LaRouche Sympathizer Drobny Featured At Liberal Blog

ARIANNA'S BIG TENT

Why Is Sheldon Drobny Writing For The Huffington Post?




While making room for a few dissenting voices in addition to a long list of lefty contributors, one has to wonder: just how big is the Huffington Post's tent? Did founder Arianna Huffington intend to include a writer who espouses the viewpoints of fringe extremist Lyndon LaRouche?

Or did Air America Radio co-founder Sheldon Drobny somehow sneak in the back door?

However he did it, Sheldon's now able to use the HuffPo to "mainstream" himself, since his previous associations make Arianna's site appear nearly conservative by comparison.

And the site even includes the latest version of his everchanging biography. Someday, we may get to the bottom of that question, as well.

Since there are already several writers on board with ties to Air America, including CEO Danny Goldberg, host Alan Franken and his notorious, shameless Executive Producer Billy Kimball, perhaps it didn't seem too big of a stretch to include Mr. Drobny.

It was the National Review's Byron York who first uncovered Drobny's true political ties, in this 2003 piece:

But there is another side to Sheldon Drobny, one that has not been included in the news accounts of the talk-radio project. In addition to his businesses and philanthropies (he has given large sums of money to hospitals, universities, and Jewish causes), Drobny enjoys writing. He writes an occasional column for a small website called MakeThemAccountable.com, and in it he has aligned himself with the wilder-eyed extremes of the Bush-hating Left.

For example, Drobny has written that he sees similarities between President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq and the pre-World War II strategy of Adolf Hitler. "The corporate masters and their current spokesman, George W. Bush . . . use exactly the same excuses Hitler used to sell to the public his maniacal desire to conquer Europe," Drobny wrote earlier this year. Those corporate masters, he explained, included General Electric, News Corporation, and the conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife, a group that "essentially dictate[s] what the government does" in a process Drobny called "quasi- fascist."

Drobny has also worried that Americans do not understand the Bush family's extensive links to the Nazis. "Very few Americans know that Prescott Bush, our president's grandfather, supplied Nazi Germany with [support for its rearmament]," he wrote on MakeThemAccountable.com. "The information is documented, but is not known by most Americans because, as in any successful fascist regime, the press is prevented from publishing it."

In response to an e-mail inquiry about his writings, Drobny sent as documentation a chapter from a 1991 book, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. The authors argue that Prescott Bush got rich helping finance the Third Reich, and the money he made became the core of the Bush family's wealth.

"For his part in the Hitler revolution, Prescott Bush was paid a fortune," Tarpley and Chaitkin write. "This is the legacy he left to his son, President George Bush." And of course, the first President Bush is leaving that legacy to his son, President George W. Bush.

That particular chapter of Tarpley and Chaitkin's book-entitled "The Hitler Project"-has been cited on popular left-wing websites, such as Buzzflash.com and Bartcop.com. But Tarpley and Chaitkin are not in the mainstream of opposition to the president. Both men are longtime associates of the fringe political figure Lyndon LaRouche, and George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography was published by a LaRouche organization called Executive Intelligence Review.

The same press has also published titles like "George Bush and the 12333 Serial Murder Ring"-an attempt to link the former president and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the 1986 murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme-and "Would a President Bob Dole Prosecute Drug Super-Kingpin George Bush?"

In a new post published today, Drobny alleges a "right-wing" campaign to bring down Air America Radio in Chicago through advertiser boycotts. But he fails to provide specific evidence to support this claim:

Some of you are unhappy about the programming. While I was very much involved in hiring Al Franken and some of the other hosts, the programming is done by a wonderful team of professionals at AAR.

I forwarded your comments to them. Also, I did not want to leave the impression that AAR is in financial difficulty. It is not. But it can always use financial help. In fact, the success of AAR is remarkable in that it is in 87 cities after only 18 months of being on the air. What I did want to point out is how little help we have gotten from the Hollywood elites who claim to be liberals.

Yesterday, I met with Al Franken after his live broadcast from Chicago. We talked with the Chicago station manager for the AAR affiliate in Chicago. The Republican right wing machine is actively calling AAR’s advertisers and threatening to boycott their products if they advertise on AAR. I have had this discussion with many of the AAR affiliate station managers.

Despite this organized attempt to hurt AAR, the affiliates are doing well, but they need your help. Those of you who listen to AAR can help by supporting those who advertise on AAR and buy their products if you need them. Also, let them know that you are pleased that they are advertising on AAR.

The Radio Equalizer has heard of only one possible organized anti-AAR advertiser boycott so far, in Colorado. After a tip, I wrote to the person behind the "campaign", but there was no response.

One would imagine that anyone behind a real effort to scare off the local affiliate's advertisers would be eager to tell us all about it.

Michelle Malkin and I have previously written about Sheldon Drobny and his background. In addition, his specific HuffPo claims regarding Air America's performance will be addressed in an upcoming piece, watch for it here.

As for Arianna, how much scrutiny is applied to her HuffPo contributor picks? Drobny indicated in a previous column that some personal lobbying was involved:

About a month ago I asked Arianna Huffington to allow me to write on The Huffington Post. I submitted a few articles and in my BIO I disclosed that I was the co-founder of Air America Radio. Three years ago my wife Anita and I started the project because there was not a single rich progressive that was willing to put any money into a liberal radio network.

An examination of the Huffington Post site did not reveal a section outlining the site's philosophy, direction, or criteria used for selecting contributors.

Perhaps during her next media event or fancy cocktail party, somebody could press Huffington on her editorial standards, to find out if any actually exist.


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