Philadelphia-based talk show host Michael Smerconish is a moderate Republican who (for reasons that deserve exploring) has drawn the type of leftist enmity normally reserved for talkers considered to be on the far right. I don't listen to his show, but I wrote a long post about him when he was the subject of a wildly ad hominem hit piece in the Philadelphia Weekly, because it made no sense to go after this guy with such a vengeance. Considering that an extremist like Michael Savage (a man I refuse to call a conservative) is on the air in Philadelphia, why target his moderate competition?

What makes even less sense is the recent campaign by Media Matters against Smerconish. In an op-ed in today's Inquirer, Smerconish is wondering what could be going on:

...he floodgates are now open. The cyber-lynching by faceless, nameless bloggers of talk-show hosts like me has begun.

Individuals who hide behind the anonymity afforded by the Internet are seeking to squelch the First Amendment right of people whose identities are readily known and who, unlike their cowardly critics, put their names and credibility on the line each and every day on matters of public concern. Left unconfronted, it is a dangerous practice in the making.

The very day Imus was fired at CBS, I was alerted to a posting on Media Matters for America, a sophisticated Web site instrumental in stoking the flames for Imus' departure. The posting, titled "It's not just Imus," identified me as one of seven talk-show hosts in America who bear observation:

". . . [A]s Media Matters for America has extensively documented, bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity continue to permeate the airwaves through personalities such as Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson."

I have done talk radio for about 15 years, have written two books, authored hundreds of columns, and have appeared on every major television program in which politics gets discussed, from The Colbert Report to Hardball With Chris Matthews. This week alone I was responsible for 17.5 hours of content on my own radio show, wrote two newspaper columns, guest-hosted Bill O'Reilly's radio show nationwide, and found time to make television appearances on The Today Show, The Glenn Beck Program, and Scarborough Country.

Needless to say, I was anxious to see which of my words, among the millions I have offered over all these years, have been documented by these blogger-watchdogs as "bigotry" and "hate." What exactly puts me in a category with the likes of Michael Savage?

Why?

Far from being an anonymous blog, Media Matters is a hardball operation organized and funded by key Clinton players like former White House Chief of Staff John D. Podesta (with the usual Soros ties, natch). While the "cyber-lynching by faceless, nameless bloggers" might play a role, I think the Media Matters campaign represents something considerably bigger than that.

I'm glad to see Smerconish's op-ed featured in the Huffington Post, because this campaign is a real threat to moderate and independent free speech.

I think the Clinton left would rather take down guys like Imus or Smerconish than a nutjob like Michael Savage, and that's because moderates and independents are a bigger threat. The far right is easily stereotyped, and in the long run, they can actually be seen as helping (not hurting) Hillary Clinton. If the goal is to get her elected, silencing the moderates (and, of course, libertarians like Neal Boortz) is a vital first step. If I were working for the Hillary campaign, I'd advise precisely such a campaign. Little wonder that another primary target of the Media Matters campaign is Democrat Chris Matthews. Like Imus, he's a Democrat against Hillary. They hate Matthews so much it reminds me of the attacks on Lieberman. Seriously; if you check out the links, you begin to see a pattern. While its stated goal might be to go after the right wing, Media Matters is very much in the business of enforcing Democratic political conformity.

However (and especially in light of Media Matters), I do not agree with Smerconish's characterization of anonymous bloggers, because blogger anonymity is a two edged sword. I severely criticized the proposed blogger speech code for this very reason. Smerconish argues that the goal is to "squelch the First Amendment right of people whose identities are readily known." I'd argue that the goal is simply to silence and intimidate those who disagree. Not by legal censorship, of course. While unconstitutional laws against "hate speech" might be a longterm goal, right now a lot can still be accomplished by pressuring advertisers and employers of moderates, libertarians, and non-conforming Democrats. Unlike a Michael Savage type, moderates often have mainstream advertisers and work for companies more likely to cave in the face of hardball tactics.

While these techniques are not technically censorship and thus do not raise legal First Amendment issues, they nonetheless remind me of the importance of the First Amendment. It's a two edged sword.

Outfits like Media Matters should remember that they are no more immune from criticism than the targets of their campaigns.

MORE: It's probably worth pointing out that Media Matters is a charity (contributions to which are "fully tax deductible"):

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, 501(c)(3) not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Conservative misinformation is defined as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda.

Media Matters lists fifty six staff employees, and they're hiring more!

(It has the smell of lots of money....)

MORE: Is it Media Matters's strategy to systematically take out idiosyncratic characters in advance of the 2008 campaign? Via Glenn Reynolds' link, here's Ann Althouse on the subject:

Media Matters had been lying in wait for a long time, and finally they got exactly the sound bite they needed, and they played it masterfully. Think about why things fell into place so well and why so many people fell in line and took down this idiosyncratic character, who had been talking on the radio four hours a day, five days a week for so long. Who knows what havoc he might have wreaked in the 2008 campaign? Isn't it convenient to have him out of the way?

MORE: Seen another way, might this muscle flexing by Media Matters be an example of authoritarian leftism raising its ugly head? Glenn Reynolds links this foreboding piece about those who dislike a wide-open, market-driven playing field, and why they want to fight it:

That leftist media critics start sounding so authoritarian is no surprise. In a media cornucopia, freedom of choice inevitably yields media inequality. "In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome," writes Clay Shirky of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Overcoming that inequality would require a completely regulated media.

When Rush Limbaugh has more listeners than NPR, or Tom Clancy sells more books than Noam Chomsky, or Motor Trend gets more subscribers than Mother Jones, liberals want to convince us (or themselves, perhaps) that it's all because of some catastrophic market failure or a grand corporate conspiracy to dumb down the masses. In reality, it's just the result of consumer choice. All the opinions that the Left's media critics favor are now readily available to us via multiple platforms. But that's not good enough, it seems: they won't rest until all of us are watching, reading, and listening to the content that they prefer.

UPDATE (04/16/07): My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link! Anyone who has any additional ideas about what might be going on, I'm all ears. There's one thing I'd especially like to know --

Is Media Matters a professional arm of the Clinton campaign posing as a citizens' media watchdog group?

UPDATE (04/18/07): Via Glenn Reynolds, here's John Hinderaker on Media Matters:

Media Matters is an astroturf site that is funded by left-wing moneybags.