This appeared at Huffington Post on September 13, 2009.
When CBS News failed to do even cursory fact-checking on Joe Wilson’s infamous outburst, it was merely the most recent example of poor journalism at the network Cronkite built. CBS now stands for Credulous Breathless Stenography.
On August 17th, CBS ran a story on the American Seniors Association, a “conservative alternative” to the American Association of Retired Persons, or AARP. At the time, MediaMatters dug into CBS News’ repetition of the ASA’s claims that “up to” 60,000 AARP members had torn up their cards, finding it specious at best:
There’s no reason to take ASA’s claims about AARP’s membership seriously — they are not in any position to know, and have a clear interest in inflating the number of cancellations. That’s almost certainly how CBS News “has learned” about the AARP membership cancellations — ASA told them. And, since ASA has no idea how many people have actually canceled AARP memberships, and ASA has a clear motivation for inflating those numbers, CBS had to include the “up to” wiggle words.
In short, that first sentence of the CBS report is a pretty clear indication that you should ignore everything that follows. (Emphasis mine)
As we’ve seen with the outright fabrication of crowd figures at the Washington, D.C. “tea party” this weekend, inflating the numbers is one of the critical elements of astroturfing. A group that wants to seem bigger than it is will always go for a nice, round figure like 60,000; it has enough psychological significance to convince innumerate viewers that ASA is off to a great start…when in fact that number represents far less than one month’s membership gain by the AARP.
Nor did CBS report that ASA was offering a free year of membership if you sent them your torn up AARP card — it was right there at the top of their website:
You have to wonder why CBS would do a piece on any organization, let alone such a politically outspoken one, without even bothering to look at its website. In fact, from what I discovered during a single hour of web-based investigation is that the ASA is a thinly-veiled Republican front group.
The right wing has a long-term strategy of turning Americans against their own interests, undermining the remnants of the New Deal and Great Society. The ASA is just another flimsy part of that same strategy. From their boilerplate:
At American Seniors Association, we don’t just take the government’s side like some other associations. We are not some big liberal bureaucracy here to try to scare you into going along with Big Government all the time or telling you what to think.
The organization’s website offers an agenda consisting of four “pillars.” The first is Social Security privatization, which ASA calls “reform;” the second is Medicare privatization, which it again calls “reform;” the third is flat taxes, which has marginal relevance to seniors living on fixed incomes.
But it is the fourth I find most interesting: “Keeping Citizen Benefits out of the hands of illegal aliens:”
Lawbreakers do not deserve Social Security payments intended for you and your family who are citizens.
In retracing the history of this organization, you will find these “pillars” (especially the anti-immigrant fever) recurring through image makeovers and name changes. Another constant is the set of names that keeps popping up. For example, a quick WHOIS lookup of the ASA website finds it registered to one Amy Sullenberger, who lists her employer here as “Georgia Republican Party.” I took a screenshot in case it goes away:
Search for Amy’s tracks and you’ll find press releases like this one from the “National Association for Senior Concerns (NASCON.org):”
NASCON.org, The National Association for Senior Concerns has just celebrated its first anniversary. Big deal, you say? It is when you are the David that has decided to go head to head against the Goliath (AARP), which has cornered the senior market for 50 years. Over the years, the AARP has grown increasingly more liberal, using stealth ideology to sway the largest voting block in the country. (Emphasis mine)
Solutions for the problems of the elderly are necessarily social in resolution. Retracing the history of anti-reform rhetoric on health care all the way back to 1915, Leigh Ann Caldwell at News Junkie Post says: “Since people started to organize in favor of heath care, opponents have stirred up hateful opposition, inducing Americans’ fears of communism, fascism, and socialism.” Ronald Reagan famously campaigned against the creation of Medicare. No one has ever invented a workable free market alternative for people who are done with the wage-earning part of their lives.
Sollenberger keeps appearing on press releases. In 2008, she wrote up a Mitt Romney town hall:
At an Election Day candidate forum in Tampa, Florida sponsored by the American Seniors Association (ASA), former Governor Mitt Romney told a crowd of the organization’s conservative seniors that when it comes to fixing America’s health care system, Hillarycare is not the answer.
“I am convinced we need to grab the reins on this healthcare issue and get our citizens insured but do it in a conservative and Republican way, not socialized medicine or Hillarycare,” Romney told the seniors.
NASCON.org became the American Seniors Association and stopped filing IRS 990s after 2005 (warning: registration reqired) by June of 2007, when it lobbied to defeat President Bush’s immigration reform bill “because of the long-term financial danger it poses to Social Security and retirement security” (all those La Raza brown people will eat your grandma!).
I haven’t found an IRS 990 for “American Seniors Association,” so it’s entirely possible they haven’t submitted one, which is par for the course with people who don’t believe in taxes. It’s also possible their nakedly partisan agenda no longer qualifies them for non-profit status, as the ASA website gives absolutely no information about their legal status except:
ASA is a state non-profit political advocacy group and it also has a for-profit company which handles the benefits.
The domain registration for NASCON.org is in the name of Jerry Barton, a Republican donor who once served as finance chairman for Mitch McConnell, among other GOP connections. He’s now the Chairman of the American Seniors Association. His son Stuart is busy spreading “death panels” nonsense.
The American Seniors Association serves a radical right agenda. Its rhetoric is a mishmash of the usual John Bircher tinfoil-hattery and discredited conservative economics. It has changed its name at least once, but remains the same thinly-disguised Republican Party front organization.
Here’s my question: if I can find all this out in thirty minutes, why couldn’t CBS do at least that much?
