Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

You know that media outlet that helps serve as a propaganda tool for those who dislike America? The Goracle just sold it to Al Jazeera:

Current TV, the small cable news channel that was co-founded by former vice president Al Gore, has been sold to Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media company.

The acquisition gives Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatar government, the opportunity to establish a footprint in the United States, where it already has an English-language version of its Qatar service — called Al Jazeera English — but only limited reach.

Just buying Current does not guarantee instant distribution, however. Time Warner Cable, which offered Current in roughly 10 million of its homes, is dropping the channel. Without Time Warner Cable, which is the largest distributor in New York City and Los Angeles, Current TV is in only about 50 million homes.

Big Oil is bad — so bad that Al Gore is heroically trying to save the planet by taking as much of their cash as possible. However, you probably won’t be hearing about this sale in Gore’s next Dirty Weather Report.

Gore must have been reluctant to turn over control of his foundering media baby to Al Jazeera knowing he’d have to watch it make a move to the right, but hey, business is business.

Glenn Beck’s bid for Current was rejected. Gee, I wonder why.

By the way, according to this New York Times article, the environmental hero of the “tax the rich” party (no, the other one — the Democrats) was making a concerted effort to finalize the sale before the end of the year to beat the higher taxes they have been begging to pay, but may have been a little too late:

Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current. Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed until Wednesday.

There are multiple levels of hypocrisy in this transaction. Al Gore gets accused of being a lot of things, but “inconsistent” is not one of them.

Twitchy has all the latest Current/Al Jazeera show suggestions.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe