An Oct. 31 Newsmax article by David Patten promotes the anti-Obama video, “Hype: The Obama Effect,” released by David Bossie’s Citizens United. Patten sycophantically calls the film “a controversial, no-holds-barred film that debunks the quasi-messianic candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama” and benignly describes Citizens United as “a nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes traditional American values.” The words “conservative” or “right-wing” appear nowhere in Patten’s article, let alone as an accurate descriptor of Citizens United.
Patten makes a minor stab at telling the other side of the Bossie story, if only to set up a straw man for Bossie to slap down:
The liberal Media Matters stated that the DVD “contains numerous falsehoods and misrepresentations of Obama’s record,” then proceeded to attack Bossie personally.
“To be honest,” Bossie told Newsmax, “it is right in the Media Matters way of doing business, which is really unremarkable in their sad, twisted, and demented way of trying to affect people. It doesn’t affect us.”
In fact, the Media Matters (disclosure: our employer) item on Bossie and his film does not “attack Bossie personally”; rather, it accurately describes Bossie’s employment history, which includes being fired from his position on the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in 1998 for his alleged role in releasing selectively edited transcripts of Webb Hubbell’s prison conversations.
Neither Patten nor Bossie challenge or contradict any claims made in the Media Matters item about Bossie or his film.