The Weekly Standard’s blog has been the go-to source for those of us who follow the various astroturf groups springing up to hype the looming Iranian nuclear threat.

First, there was the end-of-April launch of Keep Israel Safe. Keep Israel Safe is a joint project of Tom Rose, the former publisher of The Jerusalem Post and current contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, and Gary Bauer, a major player in the Christian right, long-time Kristol buddy, and charter member of The Project For a New American Century.

During his tenure at the The Jerusalem Post, Rose gained notoriety for pushing the paper’s editorial stance hard to the right and alienating his staff.

After Rose was fired from the paper in 2004, Bret Stephens, a former editor in chief at the Post and current Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member, wrote:

So many of us have been waiting for this day, and fighting for it, that we may be forgiven for thinking that Tom’s departure brings our problems to an end. It does not. It will be some time before we can undo the damage he wrought: To our finances, to our reputation, to our business relationships, to our morale, to the quality of our editorial product …. What we can say is that, with Tom gone, we can begin to address our problems in a rational and purposeful way.

Rose responded with a $2 million defamation lawsuit against Stephens. The case was dismissed by the trial judge, whose disposition was upheld by the appeals court.

Rose is also a right-wing radio talk show host who also founded America’s Voices for Israel, “… a US based not-for-profit organization that brings American radio and television talk show hosts broadcast [sic] their programs live from Israel for a week,” according to his agent’s website.

On Tuesday, The Weekly Standard’s blog was at it again, pushing the freshly minted Stop Iran Now, complete with its first (and perhaps only) ad.



Of course, that insufficiently bellicose presidents, particularly Democrats, should be compared to Neville Chamberlain has, over the past 40 years or so, become a neo-conservative cliche, but that didn’t stop the folks at Stop Iran Now from running it yet again (and again and again and again ad Hitlerum). If Obama doesn’t “stop Iran now,” then he obviously will be responsible for a world war and a new Holocaust.

So who is Stop Iran Now? It is a project of Citizens United, a conservative group which appears to specialize in producing documentaries and was immortalized earlier in January by the Supreme Court’s extremely controversial 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that the First Amendment permits corporations to fund independent political broadcasts in elections to federal office.

The group’s list of productions includes: Nine Days That Changed The World; Generation Zero; Rediscovering God In America II; Perfect Valor; Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny; We Have The Power; The Path to 9/11; Hype: The Obama Effect; Hillary: The Movie; Gingrich: Rediscovering God In America; Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration; ACLU: At War With America; Broken Promises: The UN at 60; and Celsius 41.11: The Truth Behind the Lies of Farenheit 9/11.

It’s clear that Stop Iran Now is the latest in a long series of politically motivated campaigns produced by Citizens United.

Director of Citizens United, David Bossie, has an impressive history of far-right partisanship and a bad habit of crossing the line into unethical territory.

In 1992, CBS News reported that Bossie harassed the family of a young woman in Arkansas, Susann Coleman, in an attempt to prove that she had committed suicide as a result of an affair with Bill Clinton.

Bossie was subsequently hired as an investigator by Sen. Lauch Faircloth and then by Rep. Dan Burton during the Whitewater hearings, but his willingness to cut corners resulted in his firing by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, which is saying something.

SourceWatch writes:

While The Weekly Standard keeps promoting groups like Keep Israel Safe and Stop Iran Now as grassroots movements, they appear instead to be the organizational expressions of fiercely partisan individuals with substantial means at their disposal (like Kristol himself). And they are trying hard to move the United States closer to war with Iran.