EmailGate, Updated: CBS News Fails to Note Its "Worried Apolitical Republican Mom" Is a Committed Political Activist

It wasn't just the emails that were phony; it was the main subject of the piece as well.

Although CBS News presented its subject as a "Republican" who didn't seem to care much for politics, it turns out that, of course, she's a rabid political activist:

The person at the center of Schlesinger's piece is a woman named Beverly Cocco, a Philadelphia crossing guard who is "sick to my stomach" that her two sons might be drafted. In his report, Schlesinger portrayed her as an apolitical (and even Republican) mom worried about the safety of her children.

"Beverly Cocco has spent most of her life protecting children in Philadelphia," Schlesinger cooed as he introduced his subject. "But as Election Day approaches, it's her own two grown sons who Beverly is most worried about."

Next the viewer hears an almost perfect soundbite from the "average" mother, carefully selected by Karas.

"I go to bed every night and I pray, and I actually get sick to my stomach. I'm very worried. I'm scared. I'm absolutely scared. I'm petrified."

At this point, an honest reporter would have seen fit to disclose Cocco's political connections. But Schlesinger refuses, leaving his profilee for the moment to cite an anonymous chain letter (more on that later) and then talk about what both President Bush and John Kerry think about the draft.

...

Beverly Cocco seems nice enough on camera, but she is hardly the "Pennsylvania voter" that CBS News wants you to believe she is. In fact, the apolitical mother of two is a chapter president of an advocacy group called People Against the Draft (PAD) which, in addition to opposing any federal conscription, seeks to establish a "peaceful, rational foreign policy" by bringing all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Like Schlesinger's Cocco, the group portrays itself as "nonpartisan"although its leadership seems to be entirely bereft of any epublicans.

The group's domain is registered to a man named Jacob Levich, a left-wing activist who in a 2001 essay compared the Bush Administration to the totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's 1984.

PAD also lists Anita Dutt, a Green Party activist who is also a member of an anti-war group called Bronx Action for Justice and Peace. In a March 3, 2003 New York Times profile of the group reprinted on the organization's web site, Heidi Hynes, one of its leaders, said of her fellow members that "none of us are Republicans."

And of course that's not the first time CBS News has used stealth liberal activists posing as "just normal nonpartisan concerned mommies," as RatherBiased.com reports.