In its first response to the controversy surrounding the organization, a top Media Matters for America official yesterday told one of his group's main detractors to "go to hell."
"Best way to tell Dershowitz to go to hell (1) picket his classroom or (2) tell your friends to follow me on twitter," tweeted Media Matters Action Network senior fellow M.J. Rosenberg, referring to liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz.
On Sunday, Dershowitz was in the news after he told WABC Radio host Aaron Klein, who doubles as WND's senior reporter, that he will personally make the Media Matters for America controversy into a re-election issue for President Obama.
A series of reports has exposed the embattled Media Matters' alleged illicit tactics, including compiling a de facto enemies list; announcing an all-out campaign of "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" aimed at the Fox News Channel; and reportedly seeking to investigate the personal lives of reporters and news personalities.
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The information came amid reports White House staffers held regular meetings and even a weekly conference call with Media Matters.
Dershowitz took particular issue with Media Matters coverage of Israel, including rhetoric from Rosenberg, who is known for his extreme anti-Israel views.
Rosenberg has been pushing the phrase "Israel Firster," implying those who support the Jewish state put Israel's needs before those of the U.S.
"Not only will [the Media Matters controversy] be an election matter, I will personally make it an election matter," Dershowitz told Klein.
Continued Dershowitz: "I will speak to every Jewish group that invites me, and I think it's fair to say I speak to more Jewish groups than probably any other person in the world. I spoke to over a million Jews over the years. You know, just last Thursday spoke to 1,200, just in the next weeks alone I'll be speaking and in the past weeks to thousands of American Jews. And believe me, I will not let them ignore this issue."
Click here to listen to Klein's interview with Dershowitz.
Dershowitz contended many donors to Media Matters didn't know the group would take such extremist positions.
"They began to donate to the organization just because they thought it was a counterweight to Fox News," he told Klein.
"I don't know whether President Obama has any idea that Media Matters has turned the corner against Israel in this way," Dershowitz said. "I can tell you this: He will know very shortly, because I am beginning a serious campaign on this issue, and I will not let it drop until and unless Rosenberg is fired from Media Matters, or Media Matters changes its policy or the White House disassociates itself from Media Matters."
While Rosenberg's tweet yesterday may not have been an official response from Media Matters, it's the first public recognition of the ensuing controversy by the embattled organization.
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Rosenberg has long held controversial views.
As Dershowitz pointed out in his Jewish Press column yesterday, Rosenberg has called Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu a "terrorist," and Israel's President Shimon Peres, an "uberhawk on Iran" who has "undermined" Obama.
Rosenberg has denied that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ever threatened to wipe Israel off the map, suggesting it was a mistranslation despite similar rhetoric being regularly repeated by top Iranian officials.
Rosenberg has compared the violence of terrorist-supporting anti-Israel activists on recent Gaza flotillas with "civil rights demonstrators who sat down at segregated lunch counters through the south."
He recently defended reporter Helen Thomas against charges of anti-Semitism for saying the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" while he criticized Obama for "diss[ing] her," calling instead for Thomas to be "salute[d]."
Rosenberg previously explained why Media Matters hired him.
"Until I got there, [Media Matters] had nothing on foreign policy. They hired me specifically to be involved with this issue, with the Palestinian issue, with [the issue of] stopping the war with Iran."
Rosenberg's writings are routinely found on anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi websites.
Rosenberg doubles as a columnist with the Huffington Post and Al Jazeera's English website.
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