With all the secret money being donated to Super Pacs established in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disgraceful 5-4 decision opening the doors for the wholesale purchase of political candidates by corporations, we tend to forget the thuggish background of Citizens United—the organization with its name attached to the ruling.

The case before the nation’s high court involved a documentary produced by the right-wing group, which attacked then presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. At issue was the question of whether the 2002 Bipartisan (that’s a word you don’t hear much nowadays) Campaign Reform Act prohibited corporations and unions from spending unlimited funds from undisclosed sources on behalf of candidates. The high court’s decision was framed in terms of the First Amendment, stating that the government could not fine or jail “citizens, or associations of citizens for simply engaging in political speech.”

I’m a free speech kind of guy. I made a living for four decades exercising my First Amendment rights. Still do if blog posts count. What bugs me about the Citizens United decision is the secrecy and money-laundering of Super Pac donors who don’t have the cojones to identify themselves as supporters of candidates and causes—plus the fact that the Supreme Court created a half-ass legacy for the right-wing group.

The current president of the organization is David Bossie, a guy who was fired by a Republican congressional committee for tampering with evidence during the Whitewater hearings. Having Bossie as its leader says a lot about the group.

As I wrote in my non-best selling memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, I had run-ins with Citizens United while muckraking as Senior Investigative Correspondent in CNN’s Special Assignment Unit—especially in the wake of a mini-documentary exposing the so-called Whitewater scandal as no scandal at all, but rather a political vendetta carried out by a morals police squad headed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

My exposé received an Emmy nomination for best network investigative reporting. But it must have been second or third best since I didn’t win. Worse, the food at the hundred-dollars-a-plate awards ceremony was barely mediocre.

Anyway, the CNN segment and its follow-up a few weeks later failed to impress Citizens United and its then president, Floyd Brown. As I wrote in my book, an epic that should be on every bookshelf next to the Great Books of the Western World, Brown award me a badge of honor—or dishonor, depending on one’s point of view.

The story raised the hackles of the far right and enhanced my standing as an alleged Clinton apologist. I first came under attack by the ClintonWatch―an arm of Willie Horton’s public relations agency, Citizens United. The group’s President, Floyd Brown, sent a newsletter to his right-tilted flock stating that my report “was one of the sorriest pieces of television journalism I have ever seen.”

Brown cited my story as an example of Clinton ass-kissing. “The Clinton apologists in the liberal news media have proven time and time again that they will protect the President at any cost, no matter what it says about their journalistic integrity.” 

I thought I heard echoes of Brown’s criticism during the 2008 Presidential campaign when the media was accused of giving Barack Obama a free ride. The more things change, etc. Unfortunately, Brown and his ilk can’t handle facts that deviate from their fantasies.

A year after Floyd Brown’s rant, I was privileged to again come under attack by another right-wing group—this for a CNN segment about a Little Rock businessman named Dan Lasater. He suffered fall-out from being a “Friend of Bill.” Actually, more like an acquaintance. I won’t go into details. Suffice to say, he was a minor political player in Arkansas. I wrote:

Operating under the misnomer of Accuracy in Media, the right-wing group devoted five pages to dissecting the Lasater report. As evidence of my inaccuracies, AIM cited stories of Lasater wrongdoing that appeared in the Los Angeles Times―the very same article that prompted me to research the smears in the first place.

The AIM article advanced a theory of why I would do a favorable story on Dan Lasater’s behalf. It cited my previous relationship with infamous international drug smuggler Barry Seal―one of the leading characters in The Clinton Chronicles.

In a concocted leap of logic, the faux documentary marketed by TV preacher Jerry Falwell linked Barry Seal, Lasater and Bill Clinton to an exotic guns-for-drugs CIA operation at a small airport in Mena.

I confess that AIM was correct in its supposition that my prior connection to the drug smuggler partly influenced a favorable Lasater report. But the reasoning was all wrong. I was the only journalist who knew the real story of Barry Seal and Mena.

I mention Accuracy in Media because its liberal antithesis, Media Matters—an organization usually obsessed with the lunacy of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the distortions of Fox “News”—is circulating an on-line petition urging CBS to decline an AIM award to one of its correspondents. 

Accuracy In Media (AIM) recently announced that it will be giving its annual award to Sharyl Attkisson, a CBS News journalist, at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Now don’t let the name fool you, Accuracy In Media is not remotely concerned with accuracy and is actually a fringe group. AIM’s record includes:

• In the wake of a string of gay teen suicides, AIM attacked anti-bullying efforts, arguing that it was straight kids who were actually the victims of gay bullies citing “lesbian gangs assaulting innocent girls;” AIM was also a staunch defender of Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays’ legislation.

• AIM is a birther organization that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, feeds the right-wing lie that President Obama was not born in the United States.

• AIM also peddles climate science misinformation, claiming that global warming is a “fraud” and even challenging the scientific fact that carbon dioxide is a “planet-heating pollutant.”

Now to be clear, we’re not making hay merely because AIM named a CBS News journalist as a recipient of this award. After all, CBS can’t control what another organization does, let alone a fringe group. We didn’t expect CBS News to treat AIM or this award seriously, let alone attend CPAC to accept it.

As it turned out, CBS reversed itself at the last minute and Sharyl skipped the ceremony. I don’t know Attkissson. We worked together at CNN in the nineties and probably passed in the corridors, but I don’t recall being on the set with her or if we ever spoke.

However, I would like to congratulate, Sharyl. She now has the distinction of being the first ever journalist, perhaps, to turn down an award.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.