives to do so.

Freedom's Watch, the conservative 501(c)(4) organization that was set up earlier this year to help Republicans win elections, "is closing after just one cycle in business," reports Reid Wilson. "The group, which ran television, radio, phone and mail campaigns against dozens of Democrats this year, received most of its funding from wealthy gaming mogul Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp." Although Freedom's Watch originally said it would be spending as much as $200 million for ad campaigns, the reality was only about $30 million. The recession has hurt Adelson financially, cutting into tourism and gambling and sending Sands stock tumbling from $122.96 per share to just $2.89, a loss of 95 percent of its value. Freedom's Watch originally claimed to offer a conservative answer to the liberal advocacy group MoveOn. As one blogger pointed out, however, the "biggest difference" between the two groups is that Freedom's Watch "had a handful of mega-wealthy donors," while MoveOn "has an email list and funding base of 4 million."

In the wake of Republican defeats in the 2008 U.S. elections, conservatives are fighting among themselves over who's to blame and how to revive their movement. Edwin Feulner of the Heritage Foundation says not to worry: "If you want to see when conservatives were in trouble, go back 35 years to 1973, the year The Heritage Foundation set up shop. We were just a handful of people in a few rented rooms. At that time there were no cable outlets like Fox News. There was no conservative talk radio, because the Fairness Doctrine was still in effect. Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet, so there were no conservative bloggers exposing the biases of the mainstream media and delivering conservative commentary to millions of readers." Today, by contrast, "In addition to Fox News, hundreds of talk radio programs and scores of national magazines, conservatives have achieved a staggering presence on the Internet." But conservative blogger Jon Henke worries that Feulner is "exactly wrong." ... As The Economist pointed out recently, the Right has been losing the intellectual battle of ideas, becoming 'a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world.' ... What effective ideas has the Right had recently? How far have those ideas gone? Where are we? ... The Right has replaced strategy with tactics. We are tinkering with an agenda that is not going anywhere."

Even Republican dirty-tricks operator Roger J. Stone, Jr. now says he regrets helping elect George W. Bush president in 2000. Stone, who led the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the 2000 election recount in Florida, now says he is troubled by the Bush administration's trampling of civil liberties and the war in Iraq. "When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, 'Maybe there wouldn't have been a war if I hadn't gone to Miami-Dade,'" Stone told Benjamin Sarlin. Despite these regrets, Sarlin notes that "Stone still offers his services as a no-holds-barred strategist to domestic and foreign politicians alike, and claims his client list is full."

Analyst Meg White examines the "blitzkrieg of fear mongering and misinformation" being whipped up against President-elect Barack Obama. "One phalanx in the fight belongs to Grassfire.org. ... Grassfire sent out an e-mail designed to scare people into joining its 'army that is ready to take on Obama's agenda.' ... The e-mail lists nine 'threats to our liberties' presented by the incoming administration. The common thread through all of these threats is alarmism. ... Grassfire is anything but grassroots. The 501(c)4 is listed as a front group on the (SourceWatch) site, and SourceWatch notes that public relations for Grassfire are handled by Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, whose president, Craig Shirley, was part of the team that created the infamous Willie Horton ad. Shirley and Banister represent like-minded clients such as Ann Coulter, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, and the National Rifle Association. Grassfire is one of many groups amassing armies to fight everything Obama tries to do, no matter where it falls on the political spectrum."

CMD's Diane Farsetta digs further into the Virginia-based Council for a Democratic Iran (CDI) and its major new contract with the Livingston Group lobbying and PR firm, which Lauri Fitz-Pegado is working on. CDI's founder, Dr. Behrooz Behbudi, "seems to be aligned with military hawks." In 2007, he "bought $250,000 worth of ads in major North American newspapers denouncing Iran's Muslims leaders and 'terrorists' and 'fascists' and warning they are a direct threat to the U.S. and Canada." Also last year, Behbudi said he opposed a military invasion of Iran, but warned that if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders don't change their stance, "What happened to Saddam Hussein ... will happen in Iran, too." In 2004, Behbudi founded the "Iranian Democratization Foundation" with disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade, one of the people who paid bribes to former Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose misleading stories about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction helped make the Bush administration's case for war, has joined Fox News as a contributor, where she will provide "commentary and analysis on national security issues, counterterrorism, and international affairs." Miller spent 85 days in jail in 2005 for refusing to testify about her conversations with Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, in which Libby tried to feed her information during the White House outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Conflicts with other editors and reporters over Miller's reporting eventually led to her departure from the New York Times. Since then, she has gone on to work for the right-wing Manhattan Institute. In explaining the decision to hire Miller, Fox Senior Vice President John Moody said, "We've all had stories that didn't come out exactly as we had hoped. ... She has explained herself and she has nothing to apologize for."

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's meteoric rise to prominence on the national political scene after only 21 months in office came about with the help of a media relations and marketing consulting firm hired to draw national attention to the state's proposed natural gas pipeline project. Alaska's Department of Natural Resources paid public relations expert Marcia Brier of Needham, Massachusetts $31,000 to pitch stories to the national media that promoted Palin as the driving force behind the pipeline and getting the state legislature to go along with it. Brier sent press releases to national media outlets portraying Palin as an "upstart governor" and crusader against Big Oil, the same story line Palin now uses in her campaign with John McCain. Some state legislators take exception to the portayal of Palin as the sole force behind the pipeline, when many other people worked on the project. Once the PR campaign began, Palin was away from the Legislature so much that lawmakers started sporting red and white "Where's Sarah?" buttons. Among Brier's past clients is a 23 year-old Saudi prince, Bader al-Saud, whom she helped to get a plea deal in a vehicular homicide case after he was arrested for drinking and driving in Martha's Vineyard in 2005.

As the political action committee (PAC) "Our Country Deserves Better" prepares for its national tour of "patriotic rallies" against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, columnist Bill Berkowitz interviews the PAC's coordinator, Joe Wierzbicki. Like many of the PAC's officers, Wierzbicki works for the Republican-associated PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers and with the pro-war group Move America Forward. Wierzbicki said the PAC hopes to "raise in excess of $1 million by Election Day," and run ads in "ten states." In regards to the PAC's ad that questions Obama's statements on religion, Wierzbicki asked, "Is Barack Obama's faith the Muslim registration listed by his family when he was a student growing up in Indonesia? Or is it the black liberation theology espoused by Reverend Jeremiah Wright...? Or is it the mainstream Christianity he identified with in the forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren?" But Wierzbicki claimed his PAC isn't "Swiftboating" Obama, because, for example, "We've not used the photographs of Barack Obama in what some call 'Muslim garb' because the photos by themselves are inconclusive." They also decided, "despite the controversy that her words created," not to "use Michelle Obama's comments about this being the first time in her adult life that she was proud to be an American." Move America Forward also launched the MAF Freedom PAC, which opposes Obama and supports various Republican Congressional candidates.

The Republican Jewish Coalition says it hired the political polling firm Central Research to "understand why Barack Obama continues to have a problem among Jewish voters." But the poll questions upset many of the hundreds of Jewish voters in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey who received the calls. Some say it was a push poll, designed to spread negative information and disinformation. Others say the calls, with more than 80 questions, were too long to be push polls; instead, they may be testing messages for future attack ads. One question the pollsters asked is whether it would affect the respondent's vote if she or he knew that Hamas' leader had "expressed support for Obama." The Republican Jewish Coalition, which has endorsed John McCain for President, also helped launch the pro-war lobby group Freedom's Watch. In the 2000 primary campaign, the Bush team targeted McCain with a push poll in South Carolina that claimed McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby.