Opinion

Politico’s puff profile on David Brock misses more than a few basic points

Christopher Bedford Former Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller News Foundation
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In a Tuesday morning puff profile on Hillary Clinton loyalist and Media Matters founder David Brock, The Politico actually manages to blame conservatives for an anti-Obama attack designed and launched by — wait for it — Mrs. Clinton’s camp.

“For Brock, the attacks on Obama bear some similarities to the types of attacks on the Clinton White House,” the site tells us. “Obama has faced a range of attacks from the right, including the belief, championed in some conservative quarters, that he was not born in the United States.”

Dun-dun-dunnnnnn!

But the funny thing is, if we rewind The Politico just two years, 11 months, we find “That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.”

So the key example of the evil right-wing misinformation campaign is actually a product of Clintonland.

Dun-dun-dunnnnnn!

And in the fourth paragraph, Mr. Brock — who is more than a little mean, more than a little paranoid — laments “how conservatives upended many of our long-held ways of conducting politics that what they did then fundamentally reshaped how we engage in politics now.” (RELATED: Inside Media Matters: David Brock’s enemies list)

No room for a reporter to push back there.

We guess we should have known we were in for a ride when the second paragraph read, “It’s there [in Mrs. Clinton’s Arkansas], in a highly anticipated speech Tuesday, that the onetime conservative writer plans to explain his transformation, and what the lessons of the opposition to the Bill Clinton presidency might mean with the prospect of a second Hillary Clinton campaign for the White House.” (RELATED: Media Matters thinks The New York Times is too harsh on Hillary Clinton)

“Highly anticipated.”

A show of hands for people who knew Mr. Brock was giving a Tuesday speech in Arkansas before Tuesday morning?

Womp womp womp wommmmp.

Oh, and in the third graph, Mr. Brock — the man who got so mad that his conservative friends didn’t like his “hit piece” on Mrs. Clinton that he founded two organizations to prop up her every thought and aspiration — laments “the right wing’s 20-year obsession with the Clintons that continues today.” (RELATED: Media Matters pulled hard for Hillary Clinton in 2008)

He “told Politico [this] on the eve of his speech” that no one ever heard of.

Well, someone’s obsessed.

And if the sublinks The Politico interspersed throughout the article are any indication — “(PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton’s 50 influentials),” “(PHOTOS: Bill Clinton’s life and career),” “(PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton’s life, career)” — maybe a few editors in a Virginian suburb are too.

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