MSNBC Gets Astroturfed Again

Chris Matthews had a particularly repellent election segment last night, featuring Mark Williams and Willie Brown in front of pictures of California cities, respectively the former holder — until fired in 2006 — of the “Rush Limbaugh” chair at Sacramento’s KFBK AM  conservative talk radio station and the former Mayor of San Francisco and perhaps the most important Speaker of the California House in the 20th Century.

So, guess who got to do all the talkin’?

Willie Brown (l.) and Mark Williams (r.) 3Nov09

Now, this is really sad. Mark Williams, at right, is identified by Chris Matthews only as “a radio talk show host.”

The chiron for Williams mere moments later …

Really?

Then how come we’ve got THIS video over on CNN on October 27?

• updated Tue October 27, 2009Tea Party Express returns

  CNN’s John King speaks to Tea Party vice-chair, Mark Williams, about the purpose of the Tea Party Express.

What a difference 8 days and a channel number makes

Now, either Chris Matthews is a complete idiot, or else they’re doing this crap on purpose.

Because minimum professionalism wouldn’t allow Mr. Williams’ current spokesmodel employment  to go unstated. Seriously.

But consider this: How is it that the “vice chair” of the Tea Party isn’t identified as such on MSNBC’s post election coverage?

Is Mark Williams even currently employed?

According to his website/blog, we get this:

EXPOSING THE SOCIALIST AGENDA, by MARK WILLIAMS

From theTea Party Express!

“It’s Not Right versus Left, It’s Right versus Wrong; Exposing the Socialist Agenda”

Explains…

• ~ Why Sarah Palin captures Americans’ imagination
• ~ How to understand and counter liberals
• ~ Why “liberalism” may in fact  be a mental illness
• ~ How to understand and fight media bias
• ~ Why the Left hates America and is just plain Wrong
• ~ What we need to do to cope with terrorism and illegal   immigration
• ~ Why your vote may not count and what to do about it
• ~How racists use race to divide us and how to face them head on

And much more!

By radio talker/TV news analyst/author/conservative activist Mark Williams

In other words, he’s been unemployed more or less since canned by KFBK.

But it’s hard to tell from his scrubbed Wikipedia page. KFBK only appears in a footnote, when it’s Williams’ main claim to fame.

Understand, I’ve covered this devious bunch before, in 2005′s  “Swift Boat Moms in Winnebagos.” Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars picked up on that report last month, when they noticed that the same bunch of San Francisco/Sacramento rightie shock jocks and their creepy patrons were pulling their old stunts again, complete with tour bus:

Meet Deborah Johns, Paid Agitator and The Right Wing’s Forrest Gump,

By Susie Madrak

Tuesday Sep 15, 2009 2:00pm

From my report in 2005:

[H]ere, let me tie this all back to the Swift Boat Moms in Winnebagos, and Melanie Morgan, courtesy of (apparently) Michelle Malkin, posting on Sean Hannity’s website:

“… Radio Hosts Joining the Caravan

Talk radio hosts are helping to promote this event — with many joining the caravan along the way.

The caravan kicks off in San Francisco where Melanie Morgan of KSFO 560 AM will lead her listeners along the first leg of the caravan. Morgan will also travel to Dallas, Texas on Friday to join the final two legs of the caravan into Crawford.

http://www.ksfo.com/showdj.asp?DJID=11187

http://www.ksfo.com/Article.asp?PT=&id=108415

“For the past few weeks this nation has heard from those voices in America who advocate surrender in the war against terrorism. Now, it’s time to hear from the other side of this debate. We are going to rally Americans together to show the terrorists overseas that our nation has not lost its resolve nor its nerve to prevail in the fight against their violent, extremist agenda,” said Melanie Morgan who serves as Chairman of Move America Forward.

When the caravan arrives in Sacramento, California it will stop off at the studios of KFBK 1530 AM — where KFBK’s Mark Williams will interview the caravan attendees as he fills in for the “Tom Sullivan Show.” Williams will get live reports on the caravan each day before he flies to Dallas, Texas on Friday to join the final two legs of the caravan into Crawford.

http://www.kfbk.com/markwilliams.html

“Since our region of northern California is the place Cindy Sheehan calls home, we owe it to the nation to present another voice from this area. That’s why Deborah Johns, the Marine mother, and I are heading to Crawford, Texas. We have a message for the President and the American people: Now is not the time to pull our support from the heroic mission our sons and daughters are serving in Iraq,” said Williams….

The whole story of the phony road show troupe of astroturfers has been well covered in the blogs:

• Daily Kos: Teabaggin’-Who Pays Protesters?GOPUSA, MAF, & RMR
• Words Have Power: Move America Backwards
• Swiftboating – SourceWatch
• Russo, Marsh and Rogers, SourceWatch

If MSNBC was flim-flammed, they need to acknowledge it.

If CNN is being flim-flammed, THEY need to acknowledge it.

This morning at 9:45 PST, the CNN anchor, a bald, black gentleman, soberly reported where the Tea Party Express would be today.

AS IF IT WERE NEWS!

Con me some more! I’m not a newsman, I only play one on TV

Seriously: Country and Western entertainers routinely tour to larger crowds with more tour buses, and CNN doesn’t breathlessly report where their damned buses are. When was the last time that CNN reported on the whereabouts of Willie Nelson’s bus?

And yet, Willie Nelson plays to crowds that dwarf the “tea party” rallies.

This media is every bit as corrupt and corrupted as our Congress is.

But Chris Matthews and MSNBC owe their viewers an apology.

And CNN needs to be taken over by a conglomerate that understands that a great news organization depends on great editors and fearless publishers. CNN quit trying a long time ago, going along to getting along and it shows.

With their “tea party express” progress reports.

The prior instance with MSNBC, the “Again” in the title was noted here on 3 September 2009:  MSNBC Misses the Astroturf in its own Building.

Courage.

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