Rachel Maddow Confronts Notorious Corporate Lobbyist Rick Berman (VIDEO)

Rachel Maddow confronted notorious corporate lobbyist Rick Berman over his advocacy for corporate interests that are at best extremely questionable, and at worst downright detrimental to the public's health.

Rick Berman is responsible for such "educational" websites as FishScam.com, a site dedicated to informing readers that high mercury levels in fish are not bad for you, as well as SunLightScam.com, which claims that tanning beds pose no health hazards. Berman runs his operation through non-profits so he can hide the identities of those paying him to, say, advocate that trans fats can actually unclog your arteries.

One of Berman's specialties is creating fake grass-roots websites and movements, most recently against ACORN, that claim to be representing the average outraged American but in fact are far more likely to be funded by corporations looking to obscure the truth.

Berman, to his credit, calmly made his case (after a lengthy and fairly damning introduction from Maddow) that he simply represents one side and is trying to balance the debate. He also defended his use of non-profits to conceal the identities of his donors as something that happens on both the right and the left, framing it as a free speech issue.

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Comments

[Skygazer]

Holy Frack. I don't have cable so I've never seen Maddow do her thing, but she is a thing of beauty and truth and clarity burning this guys house down down down......

Truly brilliant.

[GreatTruthsSeeker]

He is too slimey to nail down in one sitting. Please invite him back Rachel!

It"s gonna take some whittling on this prevaricator and obscurantist. Perhaps a modern version of the wooden stake, silver bullet , garlic and the truth.

You got it Rachel! Use it!

[Freestyler]

Sadly, the truth is Berman ran circles around Maddow. He's as slick and competent as they come and has some experience beyond her as well, no matter how smart and insightful and fearless she is.

And the reality is consultants for the left and right get paid to influence public opinion, although unfortunately corporations have more money. Berman is just biz as usual in Washington.

[Factonfact]

Yes, I watched this interview and I concluded that Berman is a very slick operator on his own behalf and that Maddow didn't quite get the scam, er, deal . . .

Berman, it woud seem, is not sought by his clients to fix a problem for them. Instead, Berman and his aide look for problems someone might want fixed, work up a case, and then and only then hit the streets to sell his services for what they can get.

Nice work, if you can get it.

I recall a public relations guy in Los Angeles who some years ago specialized in diseases. He would pick a disease that was yet "funded', work up a case and mount a campaign for donations to find a "cure". His firm, of course, pocketed (legally) a hefty portion of any money donated. What was left he turned over to a local hospital. Then he went on to his next campaign. I suppose today, like Berman, that campaign would include a fancy-looking web page to convince folks that indeed they were getting something for their money, though the guy in Los Angeles at the time favored billboards.

[catbite]

Rick Berman is only one person. He needs to be taken down. The more he puts his face out there, the more dangerous it will be to be him.

[GreenN10]

Goldman and Bank of Amerika run the markets along with Geithner, and beagle boy Ben. There is no free markets, only welfare capitalism and socialism for capitalism.

good articles: http://iamned5.blogspot.com

[jennylynn]

Is Rachel still wearing KO's hand -me -downs?

[IDIOTA]

Rick Berman is cunning.

[Madbunny]

Berman did a surprisingly good job of representing himself.

He showed that he doesn't give a damm about where he gets his money. You pay him enough and he'll make you a grassroots campaign against or for whatever you're paying him for. There is a refreshing honesty to somebody who freely admits their mercenary ways.

Thats where Maddow fell down. He just out and admitted what he was doing, which didn't give her much left to work with or to grill him on. After that point the interview floundered. Fact is, she does a lot of what his own shills do: pass on information from other sources. Always good to fact check, but with the wealth of studies and scientists out there willing to make a study that shows whatever result you're looking for exists it isn't THAT hard to find a study that backs up multiple points of view.

[BobQueuePublic]

Excellent comment, Bun. I love Rachel for shedding more light than heat, but in this case there wasn't as much light as I'd have liked. Next time he's on her show - and I hope he is - I would like to see her focus on one newsworthy site du jour, and separate the facts from the hysteria.

[johnsopinion]

Amen.

[MrBen]

I think there are a lot of people like this in the campaign and publicity realm. All they're really trying to do is satisfy a client. While he may be 'cleverly' hiding his clients names behind semi-bogus "grassroots" organizations- that is definitely a tactic used by everyone in politics. Rachel trying to shine a light here is rather fruitless. Now, the better interview would be to get the companies who hide behind these "grassroots organizations" to explain how and why they choose to lie to the public rather than being upfront.

[Rodger leMonde]

Ah but he is now out in the light of day, no longer a hidden puppeteer.
Rachel showed the stability that is her trade mark and proved that it is safe for the right wing to debate on her show.
Yes he is an unrepentant sinner, and proud of it. This was part of the point about getting him on the show. The bloodless and aloof failure to see anything wrong with his operation model is a large part of the story. How many tea baggers can identify with a guy like this. He can't take a pi$$ without dollar signs.

[kankankan]

Love you Rachel ...keep it up, great to see you get these guys on your show, any spotlight is a disinfectant sunshine on these guys, the more we know them and thier tactics, the less effective they will be.

[koppenberg]

I'm a huge fan of Rachel and her TV show, but she missed the forest for the trees.

The funding issue was worth a couple of minutes, but it was the premise of her whole interview and uninformative (though she did show Berman to be a hypocrite for calling other non-profits hypocrites for not disclosing their funding while not disclosing his non-profits' funding--big shock, there's hypocrisy?!?!).

I actually agree with Berman that when something is about medical/scientific claims, the soundness of the claims and arguments is the most important thing. Only when something is shown to be false, or illogical, or unsupported by data is it then worthwhile to discuss who funded the spreading of the falsehoods, etc.

While Rachel dismissed the claims, e.g. about trans fat and mercury as obviously false, Berman was making more nuanced claims *during this interview*, putting into question the broad dismissals Rachel made earlier in the show of his web sites. Her replies to his nuance should have been to point out falsehoods in his web sites, but she instead kept asking who funds the sites and not getting an answer. While that fit with the characterization of Berman as a purveyor of astroturf, the far more powerful argument would have been to show the falsehoods of the astrofurfer's point of view, not the astroturf nature of the point of view.

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

Cosigned. He twists a lot of science to make it sound like everything is puppies and lollypops. A after making the point about site funding Rachel should have moved on and found another s cab to pick at.

[johnnynyc]

Maddow's strong point is not science or economics or much of anything really.

She didn't even dispute minimum wage workers earning $50,000 a year.

She is a soft touch as an interviewer, to the point of asking another guest how she did!!

Right wingers must be salivating thinking about getting on her show.

[kankankan]

Please, she did a good job, she can drill down and get analytical when she wants to, her angle here was fake grass roots, as she has done in a series...getting bogged down in the science argument is not the point here, she is showing that there is little support for the alternate technical view except for that funded by a very biased source, the companies that are hurt by facts and science.

If it was just about science, why would these companies hire this guy? Couldn't they jsut make their open public case they think the science hurting them is wrong...if the science and facts support them, wouldn't people listen to them? Instead these companies try to make their biased perspective look more "scientific" because apparently nuetral, unbiased, grass roots people find the science wrong. This is a very important method of them confusing the issue when science and facts converge against them. It was the firt thing the cig companies did, try to disprove the science behidn lung cancer due to cigs was wrong. It is very important to expose this.

[koppenberg]

So instead, she got bogged down asking the guy who funds the sites over and over, and got nowhere. Everyone watching the show already knew the guy is an astro turf artist and a hypocrite. We get that. That was the easy part. And?

The only thing we actually learned from the interview was that there may be more nuance in this astro turf guy's websites' claims than what Rachel characterized in the lead up to this interview. I wasn't expecting a dissertation on nutrition and health, but neither was I expecting to come out of the interview having more sympathy for the astro turfer's claims, his astro turfing techniques notwithstanding.

[tuberider]

Rick, Would you be available for our "Slaves for Bombs" campaign? It's for a good cause. (Our depleted bank accounts!)

[ranchobob]

Rachel did good. He is one self-assured, eloquent guy. I like the atmoshpere of fairness she creates.
I do think he is part of the lie machine that is destroying our nation.
Not liberals, gays, atheists, anti-war people , people who understand global warming, not people for sane gun control, or people who are for environmental regualtion - it's the lie machine and the wealthy elites they represent who are destroying the biosphere and this country.

[poobah]

After seeing this guy, I felt compelled to shower immediately. Slime was oozing from my monitor.

[ElBorba]

Exactly

[Seb85]

I normally like Rachel but she could not have been off the mark any more in this interview. She commits nothing but fallacious ad hominem attacks. The simple fact of the matter is that its practically irrelevant who funds his projects or websites, what is of relevance is the soundness of his claims, and she does nothing to address this. To say that his facts and points are incorrect based on whether his funding comes from a someone with vested interest in what those facts say is in no way a legitimate attack on the validity of the facts.

Im surprised that she would make such a blatant flaw, she is usually quite on the ball with her reporting.

[AsISaid]

Agreed. It was not a very good interview.

[ElBorba]

You're argument is specious . . .

He's making no claims, only representing the claims of others . .

Just like a slimy attorney . .

[ElBorba]

You're argument is specious . .

He represents others positions - he has no concern about what their positions may be . .

And that's the problem

[ZTB]

somehow i think you missed the point. "what is of relevance is the soundness of his claims"...????
are you kidding? there is no basis for his claims, which is why rachel went after him for what you consider to be "irrelevan­t"......wh­ich is who funds the dribble that he spews.
he is paid for saying what he says....regardless of fact.....which you obviously don't get.
rachel was NOT off the mark.....berman is a salesman..­....sellin­g snake oil. period.
if you think his sales pitch is sound......well, then good luck to you. enjoy the tanning bed that he claims "does no harm".

[Seb85]

You didn't really understand what I wrote, so I'll try to simplify:

This is what Rachel did in this interview,

Premises:
Berman writes X.
Company Y pays Berman to write X.
Company Y profits if X is true.

Conclusion:
X is false.

Surely you can see the logical flaw. The fact that Y pays Berman and Y profits from X being true in no way undermine the validity of X. A critical step is missing.

You assumed that I was defending his argument as sound, not at all. However, the correct way to debunk it is to attack the validity of the claims themselves, not the agendas of the people making the claims.

[shivers]

wrong. we are living in a world where the facts are spun and skewed--it absolutely does matter whose payroll someone is on--just think of big tabacco scientists...

or is your memory too short already

there is a difference between someone whose intention is too see to the good of others, and someone whose only intention is to accumulate massive wealth especially at the expense of others.

As far As I'm concerned, greed has reached a level of treason in this country

[greysells2]

Anything is allowed as long as it makes money!