The Man of La Mancha

A story that has been quickly gaining ground is this Daily Caller investigative piece by Tucker Carlson on Media Matters and its founder, David Brock.  Media Matters was founded in 2004 by Brock as an antidote the what he saw as "conservative misinformation."  Since that time Media Matters has supplied stories and narratives for the mainstream media and many columnists on all the major papers including the Washington Post, New York Times, and L.A. Times.  Here is what a former Media Matters employee had to say about the influence Brock had over the media:  “We were pretty much writing their prime time,” a former Media Matters employee said of the cable channel MSNBC. “But then virtually all the mainstream media was using our stuff.”  Since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, MM also has had great influence inside the White House as well:

A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.

 And:

Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama’s deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011.

The war on Fox News, which the president and his administration has joined in as well:

In the past several years, Media Matters has focused much of its considerable energy on the Fox News Channel. The network, declares one internal memo, “is the de facto leader of the GOP and it is long past time that it was treated as such by the media, elected officials, and the public.” At the end of September 2009, Burns made the case publicly in an interview on MSNBC.

Fox, he said, “is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda.”

Less than a month later, in language that could have been copied directly from a Media Matters press release, White House communications director Anita Dunn leveled almost precisely the same charge, dismissing Fox as “more a wing of the Republican Party.”

Carlson also highlights the strange and erratic behavior of Brock, who is so paranoid that he is always accompanied by two bodyguards when out in public. One of Brock's former assistants was fired in late 2010 because he was discovered to be carrying a concealed firearm (which of course in Washington D.C. is against the law). Brock seems to be a modern equivalent of Don Quixote, except even the windmills are themselves illusions of his own making.

It will be very interesting to see what's deeper down the rabbit hole.