I've written several diaries (here and here) regarding the curious story of would-be cop killer Byron Williams, who engaged in a shootout with the California Highway Patrol and Oakland police on July 18th. Williams apparently had planned on sleeping in his truck on Sunday night and then attacking the ACLU and the Tides Foundation on Monday morning when they opened.
I've believed from the beginning that Williams was egged on by Fox "News" to attack these progressive organizations. Media Matters has started to connect the dots from Glenn Beck to Byron Williams.
I had cited a few instances in which Beck, paranoid and deranged, had linked the Tides Foundation to the Weather Underground and ACORN. Media Matters has reviewed coverage of the Tides Foundation and has reported the following:
According to our searches, since Beck's show premiered on January 19, 2009, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show (the other two were on Sean Hannity's program). In most of those references, Beck attacked Tides, often weaving the organization into his conspiracy theories. Two of those Beck mentions occurred during the week before Williams' shootout.
Wow, this must be a really controversial organization, eh? Not really. Media Matters continues:
By contrast, since January 19, 2009, according to our Nexis search, Tides was not mentioned on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or PBS. Not once. This search is not perfect -- Nexis does not include, for example, MSNBC's daytime coverage. But the contrast with Beck's coverage is stark.
Media Matters has documented each of Beck's rants about Tides - here is a sample of his ravings that very likely drove Byron Williams to target the foundation.
On his September 18, 2009, show, Beck said:
This is a progressive, George Soros-funded, extreme left-wing organization. It's all funded right through the Tides Foundation. It doesn't appear left-wing because, oh, they have all of these credible organizations with it. But what are their real goals?
Wade Rathke with ACORN. His brother Dale -- where is -- where is Dale? Here is his brother Dale is at SEIU -- we think. We're not sure. He was with ACORN, but nobody will give us a straight answer on where he went after embezzling almost $1 million and then George Soros' people at the Tides Foundation come up with $1 million just to make that problem go away. We think he went to SEIU, but nobody will give us a straight -- a straight answer.
I'd urge everyone to read the full report from Media Matters. It's the only place you'll read it - the media hasn't covered this at all, and even the San Francisco media has dropped the story.