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OK I Lied… One More Political Post, Because It’s Like… an Obesession!
By letterhead | September 14, 2008
Always eager to get to the eye of the storm when it comes to spin, I couldn’t help but be curious about the mass mailing of a ferociously scary boogieman video “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.”
The mailing is a hot topic… Editor & Publisher recently wrote an article called “Delivering Propaganda, As If It is Toothpaste.”
So I did some digging to see who might be ballsy enough to mail 28 million copies of this “film” only six weeks before a presidential election.
The folks at Popular Progressive and The Ballot had already unmasked the main player in this drama: Raphael Shore, “a Canadian living in Israel,” who apparently wrote and co-produced the “film.”
Unfortunately, the online availability of IRS Form 990 for The Clarion Fund (the 501(c)3 responsible for the movie and distribution) was limited. The only listing was for a legal contact. So… I looked him up.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Meet…
Eli D. Greengerg.
Mr. Greenberg is a partner at a large NY-based law firm called Wolf, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman & Hertz. He is the partner in charge of the firm’s healthcare practice. Sounds pretty boring actually, and far from anything to do with radical Islam.
And the firm itself is pretty run-of-the-mill, with a predictable repertoire of corporate, securities, healthcare, and non-profit stuff. Not much interesting there.
But here is something interesting.
One would think that the guys behind this gnashing of teeth would be closely tied to the (GOP) candidate that the distribution initiative is designed to help. Especially since, as reported by Popular Progressive, the group is sending them out only in swing states, and the group’s website for a while was running this quote:
“McCain’s policies seek to confront radical Islamic extremism and terrorism and roll it back while [Barack] Obama’s, although intending to do the same, could in fact make the situation facing the West even worse.”
SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!
Imagine the surprise when I went to OpenSecrets.org and looked up Greenberg and his law firm “Wolf Haldenstein“… you can see the results for yourself here (just check the box “search all cycles” and then “submit”).
Turns out that the main legal contact for this broadside against Barack Obama is a partner in a law firm where the partners give almost exclusively to DEMOCRATIC candidates!
Yup. Mr Greenberg himself was a John Edwards man in 2004. A few of the other partners were squarely behind John Kerry.
Propaganda from the home team? This election gets curiouser and curiouser…
And just for giggles, here is the tax ID# for the non-profit Clarion Fund, which produced and distributed the movie…
EIN: 20-5845679
The Clarion Fund
c/o Eli Greenberg, Partner
Wol, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman & Hertz
270 Madison Avenue, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Someone more industrious than me can go to the corporate registrar’s office in NYC and look up the Board of Directors for this 501(c)3… Might be very interesting to see that list.
Topics: Advertising, Politics, Public Relations, Religion | No Comments »