While commenting over at Phib’s place-out of genuine concern for a blogger I really like and read regularly-I put myself at odds with many members of the herd over there. My mistake-asking Phib what he was doing writing for a sleazebag like Breitbart. The thing is, as I started researching it, in order to better counter some of the more unfounded criticisms, I really got an eye opening about just how truly vile Mr. Breitbart is.
Like Glen Beck, Andrew Breitbart would just be dismissed as a crank, except that a lot of people read him. And quote him. That alone makes him-like Beck-a very dangerous guy. Very dangerous indeed.
Breitbart portrays himself as a journalist-but that’s really a stretch. What he really is, is a fabricator. A person who starts with an intended conclusion and then shape’s snippets of information to tell the story his way. Even though he has been caught out in an outright lie on several occasions, the media still refuses to treat him with the scorn that he deserves.
Breitbart owns several web sites: Big Government, Big Hollywood, Breitbart. com and his newest effort Big Peace. He advertises it as place for meaningful discussions about foreign affairs. That’s really a stretch-especially after one of his writers had the stupidity to compare New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s eloquent defense of religious freedom to Philippe Pétain’s selling out of France to Hitler. Breitbart uses his writers like he uses his websites, to advance a particular Tea Party agenda.
Now that’s fine-he has a right to say what he wants-but he does not have a right to play fast and loose with the truth. Or when that doesn’t work-he just lies out right.
Consider the Sherrod case for example. In heavily edited video clip Breitbart posted shows Shirley Sherrod, then the USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia, and stating that she didn’t give a “white farmer” the “full force of what I could do” because “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land.” Breitbart characterized Sherrod’s comments as her“describ[ing] how she racially discriminates against a white farmer.”
The video got big play on Fox and it was used to pummel the President and others as being a racist-the charge Glenn Beck has made and just this weekend retracted. Sherrod was fired from her job.
Only there is a funny thing, when the entire video is viewed-the message of Ms. Sherrod’s speech is 180 degrees out from what Breitbart said it purported. Of course by then Fox News and every other outlet for the mentally impaired supporting conservative causes had ran it and made everyone involved look like dirt. Even when he was cornered about it-Breitbart refused to acknowledge the truth.
For example, NRO’s Jonah Goldberg has said that Sherrod is “owed apologies from pretty much everyone, including my good friend Andrew Breitbart,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said Sherrod’s remarks “were taken out of context … She was smeared by allegations of racism, lost her job, and is now being redeemed by the truth, it seems, the whole truth,” and Fox News’ Glenn Beck said Sherrod “deserves her job back.”
There was of course-no such apology from our boy.
In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy’s death, Breitbart called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard,” a “prick” and “a special pile of human excrement.” Whether you disliked Kennedy or not-that is a little beyond the pale-but right in character for this guy.
But then again-what do you expect from a man who trained at the feet of Matt Drudge. As I noted, in an earlier post-you should always be very afraid when an acquaintance says, ” I was just reading on Drudge”. Stand by-you are about to be insulted with some very stupid things. And this was where Breibart supposedly earned his chops.
Most recently-Breitbart has actively gone after Ezra Klein- a pretty good writer who writes seriously and with conviction about the events of the day-placing a “bounty” on his listserv account where other journalists could exchange ideas. Breitbart maintains that it is a conspriacy to slant the news-Klein maintains just the opposite. Klein was forced to shut down his listserv-even though he had done nothing wrong and wrote two very well written posts debunking Breitbart’s hypothesis. First of all as Klein pointed out-the people in league with Breitbart have similar listserves and second-the evidence of a conspiracy is easily debunked. Nonetheless Klein was forced to shut it down to protect his other participants from the kind of outrageous character defamation Breitbart practices.
What is truly sad is that he gets away with it. Apart from Sherrod’s lawsuit-the rest of the media seems blind to his hypocrisy or afraid of it.
And you ask yourself why America has become so stupid and 87,000 sheep people show up for Glenn Beck’s rally about nothing. Well look here-we have folks like Breitbart to blame.
There was a lot more sheep than that, and a few goats across the street as well.
The sheepdogs were at work.
I doubt it. I don’t believe any thing Beck puts out. They have a consistent record of exaggerating their turnout. All I know is that I would not be one of the people there-even if I was in the states. Like a Tea Party-I would never stoop so low as to attend an event Beck sponsors.
Skippy,
How is Breitbart, Beck, Limbaugh, or any of the other on the extreme conservative side any more evil or say anything worst then some of the folks on the more extreme liberal side like Micheal Moore, Senator Al Franken, Keith Olberman, Rhandi Rhodes?
I don’t know which way you lean politically and personally I don’t care, cause most of your writing I enjoy is when you talk about the issues in Singapore, Japan, and Asia on a whole. This reminds me most of family friends that I grew up around who were old WESTPAC warriors with plenty of time in the back of a liberty launch going to the pier in Hong Kong, riding with the AFP in ‘Po city, or walking SP in downtown Tokyo in their summer whites watching all the cute Japanese girls go to all the clubs.
That being said I think the reality of the situation is that American Politics are hitting a point now a days where neither side is happy with out acting like little children in an attempt to bring people to their side. There is no attempt at honest dialog with most of the more visible and vocal people around. Instead it starts out first with name calling (bigot, fascist, commie, idiot, etc) and then the quality of the debate just nose dives from there. What is worst is the fact that most of our media whether it is print, radio, TV, seem to only bring in only “Yes,Men” or the token rep of the other side who maybe really only has a negative about the issue of the moment. Even harder is the fact that education in the states has given up on teaching people to teach themselves instead it seems to only be fit for the sound bite portion is all that we can teach people. What I am really waiting for is something like what has happened in the past in S. Korea’s or even Taiwanese version of congress where fist a cuffs break out tween the two parties over the sign with now letters on it. I can’t wait to see that on C-SPAN some day, at which I know all the demagoguery has risen to a level intolerable by this nation. I know in the past we have had honest fist-a-cuffs in the Senate tween Senators (I can’t remember if it was a Daniel Clay that beat down a Yankee Senator over the tariff issues prior to the ACW or it was some other southern senator)
I also think the why Brietbart and Beck have a following is that they are willing to (at least for some folks) throw some of the same tactics they see from folks like Larry Flynt (remember he offered $ for proof that some Republicans were cheaters), or the name throwing like Olberman seems to do every-night, or the feelings op-ed pieces that some folks like Ms. Dowd does (similar to how Ms Coulter and Mrs. Malkin does their pieces at times). The fact that some on the conservative side are willing to try the same tactics back to the liberals seem to only show how much some people are tired of fighting back the calm and logical ways.
Really the question one needs to ask yourself isn’t how people could be following the extremists, but how did the extremists get in charge on both sides and not be left on the sideshow or at the carnie level of politicking.
I actually agree with most of what you said-in both parties the grown ups have left the room and the children are in charge. One reason the Democrats are in trouble is that the President never took on Pelosi directly early on and showed that he was in charge, not her. She is an easily demonized figure that does the Democratic party no favors.
I do think there is one big difference between the Democratic party and the current state of the Republican party. In the Republican party-there used to be a large group of grown ups-Reasonable Republicans-who formed the core of the party’s leadership and platform. Can you picture a Democrat saying, “the reason we are not winning is because we are not liberal enough?”. The Republicans are sayng just that only substiuting the word conservative.
What troubles me is that unless the grown up’s come back in the room-the campaign of 2012 will devolve into the same sick ugliness the Republican campaign of 2008 did. Sarah Palin and John McCain let that ugly genie out of the bottle and while McCain tried to reel it back in, Palin just kept pouring gas on an open flame.
I actually think there are some differences between left and right commentators though. Olbermann is an exception-there are some great voices making great points. Michael Moore and the rest know they could never muster a crowd on the Lincoln mall-and they are not stupid enough to try. As for Franken-I like him and I think he has been a very effective Senator. Since I read his books and liked them too-I never had any doubt.
I think there is one other element about Beck, his religiousity, and how he wraps his message up in religion. I guess it is because he knows the facts are not on his side-that he tries to make it about religion. That is very dangerous for all the reasons that have been repeated again and again in history. There is no counterpart on the Democratic side that can or would do that.
Skippy,
I try really hard to listen to both sides, it annoys my wife at times. I have listen to the folks from NPR, the folks like Rush, MSNBC, Fox, etc. I think you are right that Beck does try to wrap himself up in religion, but I don’t think (and hope) that he is going to go the way of Father Coughlin. I don’t think there is anyone on the Democratic side, yet there are some in the liberal side that instead wrap themselves up in the idea of science being the savoir. I feel scared for that just as well, simply cause I really want to believe that this nation was founded on the idea that religion is what you make of it. If you feel a need to dance naked down Shopping Mall USA with two hot geshia girls serving you hot habu sake, while proclaiming the glory of the spagehtti monster then so be it. No one should be allowed to try and shut down your church down. Those that try and abolish religion in this nation not understanding that some of the social justice ideas rose not from the senate floor but from the bully pulpit of the church floor fail to understand history. You can make fun of them all you want, but do so equally as well.
You are also right the kids are in charge right now and all they have been taught is to kick and scream until they get thier way. What really scares me though is there are people who are trying to shut down not only the extremists but also the moderate voices out there. I mean I have talked to friends at work who are left leaning that don’t even listen to Fox or Rush. When I ask them why they give me the usual talking points about how evil they are or they make up news. That scares me cause if you don’t know what either side is saying then you can’t have a dialog. Everyone in this nation talks about trying to have a dialog, but no one wants to have it. Instead they want to shut down opposing voices and only hear the ones pleasing to them. That leads to just as much an issue in history as having the extremists in charge on both sides.
saw this morning that ed schultz air america guy confesses that there were 300,000 people there for Beck. A couple of days late and 221,000 short but there he was this morning….
and seriously there are an awful lot of people that want an end to this shitty government and all the shitty little losers in it. They tried to tell them so over the last couple of years.
So we can get another shitty Republican government? Who of any reasonable persuasion is in the running? No-one.
No this is deeper than that. These are stupid Americans who just don’t get it. The world has changed and they have to change with it. Even if Obama is not the guy-the direction the Republican party is heading in no use to anyone.
Furthermore-if you look at what has actually been accomplished-there has been a lot. Just because the majority doesn’t like something does not mean that they are smart or right.
42% of people living in America pay no federal income tax. Stupid people! They’re all democrats. Being helpful and urging taxes that they never pay and never will.
They are all Democrats? That us without a doubt the most ludicrous statement I have heard you make. And only 18% pay no taxes when you lob in all the other taxes-that again is a misleading statement. Kind of like the one’s Breitbart makes.
Actually I was joking a bit. Earlier comment on paying $10/pack of smokes. $9.00 is tax. Oh they pay taxes alright, just not income tax.