Media Matters Attacks Rasmussen Tea Party Book

The left-wing organization Media Matters for America has gone on the attack against Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen’s new book about the tea party movement.

The pollsters’ book “Mad As Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System” has shot to No. 2 on Amazon.com’s list of best-sellers in the Political Parties category, and to No. 14 among all books in the Politics category, since it was published on Sept. 14.

But Media Matters’ senior fellow Karl Frisch seeks to disparage “Mad As Hell” in an article on the group’s website, claiming that the authors “lie early” in the book.

Frisch cites a passage in the book’s introduction quoting from an April 2009 Frisch column that states, in part: “Despite repeatedly claiming its coverage is ‘fair and balanced,’ despite its attack on anyone who dares claim or imply the cable outlet tilts to the right, despite encouraging viewers to say ‘no’ to biased media, Fox News has frequently aired segments imploring its audience to get involved with tea-party protests across the country.”

Rasmussen and Schoen state: “All of the above is patently false. In this book, we will set the record straight.”

Frisch asserts that the “patently false” claim is itself false. And he carps: “I defy anyone to give me an example of a bigger megaphone on the right than Fox News. For what it is worth, the tea party protests were promoted or covered on numerous Fox News shows.”

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