It takes a fair amount of panache to wag your fingers at others for being over the line and intolerant even while you are blatantly dismissing the same behavior in your own back yard. But that is exactly what Media Matters for America (MMFA) continues to do as they steadfastly unload their weaponry on Rush Limbaugh with “devastating” videos like this.

I guess where Media Matters comes from 10,000 views is a media blitzkrieg. The effectiveness of their campaign aside, it’s clear that MMFA wants everyone to know that Rush pulling an Ed Schultz and calling a public figure a slut is absolutely unforgivable. Apparently believing that there is a secret Zionist Israeli Cabal that manipulates American foreign policy, is a-ok however. At least that’s all one could assume from reviewing the stated positions of Media Matters “Fellow” M.J. Rosenberg.

Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard gives some insight into Rosenberg’s views at Jerusalem Post:

He even often employs the term “Israel firster” to define an American politician or even pundit who he believes places Israel’s interest above his own nation’s. (The term itself was popularized by white supremacists.) For Rosenberg, support for Israel is tantamount to supporting a wouldbe murderous regime. “There is nothing Israel cd do to Arabs that Hoyer/Weiner/Ackerman/Berman/B erkley/Israel wd object 2.NOTHING,” Rosenberg tweeted, linking to a piece he had written that blasted Congress for welcoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a joint session of Congress. Congressmen Steny Hoyer, Anthony Weiner, Gary Ackerman, Howard Berman, Shelley Berkley and Steve Israel are all Democrats – and Jews.

Rosenberg also pushes the supposed influence Jewish money has in politics, as well. “I wonder if any candidate in either party other than Joe L would slobber over Israel if it wasn’t for the $. Actually I don’t wonder,” Rosenberg said on Twitter last month. The reference was to Joe Lieberman, the former vice presidential Democratic candidate.

Rosenberg himself credits notorious anti-Israel polemicists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby, for creating a political environment friendly to his own political and personal beliefs.

I’m sure Rosenberg views all of this through the lens of moral equivalency and a false sense of objectivity. He thinks that support is tilted so unfairly in Israel’s favor and that it’s preposterous to claim merely being against a nation’s policy positions is inherently racist. But as was pointed out above, he’s already accustomed to using supremacist language such as “Israel firster.” And at some point he was even forced to confront the roots of this term and interestingly, became of the opinion that he had to curb that language. Totally coincidentally, The Center for American Progress (CAP) had come under fire for being anti-Semitic and, little known fact, funding for CAP & MMFA are tied to one another.

During 2008, Media Matters entered into a fundraising-sharing agreement with the liberal Center for American Progress, which is run by former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. According to the agreement, “both organizations agreed to collaborate to raise funds to create a definitive progressive nerve center,” and to “split, equally, all contributions raised for the progressive nerve center.”

As a result, Rosenberg ended up having to drop his white supremacist rhetoric. How do we know this? Well he emailed that very information to an MMFA distribution list:

I have been under assault by various people on the right for my vigorous criticism of AIPAC and its role in promoting confrontation with Iran. My critics are particularly irked that I use the term Israel Firster to describe people who, in my opinion, put the interests of the Israeli right above everything else. This includes politicians such as Newt Gingrich, who as far as I know, is not Jewish. Watching the AIPAC conference convinced me that I must recommit myself to fighting those who are working to lead this country and/or Israel to war in Iran.

But I will do so without using the term “Israel Firster.”

That must have been a sad day for him, as Rosenberg is quite proud of his work actually. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that it’s less about his poor choice of phrases, and more about his apparent disdain for the people of Israel who have, at every turn, worked for peace.

But Media Matters has continued to move further and further to the fringe on the topic of Israel, and Rosenberg has been happy to take credit.

“[Media Matters] is an amazing organization that is in the business of monitoring right-wing propaganda…until I got there they did not have any; they did nothing on foreign policy,” Rosenberg would tell an audience at the Palestine Center in Washington a year later on September 23, 2010. “They made this decision to hire me and hire me with my views because they wanted to be involved with this issue. They wanted to be involved in the Palestinian issue. They want to be involved in stopping war with Iran. And this is a big thing.”

So he’s the big man on campus over there I guess, and all the Media Matters cronies are following his lead, at least when they aren’t dealing with bizarre paranoid behavior from David Brock. Surely all of those MMFA donors must be pleased to know that they are subsidizing this man, this one man wrecking crew trying to ensure Iran’s dreams of the destruction of Israel. He calls his imaginary Zionist Cabal that controls everything “The Lobby.” Creepy. Sounds like a John Grisham novel. I guess he’d be the hero? The one man standing up for … uh… Iran? The “one-man Iran Lobby?” That’s getting into Steven Seagal title territory.

So who’s up for a good old fashioned revenge shaming? Maybe it’s time Media Matters had a heart to heart with their donors to explain why paranoid tales of Jewish Cabals isn’t as bad as saying a word used nightly on network television.

Well lucky you, there’s already been some people laying the ground work for this and they have phone numbers that you can call to get the ball rolling! Check their ad here.

And here’s some numbers you can call:

Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland 216-593-2900
Community Foundation of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego 858-279-2740
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston 617-457-8500
Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco 415-777-0411
Jewish Community Fund 866-580-4523
Pritzker Family Foundation 312-447-6000
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund 800-262-6039
Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund 800-787-3000

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