The Law of Unintended Consequences

In the usual thorough manner that so many of us readers have come to rely upon, Hot Air has once again uncovered more misrepresentations being made by the anti-Glenn Beck campaign and what they reveal is that the boycott is not nearly as successful as they have claimed and their efforts may have resulted in collateral fallout for their wunderkinds Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.

First the misrepresentations: Hot Air contacted Best Buy, CVS and Wal-Mart to get their official statements about Glenn Beck advertising.

Hi Ed~

The facts are that Best Buy has not advertised during or adjacent to the Glenn Beck show, and has no plans to do so. We do advertise on FOX, but during the morning hours of 6-9 a.m. I hope this helps your understanding.

Thanks a ton, Lisa

Lisa Svac Hawks
Director, Public Relations
Best Buy
7601 Penn Ave. S.
Richfield, MN 55423

And then here's the response from CVS:

Dear Ed:

Thanks for your note.

While advertising on Fox is part of our communication plan, we had not requested time on Glenn Beck’s show specifically. We have instructed our advertising agency to inform Fox to ensure Glenn Beck’s program is not part of our advertising plan.

Our position is simple. We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful, in keeping with our company’s core values and commitment to diversity.

Carolyn

Note that CVS indicates that they had never paid for any Glenn Beck advertising so it is borderline deception to outright lying to claim they are part of a boycott in which they were paying for ads and then stopped.

And next the response from Wal-mart -- watch the kicker here.

I am sorry to hear your concern. We continuously review our media plans. In keeping with our internal guidelines to avoid content that is highly polarizing, we’ve instructed our agencies, as of August 3rd, not to run Walmart advertising in news commentary shows on national cable networks. This would include the Glenn Beck Show.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. Should you need to call us, we are more than happy to further assist you at 1-800-966-6546.

It now appears that in the effort to hit Glenn Beck the fallout is that they've convinced Wal-Mart to drop all opinion cable programs and that means that struggling network hosts Olbermann, Maddow etal are likely to suffer more than Beck or Fox Cable News because with ratings that are a fraction of Glenn Beck's it can't be good to lose big sponsors.

You can see it all here on Hot Air's site. What a tangled web we weave when at first we do deceive...