I know we've talked about USA Next and even this particular piece a lot, but here's a link to the Sunday NYT Magazine interview with chief executive of USA Next Charlie Jarvis.
This is what constitutes the "hard-hitting" section:
Critics say your organization is not a legitimate lobbying group but a front for those who want to privatize Social Security, including Karl Rove, the president's chief strategist.
I have never had a one-to-one meeting with him.
What about a two-to-one meeting?
I've met him. I think he is a political and tactical genius. I've been in presentations by him at the White House briefings.
Does he know your name?
Now he does. He would say, of course: ''Charlie Jarvis was the one who was in that interview in The New York Times Magazine. And how did he blow that interview so badly?''
So USA Next gets a full-page profile in the NYT, talking to its main man about their "lobbying strategy" and otherwise completely legitimizing them as for real. And yet there have been numerous different news stories detailing the following:
1. USA Next is the latest in a string of "lobbying" groups run by the same people whose sole purpose seems to be raising money with fear-mongering letters to old people so it can pay its top leaders big salaries and keep raising more money.
2. USA Next repeatedly claims a membership of 1.5 million but is mostly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Does it claim 1.5 million members because that's how many old people it sends misleading junk mail to in an attempt to raise money?
3. USA Next is credited with engineering "the recent controversial ad that branded AARP pro-gay marriage.... What else are you planning?" said the NYT. No, a correct description is that they launched an outrageous and absurd smear against the AARP that gained lots of attention but backfired in their faces by making charges so ludicrous (that the AARP is somehow anti-military) that they were roundly criticized. They also did it by apparently breaking the law and are facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. (This may not have been known by deadline.)
4. And before you call this liberal bashing, the Bush Administration itself (through the Social Security Administration) has fined USA Next more than $500,000 for fradulent mailings to old people that scared and defrauded them in an attempt to raise money for itself.
So why is this group being treated like a legitimate lobbying organization? There should be NO articles about their work as a lobbying group. There should be LOTS of articles about its record of fraud and deceit, of being fined by Bush for scaring and intimidating old people, of how it is ANTI-elderly (Bush says so). Nothing they do should be given legitimacy. Their entire past -- which apparently includes numerous similar self-perpetuating fund-raising businesses geared towards the elderly -- should be detailed at length.
Instead, the NYT blesses them with a profile that paints it as a player, a mover and shaker on the national scene. It doesn't delve into the group's shady past. It gives it cover for the future -- your elderly grandparents could read this and think that when they get a letter from USA Next in the mail, it's a real group, rather than scam artists who have been fined by the Bush Administration itself.
The only way to stop this is by asking the NYT and any media outlet that covers them as a real lobbying group rather than shysters about the numerous charges against it and why THOSE weren't the focus of their articles.
We let the MSM get away with legitimizing the Swift Boat Veterans. And now some of those same people are working for USA Next. Keep the media honest and let us know any response you get.
