which media matters

i have been wondering why dick armey gave so much good dirt to media matters this week. media matters is a "progressive" organization dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." why would armey give so much good stuff to an outfit like that instead of a more sympathetic media source?

the answer, it turns out, is that dick is an idiot:

Dick Armey had no idea he was speaking to the left-wing Media Matters organization during an interview last week, he told The Daily Caller Tuesday. Instead, Armey thought he was chatting with the conservative Media Research Center.
...

But in a Tuesday phone interview with TheDC, Armey insisted that even though Strupp properly identified himself, it wasn’t until “somebody busted my chops on Facebook” that he realized he spoke to a left-wing group.


“I wouldn’t know Media Matters from a hole in the wall,” the 72-year-old told TheDC. “That was a major, big screw up on my part. I thought they were somebody else.”

When asked who he thought Media Matters was, Armey replied, “Who’s the guy with the red beard that always does the show where he points out how biased the press is?”

“Oh… the Media Research Center? Brent Bozell?” TheDC suggested. Bozell appears weekly on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to spotlight liberal media bias in a segment called “Media Mash.”

“Yeah, I thought it was Brent Bozell,” Armey replied. “What I thought I had was I’d get them interested in the absolute screw job I got from The Washington Post.”

the media research center is pretty much the opposite of media matters. as co-chairman of freedom works, part of armey's job was managing the media and being the public face for that organization. he certainly should have known the difference between media matters and the media research center. it's hard for me to imagine a stupider mistake. but thanks to his stupidity, we got a glimpse into how his tea party astroturf organization really worked.

(via susie)