Masquerade!

Not two minutes after ranting about how the American people are themselves complicit in any supposed media bias, I run across this article:

The truth about that "liberal" against gay marriage

Posing as a "liberal Democrat" in the L.A. Times, David Blankenhorn endorsed a California initiative to ban gay marriage. His right-wing funders must be pleased.

The core of it, in case this is one of the Salon articles that require a subscription, is:

"I'm a liberal Democrat." So began a widely circulated opinion piece by David Blankenhorn appearing in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 19 in support of Proposition 8, an initiative on California's November 4 ballot that would eliminate the marriage rights of same-sex couples recently recognized by the California Supreme Court …

… It is odd indeed when a person claims the mantle of a certain political philosophy while espousing an opinion seemingly at odds with that political philosophy. It makes you wonder: Is this person really who he claims to be? The vehicle Blankenhorn uses for espousing his opinions on marriage and family values is a think tank he calls the Institute for American Values, of which he is president …

… During the 15 years preceding 2006, IAV received nearly $4.5 million in funding from a coterie of ultra-conservative Republican foundations, including the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundation, and the Randolph Foundation. These foundations supply funds for a network of right-wing Republican think tanks that promote a variety of causes such as the elimination of gay marriage, abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research; prayer in public schools; creationism and deregulatory free-market economics …

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Blankenhorn taking millions of dollars for IAV and $317,225 annually for himself and his wife from ultra-conservative Republicans. But it certainly tends to undermine the notion that he's a "liberal Democrat" who also happens to oppose marriage by same-sex couples. What sort of liberal Democrat builds his political forum and his personal fortune on the bedrock of ultra-conservative Republican money?

Think about it carefully. Not necessarily the subject matter, but the implications. Idealogues spend millions to set up a foundation masquerading as the “other side” in order to slap the “other side’s” label on positions that actually support the ideologue. It is the epitome of manipulation. And it is the fault of the people who are being manipulated. The cheerleaders of a free-market system are perverting that very system to buy people’s opinions and they get away with it because people have allowed themselves to become so conditioned to not questioning or scrutinizing.

I suddenly prefer the straightforward biases of O'Reilly and Olbermann.