Quick Fact: Beck reiterates misleading smears of Stern

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Glenn Beck claims that President Obama is “in danger” because his supporters include “violent radicals” like SEIU president Andy Stern, who Beck described as “leading White House visitor. 'Workers of the world Unite. It's not just a slogan anymore.” In fact, Politifact has rated Beck's prior claim that Stern was “the most frequent visitor at the White House” as “false,” and in discussing his use of the “workers of the world unite” slogan, Stern said that “the good news is communism's dead.”

From the January 20 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Andy Stern, SEIU president, "'Workers of the world unite,' it's not just a slogan anymore."

Fact: SEIU's Stern is “not the number-one visitor to the White House”

Politifact rated as “false” Beck's previous claim that SEIU's Andy Stern was “the most frequent visitor at the White House. In a December 7, 2009, post, Politifact reported:

We found the source of Beck's claim. When the White House released its first batch of visitor logs on Oct. 30, 2009, as part of a pledge to bring more transparency to the White House, Stern's name did indeed appear 22 times, more than anyone else listed, including Clinton, who was listed three times.

But that's not the whole story.

Stern led the pack for the first data release, which covered visits from Jan. 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009. But he was surpassed by several other individuals in the second release, which updates the data through Aug. 31, 2009 (and which was made public more than a week before Beck aired his comment).

Among those who visited more frequently than Stern, according to the combination of the two logs, were Lewis (Lee) Sachs, counselor to Treasury Secetary Timothy Geithner, with 92 visits; associate attorney general Tom Perrelli, with 49; Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski with 47; Spencer Overton, principal deputy assistant attorney general, with 38; and Health and Human Services office of health reform director Jeanne Lambrew, with 27. (Stern visited twice more during the period covered by the second batch of data, giving him a total of 24 visits.) [Politifact, [12/7/09]

Stern appeared four times in the visitor logs the White House subsequently released on December 30 for the period from September 16 through September 30.

Fact: While discussing use of “workers of the world, unite” slogan, Stern said “the good news is communism's dead”

During the May 14, 2006, edition of CBS's 60 Minutes, reporter Lesley Stahl said to Stern: “You like to say, 'Workers of the world unite,' which sounds, it is Karl Marx. But that's your, that's your kind of slogan now.” Stern replied: “Well, the good news is communism's dead,” adding, "[b]ut the truth is, the phrase means a lot because all of a sudden workers in London and workers in the United States are working for the same employer and the same owners."

Fact: Beck has repeatedly pushed these misleading smears of Brown

Beck has repeatedly attacked Stern by claiming that he has been the top visitor to the White House and referencing his “workers of the world, unite” comments.

Andrew Sandquist is an intern with Media Matters for America.