August 8 marks the official release date of David Horowitz and Richard Poe's new book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). In separate responses to Media Matters for America's August 2 item exposing the doctored and misrepresented quotes, misstatements, and false and previously debunked claims in The Shadow Party, Horowitz and Poe both promised to provide complete rebuttals to Media Matters' work. In an August 4 article on FrontPageMag.com, Horowitz responded to “a sampling of one particular set of charges,” noting that it was “not a full-blown response to these slanders -- that will come.” Poe, in an August 2 entry to the weblog ShadowParty.com (which also appears at two other Poe-authored blogs, Poe.com and Scribe and Scroll, that largely repeat the content at ShadowParty.com) offered “just a quick rebuttal to a single minor -- yet richly illustrative -- point,” promising that “an exhaustive, point-by-point refutation” is “in the works.”

But to date, Media Matters has not found a “full-blown response” or “point-by-point refutation” on FrontPageMag.com, ShadowParty.com, Poe.com, or Scribe and Scroll, presumably the sites on which the promised rebuttals would be posted. Indeed, Horowitz has even taken the time to respond -- with yet more falsehoods -- to a separate Media Matters item that had nothing to do with The Shadow Party. Given that Horowitz and Poe have presumably already done the research that they think would rebut Media Matters' alleged “slanders” of their book, and that today (August 8) marks the book's official release date and the beginning of Horowitz and Poe's book tour -- which kicks off with appearances by Horowitz on Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated radio show and Fox News' Hannity & Colmes -- Media Matters has to ask: What, exactly, is taking so long?