This is my first diary on Daily Kos but I have been a blogger on Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, and occasionally here. I am a strong proponent of the fourth estate. I am concerned how media is presented to the public and especially the deceptive practices of organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and its offshoots that distort the news for their own purposes. With Barack Obama in the presidential race this has produced some cloaked messengers in the form of guests on news shows like "Hardball" and even the "McLaughlin Group." They seem to have the appearance of marginalized groups but come from organizations with catchy names but with the single purpose of pushing the neocon agenda.
The attacks on Barack Obama has some subtle undertones. His mixed race has divided people into several groups and try to make people take sides. The obvious ones are Black versus White but others exist. There is the entitled privileged class versus the working class. It is the government versus the anti government groups.
It has encouraged news programs to produce some Obama look alikes as pundits or news analyzer on a variety of MSM news programs. It certainly is welcome progress but it now calls for careful vetting of the various participants. Some may look like and sound like an acceptable representative of a marginalized political group but they are no such thing. They are pulling for the main stream culture. Diversity and including such groups in the seats of power is not really their bag.
In evaluating their views it will force us to be more vigilant that this does not produce wolves in sheep's clothing. I was particularly struck by the sudden appearance and rise of one Michelle Bernard, President of the Independent Women's Forum and her uneven praise of Obama and then embracing of conservative almost reactionary views on taxes, property rights, etc. It took one trip to Wikipedia to find out her strong neoconservative bona fides. Her physical appearance and semi intellectual rhetorical style has made her a fixture on "Hardball" and she has had a recent appearance on "The McLaughlin Group." Nowhere do they let the public know her conservative ideology or that of the IWF of which she is president. The IWF for starters was founded as a women's group to defend Clarence Thomas and included such people as Lynn Cheney and Barbara Olson. The references to her background, her own words, and the IWF are given below:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://www.q-and-a.org/...
http://article.nationalreview.com/...
By playing off Obama's political attractiveness, neo-conservative think tanks have become adept in finding spokespeople who will latch onto an acceptable public persona of marginalized political groups and then turn it into the narrower pushing of their reactionary agenda. This is not surprising nor should it be squashed but its intentions and so called "scholars" need the light of day. They are not truth tellers or seekers but are true propagandists.