Horowitz Exposes David Brock as Paid Hatchet Man for Soros

Newsroom shills for the left tend to fare badly in confrontations with bloggers, as former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines, former CBS anchorman Dan Rather and former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan learned the hard way. Now another leftwing journalist hangs on the ropes, bruised and bloodied from an ill-advised brawl with yet another indignant and fatally well-informed weblogger.

This time the recipient of the beating is David Brock – founder and CEO of MediaMatters.org, a self-styled media "watchdog" group more accurately described as a smear site targeting conservative journalists. The blogger is author, journalist and conservative activist David Horowitz.

"Nobody can utter a word about [George] Soros without [Brock] pounding on him," Horowitz told Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) this week. He charged that Brock's MediaMatters.org is "a hit site that is set up to attack all the enemies of the Soros network. There is a shadow party that has taken control of the Democratic Party and David Brock is their rapid response team."

Horowitz first fingered Brock as a Soros plant in a blog entry of December 1, 2004, published on Horowitz’s news and commentary site FrontPageMagazine.com. Brock’s organization responded with a blanket denial the same day, stating, "To date, neither Media Matters nor its president and CEO David Brock has received any money from Soros or from any organization with which he is affiliated."

The Shadow Party

Brock was using weasel words. It is quite likely that he never cashed a check bearing Soros’s signature. Yet, without Soros funding, Media Matters would not exist.

In a three-part series posted to FrontPage in October 2004, David Horowitz and I exposed the inner workings of Soros’ political machine, which we called "the Shadow Party." We followed the money trail and demonstrated that the network of supposedly "independent" 527 committees and other non-profit groups which played such a key role in funding John Kerry’s campaign were not "independent" at all. On the contrary, Soros had created and organized the network from the top down, controlling it through a highly centralized, corporate-style command structure.

In our series, "The Shadow Party," we identified seven non-profit groups – dubbing them the "Seven Sisters" – through which Soros administered his Shadow Party’s far-flung operations. In alphabetical order, the Seven Sisters are: America Coming Together; America Votes; Center for American Progress; Joint Victory Campaign 2004; The Media Fund; MoveOn.org and the Thunder Road Group.

As Horowitz explained in a blog entry of December 2, 2004, Brock’s "watchdog" organization Media Matters depends for its lifeblood on the Shadow Party. Horowitz wrote:

"Peter Lewis, a billionaire who is a Soros crony and has funded one of Soros' 527 operations to the tune of $7 million, is a funder of Brock and Media Matters. … the Brock operation is viewed by its funders as part of the leftist Shadow Party that Soros has constructed and that includes such organizations as Harold Ickes' Media Fund and John Podesta's Center for American Progress. Podesta, who was Bill Clinton's chief of staff and whose Center is a Soros-funded operation, seems to have been Brock's patron in finding funders, according to the NY Times. The same source indicates that Brock also consulted Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and Al Gore. … In addition to Hindery and [Stephen] Bing, Brock is funded by MoveOn.org, which is a Soros beneficiary and a key player in the Shadow Party cabal…"

Horowitz went on to cite a National Review article of June 14, 2004, in which Byron York identified Leo Hindery Jr. as a major funder of Media Matters. In addition to being former CEO of the scandal-plagued Global Crossing, Hindery is a Democrat strategist and moneyman who recently made an unsuccessful bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

York’s article quotes Hindery explaining Brock’s role in the Shadow Party machine: "There are people like Mike Lux [a Democratic consultant who runs an important ad agency], who are into the strategy point of view, there’s Podesta, who’s into the think tank/intellectual side, and I think the third part of the triangle is David [Brock]’s initiative."

To this, Horowitz deadpanned, "If so, the IRS should take another look at Brock's operation which has filed as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity, which is barred by law from being the third part of a political operation."

Raines, Rather, Jordan… Brock?

Despite the damning evidence Horowitz brought to bear on his blog, his charges of a hidden alliance between Brock and Soros went unnoticed for three months. Then came vindication.

On Thursday, March 3, Cybercast News Service ran a story that not only corroborated Horowitz’s charges, but forced Media Matters to back down from its previous blanket denial of a Soros connection. In a piece headlined, "David Brock Group Backpedals on Soros Funding," CNS correspondent Marc Morano writes:

"After initially claiming on Dec. 1, 2004 that `neither Media Matters nor its president and CEO David Brock has received any money from Soros or from any organization with which he is affiliated,' the group is no longer disavowing any connection with groups `affiliated' with Soros. … Media Matters for America (MMA) spokeswoman Sally Aman responded to Cybercast News Service's questions with an e-mail. `In response to your query regarding donor funding Media Matters for America has never received funding directly from George Soros,' Aman stated, no longer denying any relationship with organizations affiliated with Soros.’"

And so it begins. Howell Raines, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan… will David Brock fall next?