MoveOn GROWS

In its profile of grassroots political organizer MoveOn.org, Salon.com relates an anecdote of how Republican Rep. Tom DeLay's staff forwarded calls from citizens it did not agree with to the mobile phone of group founder Eli Pariser.

That, along with a similar stunt by a New York Post columnist the same week, yielded little more than an annoyance.

"MoveOn's mere existence drives Fox News fulminator Bill O'Reilly into such fits of rage that he once devoted a segment of his program to attacking the group while refusing to allow its staff on air to answer his charges. On his Sept. 17 show, he said: "Now, the MoveOn.org people wanted to come on here, but I can't have them on because, you know, they're going to attack Bush. I got to defend Bush." He proceeded to rant against MoveOn's nonprofit status, saying, "I don't know why we're giving tax-exempt status to propaganda outfits ... When you say you're nonpartisan, as MoveOn.org says it is, and then you're not, that's a lie, is it not?" O'Reilly fails to register comparable outrage at the partisan activities of nonprofits such as the Christian Coalition and Concerned Women for America."

Maybe Michael Moore is right when he argues most people in the U.S. are at least moderately progressive.