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Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News

This is a follow-up post to one we wrote last night on Hugh Hewitt's appearance on O'Reilly's Fox News in which they say that no one knew Markos and Jerome were working for Howard Dean. (Background here.)Here's a quote from the Fox transcript of the show (available on lexis.com):

HUGH HEWITT, "BLOG" AUTHOR: Bloggers on the take are very bad for the business of blogging. Blogging are real journalists and people like Powerline and like InstaPundit, like myself, we don't like it when Daily Kos shows up on the take of the Howard Dean campaign. Now Dailey Kos says -- this is one of the bloggers from the left -- he disclosed it, but not to the satisfaction of anyone who was watching. I didn't know.
O'REILLY: Oh, this is bunk. This is bull. Nobody knew about this.
HEWITT: That's right.

O'Reilly and Hewitt should read the news. Not only did Markos keep a disclaimer on his site, it was widely reported in the media. Here are some examples:

From the San Francisco Chronicle, November 2, 2004 (via Lexis.com)

In the last year Moulitsas has been a consultant to the Howard Dean campaign (he helped Dean use the Internet to raise some $40 million), made Daily Kos a powerhouse and hired a full-time programmer to tweak the code. And what's the future for Daily Kos and those like it?

Salon (Sept. 28, 2004)(via Lexis.com)

Jerome Armstrong, who runs the popular left-leaning blog MyDD.com, is 40 years old, and for much of his life he followed politics only "on the periphery," he says. Only in the last few years has he come to see both the necessity and the excitement of civic participation, and in that short time he's taken to the game with all the gusto of a natural. Armstrong was an early fan of Howard Dean, and Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, was an early fan of Armstrong's blog; the match was eventually consummated in Burlington, Vt., where, during Dean's rise and fall, Armstrong decamped to work for the campaign. Now Armstrong is a full-fledged political consultant; he and Moulitsas have set up a firm to advise politicians on how to use the Web to outmaneuver their opponents, much as Armstrong (and many others) helped Dean to do in his campaign.

American Journalism Review (June, 2004) (lexis.com)

One amateur political blogger stumbled over stricter rules in another professional arena, that of politics. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, 32, author of the Daily Kos,....was raised in El Salvador and served in the U.S. Army, started the Daily Kos in May 2002 drawing from his Army nickname, which rhymes with "rose."

He and his business partner, Jerome Armstrong, worked as paid consultants to Dean's campaign; Moulitsas now consults for "a couple Democratic congressional campaigns and interest groups," though he declines to specify which ones.

The Weekly Standard, April, 2004 (lexis.com ):

"Kos" is the pseudonym for Markos Zúniga, a 27-year-old lawyer in California. He started writing his political blog in the summer of 2002, and in January 2003 became partners with Jerome Armstrong, who had spent the previous couple of years helping Vermont governor Howard Dean cement his Internet presence. Last April, their political consultancy, Armstrong Zúniga, helped orchestrate grassroots efforts to draft Gen. Wesley Clark for president. And last May, they signed a contract with Dean for America.

The Spectator, April, 2004 (lexis.com)

The Daily Kos has been mentioned approvingly in stories on the rising influence of the Internet by CNN, CBS, Business Week, the Associated Press, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and our chums at the Guardian. Zuniga's admirers include Simon Rosenberg, former Clinton aide and president of the New Democrat Network ('Markos has done an incredible job'). Howard Dean put him on the payroll as a campaign consultant. John Kerry's website links to Mr Zuniga.

San Francisco Chronicle, Jan 15, 2004 (lexis.com)

From his bungalow in Berkeley, he's spreading the word of grassroots netocracy to the Beltway. He formed an Internet political consulting firm with Jerome Armstrong, a fellow blog visionary who works from a computer in Burlington, Vt. They already have several big-name clients, although Dean is the only one whose name they will make public.

Salon, Sept. 9, 2003 (lexis.com):

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of the popular lefty blog Daily Kos and a consultant to the Dean campaign's Web efforts, says that even if Dean is failing to appeal to minorities now, they will come to him if he wins the nomination.

Salon, Sept. 5, 2003(lexis.com):

The tension with DraftClark2004 -- or "20-Oh-4," as it's called by insiders -- stretches back to when DraftClark.com, one of the first Clark Web sites, was relinquished by its founder, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a 31-year-old former U.S. Army soldier turned lawyer turned Dean campaign technical consultant. Moulitsas jump-started the Draft Clark Movement earlier this year before finally giving up on Clark after months of waiting for him to declare -- and after Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi invited him to work with Dean.

Update: This is about Hewitt and O'Reilly being wrong, not a hate board for them. Please keep your comments civil. There's no need for personal attacks. Let's show we're better than them.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#1)
    by jondee on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 01:58:04 PM EST
    Typical O'Reilly:another ration of disinformation for the grossly misinformed-brought to you by the "Who's your Daddy?" network.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#2)
    by john horse on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 03:28:29 PM EST
    I'm shocked by Bill O'Reilly's journalistic lapses. After all, he did win several Peabody awards, the highest award for journalism.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 04:27:53 PM EST
    Actually, O'Really didn't win any Peabodys or Polks. The program with which he was once associated did -- after he left. .

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#4)
    by Jack on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 04:37:39 PM EST
    Obviously Jeffraham's satAR is malfunctioning.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 05:09:12 PM EST
    O'REILLY: Oh, this is bunk. This is bull. Nobody knew about this.
    Like you would trust this man to be informed? A guy who doesn't know the difference between a loofah and a falafel?

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#6)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 05:13:32 PM EST
    "loofah and a falafel?" Priceless stuff, thank God for the smoking gun.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 05:16:13 PM EST
    What, like you expect righteous-wing media douchebags to, you know, have facts to back up their blather? That's like expecting short-bus kids to do calculus. I'll see your loofah and raise you a falafel ;)

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 05:17:06 PM EST
    You just better shut up right now, or Bill will send Roger Ailes over to your house and then you'll be sorry.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 06:45:17 PM EST
    "If it turns out there are no WMD in Iraq, I will apologize publically, and NEVER TRUST THIS WHITE HOUSE AGAIN." Unless I'm a liar. Bwahahaha!! O'Reilly to Winger-traitors: Just keep shouting shutup. Just keep marching. There are reputations to destroy, and a nation to beat down. The competition for, well, Tenth Most Ugly Amerikkkan is heating up. [personal attack on O'Reilly deleted. This is about his being wrong about Kos and Jerome, not about him. Please keep it civil] --

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#10)
    by desertswine on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 07:59:00 PM EST
    Aaah... gimme another falafel.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#11)
    by cp on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 08:25:07 PM EST
    whether or not o'reilly reads the news, is aware there is news, or no news is good news is irrelevant. what is relevant is that his choir most certainly doesn't read the news. that's what keeps ol' bill's engine humming. oh, for the record, o'reilly isn't a journalist, and his show is not a news show. he, and it, are entertainment, just like rush. this is how they keep judgement proof. knowingly presenting false information as fact will get you bankrupt as a journalist. doing the same as an entertainer will get you a seven figure salary.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#12)
    by wishful on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 09:13:23 PM EST
    How in the world can O'Really be kept informed if he doesn't read, and if someone reads to him, he screams (with fingers in ears) lalalalalala? Maybe we can be his friends and call him, write him, and email him and his bosses with the message that he is a liar and a bad man. No, that won't work. Only money talks with these thugs all. How can they be hit in the wallet, in a righteous way of course? Ideas?

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 15, 2005 at 11:41:11 PM EST
    deleted due to language

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 01:36:58 AM EST
    This is just an example of what drives me absolutely friggin' nuts about the state of the media: O'Reilly's "Bunk, bull" comment is the only thing 51% of Americans will, or even want to, hear about this story. "Oh, those silly liberal internets guys, and those cheating Democrats. How dare they complain about Armstrong Williams blah, blah." Will they take two seconds to do a little research? Oh hell no. Falafel will do all our research for us - he reports and we decide to believe him. Thanks a lot Zephyr. You don't deserve the personal attacks you've been getting(although many of them are coming from thugs in disguise) but I don't feel sorry for all the professional attacks coming your way. More damage in one sentence than Sean Hannity did all year, it seems to me.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 02:39:35 AM EST
    Repeat after me: it's about taxpayers money taxpayers money, taxpayers money. Why are we even dignifying this lie with continued response and pushing up the hit count? It's the usual Rethug "'Look! over there! someone is stealing your car!" while the person shouting is rifling your pockets. And the US left falls for it, hook line and sinker, every single time.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 07:47:08 AM EST
    For all Hugh Hewitt's moralizing, he's got prominent links to Daschle vs. Thune and South Dakota Politics on his own blog. Those are the sites by the guys who really were paid by the Thune campaign to shill for them on their blogs. I've got more on this at my blog if you're interested.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 10:17:34 AM EST
    The other night I had the out of world experience of switching channels back and forth between Barbara Walters' interviewing the man who will rule the world for at least the next for years and an intelligent California housewife wondering about the safety of our nuclear energy plants. Bill and Rush are just such little pimples on the rotted face of our complex reality that why are we even bothering with their nonsense: it is such a distraction when the big picture is so much more important and so damn bleak?

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 09:29:05 PM EST
    If I were paranoid, I'd say that this "scandal" was floated now, a year after the fact, just to give apparatchik Hewitt a news hook for his book tour. And if I were really paranoid, I'd say the whole sequence -- Armstrong Williams followed by Kos/MyDD -- was a trick shot to (a) get the Williams story out there and then neutralize it with Kos/DD plus (b) give Hewitt an interview hook.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#19)
    by brian on Sun Jan 16, 2005 at 09:50:09 PM EST
    "What, like you expect righteous-wing media douchebags to, you know, have facts to back up their blather? That's like expecting short-bus kids to do calculus." Actually, a friend of mine teaches calculus to teenagers with learning disabilities. His students are very motivated and talented, and they're studying the subject at a level of depth that most college level calculus classes don't acheive, in my experience. But yeah, right wing pundits are a different story.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Jan 17, 2005 at 10:40:19 AM EST
    The real question: will the real story (that these infotainers are lying, that Kos and MyDD were never paid for blogging about politics (Kos got paid to tweak their web presence - that's it. Yet somehow he was on the take)), and that they should get a public apology on national TV from O'Really? and Hewitt, ever show up in the mainstream media? I know, a rhetorical question, but still...

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Jan 18, 2005 at 05:00:09 PM EST
    Tom -- how do you know what the Dean campaign paid Kos to do? Seems to me you're putting a lot of trust in Moulitsas' abilityies to keep his paymasters and his blog separate -- a self-fulfilling prophecy, no doubt. The outcome is obvious: dKos fans will see no evil, while detractors will scream "Gotcha!" But the political connection does make the site, er, unusual as blogs go, you have to admit.

    Re: Hewitt and O'Reilly Should Read the News (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Jan 19, 2005 at 07:04:28 PM EST
    tom -- how do you know what the dean campaign paid kos to do? uh, because that's what joe trippi, the guy who hired kos and jerome, has said on record?