Deliberate smear--Media Matters story on ATF gun smuggling

(Think "discrediting of the messenger")

Deliberate smear--Media Matters story on ATF gun smuggling
Anthony Martin, Conservative Examiner

As reported yesterday, the ultra-Leftwing, George Soros-funded 'Media Matters' confronted the reporter who first broke the ATF gun smuggling scandal as he sat outside the committee hearings on the subject in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. Shoving a cell phone camera in his face, the Media Matters propagandist demanded to know why Mike Vanderboegh had 'lied' about the Tampa field office of the ATF smuggling guns into Honduras.

Media Matters posted their story yesterday, in which they accused Fox News of reporting Vanderboegh's assertions without doing an adequate fact-check.

It goes without saying that Media Matters, the pompous pimps of progressive propaganda, has but one goal in making such assertions--to create doubt on the part of readers concerning the veracity of the facts disclosed thus far concerning Project Gunwalker, or 'Operation Fast and Furious,' the ATF-DOJ-Obama Administration scheme to deliberately place U.S. guns into the hands of dangerous criminals in Mexico and Honduras for the purpose of bolstering statistics that would then erroneously show that the vast majority of weapons used by drug cartels came from the U.S.

Such phony statistics would then be used to push for massive new gun control measures throughout the U.S.

However, the facts that have been disclosed by whistleblowers, informants, and investigative reporters have all turned out to be true. Not one single assertion made by Mike Vanderboegh, David Codrea, or this writer, has been proved to be false.

And those facts are numerous and significant. Vanderboegh recounts them:

Let's review stories that we broke that have been confirmed so far:

Phoenix gunwalking? Check.

National scope? Check.

Lanny Breuer? Check.

White House involvement? Check.

As it happens, I confirmed with "responsible authorities" while in Mordor-on-the-Potomac that the Tampa allegations are being taken seriously and are being investigated. "Yeah, it happened," I was told. I stand by my stories, and I communicated to Congressman Bilirakis' office that the allegations were solid. I reiterated my caution that we have no evidence at this time that the case was called "Castaway" although agents and supervisors involved in Castaway were also involved in the gunwalking to Honduras. In fact, it may not have had an operational name assigned to it at all.

Add to that evidence the fact that once it was reported that the Tampa office was also involved in the gun smuggling scheme, a frantic effort was mounted by the local field division head in Tampa to cover her tracks and those of others who are involved. One confidante stated that the shredding machines were kicking into overdrive.

If none of the allegations concerning the ATF Tampa-to-Hondruas gun smuggling scheme are correct, then why would the Tampa field office suddenly catapult itself into a frenzied fracas in an attempt to destroy evidence?

The Media Matters story is a classic example of the common progressive practice of diverting attention from the facts through nitpicking a story to death over minor details, such as syntax, imprecise wording, and such, as if these things do not happen on a daily basis in the mainstream media. Not only do CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, the NYT, Time Magazine, and Newsweek engage on a regular basis in providing broad, imprecise verbiage, but they go as far as to deliberately twist stories to favor the progressive agenda--and to portray conservatives in a damaging light.

And as for doing thorough fact-checks? When was the last time a serious story was published in any of the above-cited 'news' sources that proved allegations against Sarah Palin before a story ran? And when did any of them go back and correct inaccuracies they had printing on the front page that were blatant defamations of character?

This is not to mention the wild, baseless allegations that the Tea Party is a movement made up of racists, homegrown terrorists, and country-bumpkin hayseeds with 3 teeth who bitterly cling to their guns and religion.

Media Matters has only further damaged its already tarnished reputation by excoriating Fox News and Mike Vanderboegh. As one observer put it yesterday, 'Media Matters' is not media. Nor does it matter.