Quote of the Day

"There's absolutely no pretense from any of these publications of giving a policy a sort of objective hearing. It's very clear that it comes from the same mindset as talk radio and Fox News. This is something that's by and for a particular kind of conservative. It’s a circle jerk, isn’t it?"

-- Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, on the state of conservative media in the era of Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and Drudge

Michael Calderone over at the Huffington Post dissects the whole conservative entertainment complex and the problems it presents for the modern right pretty damn well in a piece he's just published. It's amusing to see quotes like the one above -- the kind of thing that goes on record with the fact that a major disservice is being done to conservatives by their own "news" organizations -- and then to watch idiot pretend-journalists like Matthew Boyle of Breitbart and pretend-thinkers like Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post defend the state of things on their end.

Think about the big "scoops" conservative media outlets have spit into the echo chamber lately: Chuck Hagel's disturbing connection to "Friends of Hamas," a story based on a joke, and Robert Menendez's affinity for Dominican hookers, a story that fell almost completely apart even as it was being shouted from the rooftops. And those are just the ones we've seen over the past month. Go back a bit and you truly see the pattern of inanity that's been allowed to develop.

I've said this on more than one occasion, mostly on the podcast, but I'm not actually one of those people who wants to see the Republican party and conservatives in general drown in a puddle of their own spit. Having at least two vital political parties is good for America and I didn't completely abandon the Republicans until after they lost their minds. The reason I find it almost impossible to side with anything the GOP or the conservative movement says or does these days is that they've willingly let themselves become dominated by the most stridently insane and anti-intellectual within their ranks. When the inmates completely overrun the asylum and no one even bothers to try to stop them, it's time to just cut your losses and bail before you become part of the madness.

A press that lives for actual news, regardless of whether it's left-leaning, right-leaning or straight down the middle -- one that isn't intent on using phony scandal to try to take down its political enemies -- naturally creates an atmosphere where common sense political compromise can flourish. That's because truth and a dedication to it fosters respect between the sides. That's good for the country. Period.

How To Dismantle an Atomic Bombshell

And here it is, kids -- your daily helping of unbelievably delicious schadenfreude, served up on a silver platter. If you don't know who Jason Mattera is, all I really need to tell you is that he's a disciple of Andrew Breitbart -- a young padawan to Breitbart's jedi master in the dark art of shitty, ultimately self-embarrassing journalism.

To wit, this:

"As part of the promotional rollout for his new book, Hollywood Hypocrites, Jason Mattera yesterday unveiled an ambush interview he conducted with U2 lead singer Bono. Or at least, that's who Mattera thought he had ambushed.

The video was posted at conservative websites like Breitbart.com and Glenn Beck's The Blaze, but was later marked 'private' on YouTube and pulled from Breitbart.com. Why? As explained by The Blaze,'There is widespread discussion on Twitter that the person Mattera interviewed in the videos may have been a Bono impersonator.'

Whoops.

During an appearance on Sean Hannity's radio program yesterday, which includes a brief snippet of the Mattera interview with 'Bono,' Hannity and Mattera touted 'bad boy reporter' Mattera's impressive ambush interview skills. Asked by Hannity how he managed to get an interview with 'Bono,' Mattera replied that it was 'basic shoeleather journalism.' (Hannity promised to run the video on last night's edition of his Fox News program, but said on Twitter this morning that Mattera's appearance was preempted by election coverage and that they would run the video tonight instead.)

Mattera and Hannity complained about how 'Bono' refused to answer Mattera's inquiries about controversy over U2's taxes. As Mattera put it, 'He just filibusters forever without any actual explanation.'"

So, yeah. Moron interviewed a Bono impersonator.

Wanna know how I'm sure of this? Because the interview took place on February 8th at the Village Studio party honoring Jimmy Iovine, here in Los Angeles. And I was there. So were Dre, Lana Del Rey, Skylar Grey and a couple of other well-known artists and musicians. So was a Bono impersonator. Know who wasn't there -- who never set foot as far as I can tell in the very entrance tent where Mattera did his interview, which by the way someone like Bono never would've had to walk through to get inside anyway? Fucking Bono. The place would've gone ape shit if Bono had really been there.

Good job, dumb-ass. And Breitbart's legacy of fail remains intact.

Wreckquiem

I'm not even going to bother picking apart the latest "bombshell" the conservative media shriekers are unleashing against President Obama. Suffice it to say that the big story that Andrew Breitbart was working on just before his death -- the one that had been hyped as a potential game-changer in the 2012 presidential race and was trumpeted by some particularly unhinged paranoiacs as being so terrifying to the White House that Obama had Breitbart killed for it -- turned out to be, well, nothing. A videotape of Barack Obama saying something nice about and embracing -- figuratively and literally -- a Harvard professor who was taking a stand against institutional racism on campus two decades ago.

It's not that it's not hilarious. It's, again -- nothing. Nothing at all.

My first reaction when I heard about it, saw the videotape, and witnessed the insanely passionate outrage surrounding it coming from the usual suspects on the right was, to be honest, pity. It's almost sad that this is the best they can do when it comes to uncovering -- or even manufacturing -- a scandal against this president.

This is all they've got.

It's like I can picture Breitbart lying mortally wounded on the floor of the USS Reliant's bridge, hissing at his obsession, President Obama, "From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!" But at least Khan had the Genesis device. It turns out Breitbart had nothing. And that gets to be his final epitaph.

Just for a laugh, though, watch Soledad O'Brien obliterate Breitbart flunky Joel Pollack over the big "scoop."



Adding: You know what? Maybe there is something worth saying about this "scandal." Breitbart's people's argument seems to be that this clip somehow proves that Obama wasn't "vetted," not because there was one piece of video that hadn't gotten what they feel is the proper amount of media attention but because that video, in their delusional minds, purports to show Obama engaging in racially divisive politics. Except that it doesn't show that at all. What it shows, what it proves, is that Barack Obama is black. That he's a black man who accepts that racism is very real and that those like him have generally come up on the losing end of it, and therefore it's incumbent upon him to speak out against it and support others who do. And guess fucking what? He's been vetted as black. We knew he was black years ago. And even if we didn't or if we'd somehow forgotten, trust me, you assholes in the conservative media have spent almost four solid years reminding us over and over again. Because as far as your audience is concerned, being black is what automatically disqualified Barack Obama from being president and what still does.

Assistant Quote of the Day

"I think today, it’s safe to stand back and simply recognize that while many people go through their lives without leaving distinguishing marks, Andrew Breitbart definitely had his moments. But he also had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate why someone like me shouldn’t bother to pretend I’m sad he’s dead. He wouldn’t, in my place. So to use one of his favorite words: Good riddance, cocksucker. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out."

-- Matt Taibbi, from a blog post at Rolling Stone's website entitled "Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche"

Adding: Reading through the comment section of Taibbi's piece, he's obviously being eviscerated for what many are seeing as his inhumanity and lack of class in writing something so cruel on the day of Breitbart's death. I agree that it was an incredibly harsh thing to say -- although it should be expected, given that Taibbi's the guy who famously got fired for ridiculing the death of Pope John Paul -- and it's something I wouldn't want Breitbart's grieving family to see, to say nothing of its being the kind of thing conservatives can and will now point to with self-righteous indignation as proof that liberals are conscienceless and sick-to-the-soul (the same claim liberals often make about conservatives). But I think one commenter gets what Taibbi was going for and it's what I saw in the piece as well.

Alan Davidson writes:

"As a hard core conservative and saddened Brietbart fan, I actually understand and can read between the lines of this article. Taibbi is the anti-Breitbart and Breibart was the anti-Taibbi. I can see a kind of "tipping-of-the-hat" here. It's like calling someone a "glorious bast#@$". Breitbart wanted real, RAW HARD truth. That is what he fought for 24/7 with 3 hours sleep a day. Taibbi has written, in a sly, edge of satire way, the real truth here. He hated Brietbart. And he is saying so. Folks with this kind of animus write these kinds of eulogies."

I don't look at Taibbi and Breitbart as two sides of the same coin when it comes to their journalism -- not by a long shot. But as outspoken personalities -- the kind who pull no punches and don't care one bit whom they infuriate -- yeah, I think they're almost exactly alike.

Tweet of the Day

RIP, Parody. You'll be missed.

Love the Sinner?

One more thing about the death of Andrew Breitbart and then I'm going to have to make myself scarce since I've got a ton of work-related things to get done today before I vanish to Desert Hot Springs for the weekend. (Hold my calls.)

I'm already getting some minor push-back from people who want to know how it's possible to claim that Breitbart was capable of being a "pretty good guy" when all the awful things he did are taken into consideration. Easy: He treated political combat like a game. As far as Breitbart was concerned, what you and I see as needless savagery, he saw as fun. He liked pushing people's buttons just for the hell of it and was certainly willing to take on all comers, and to be honest I can respect him for that. The man was also widely known to be a bundle of white-hot personality and I have no trouble imagining that manifesting itself in gregariousness and a fierce loyalty to his friends and, believe it or not, a healthy appreciation for some of his adversaries. (A surprisingly moving piece from regular Breitbart punching bag Tommy Christopher this morning proves this.) These are all laudable qualities.

No one is ever the image we create in our minds for him or her. Very few people, no matter how cartoonish and semingly one-dimensional, fully live up to the caricature they may even have had a hand in creating for themselves. It just doesn't work that way.

That said, there were in fact real-world consequences to the things Breitbart did because he found it entertaining and beneficial to his career goals. That shouldn't be overlooked or excused. The guy was a bully and a scam-artist and he hurt innocent people.

I never met Andrew Breitbart in person but I did interact with him a few times online. He actually complimented a quickie piece I threw together lambasting Hollywood for its self-congratulatory bestowing of "beautiful people" status on Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe. And then, of course, there was the now-legendary-around-these-parts rambling e-mail I got from him at three in the morning back in February of 2010.

If you haven't seen it, read on.

"The Notorious 'Big'" (Originally Published, 2.4.10)

I have a new BFF.

This morning at 3:13am, I got an email from Andrew Breitbart.

Let's go to the video:

[Title] do you care that okeefe as racist meme is built on bed of lies?

less than a week after same media suffered devastating exposure that 'watergate jr' wasnt and the media that ignored acorn was at forefront of a preposterous rush to judgement?

yet, i have to be a one-man correction cudgel because the press grants james less fairness than any gitmo detainee or al qaeda pantybomber.

you're insinuation that james is a racist is equally egregious: does it ever dawn on you that we conservatives can't fathom how lefties can't see how horrible their social policies have turned out to be for poor and minorities. explore for one minute the implications of what are found on the acorn tapes: almost every employee is SKILLED at helping unqualified people hooked on complicated government run systems like welfare, creating 501C3s as fronts, explaining how to skirt the tax codes, even getting underaged illegal immigrant prostitutes set up as dependents.

james' planned parenthood tapes, similarly, attempt to show how the media narrative is a false one, driven by 'morally superior ' types who think the group is simply good and unquestionably benevolent. a simple google search will show that the group has a racist past and the amount of black fetuses killed since roe is far greater than that of whites.

can james at least not have the opinion that abortion and abortionists are bad and that the philosophy behind PP'a origin in the US is filled with Margaret Sanger and a racist and Eugenics background?

james fucks with liberal narratives. and they can't take it. i am gleeful he has found me. what an historic innovator. i'm sure you and the rest of the town elders will vote that he and his friends can't dance. but i promise you the futre won't be stopped by john lithgow & co this time.

ab

Got all that?

It's kind of unfortunate that it would be so easy to summarily dismiss Breitbart's jumbled words as nothing more than the poorly thought-out product of late-night exhaustion or, seemingly, a hell of a lot to drink. It'd be equally simple to go almost line-by-line and either refute his incoherent arguments -- beginning with the claim that I essentially called James O'Keefe a racist, which I didn't -- or point out how quite a few of them only hold water if you believe that the media have banded together to gang up on conservatives and ensure that they never get a fair shake, which I don't at all. Thing is, it's that very distinction in how the left and right view the media that led me to write yesterday's quickie piece about O'Keefe -- the one Breitbart was commenting on -- to begin with.

My point yesterday was that political coverage may still be important on the surface, because it's true that an informed electorate is a strong electorate, but the partisan voices have become so powerful that it's almost impossible to discern the truth above all the noise. What's more, tainted advocacy journalism has become prevalent to the point where no one needs to bother seeking out an opinion that differs from his or her own anymore. As a nation, we're so fucking divided politically, with each side in possession of its own bullhorn, that there's rarely any common ground for the two sides to meet on because there doesn't need to be any; the left and right have their respective sets of "facts" and that informs their intransigent worldviews. Now more than ever, it's possible to work backward from the conclusion you want to reach and make the details fit that end: Believe progressive America can do no wrong? Watch Olbermann. Think only the Tea Partiers can save this country but the liberal media refuses to report it? Watch Fox -- or read Breitbart.

The problem is that guys like Breitbart assume the role of angry paranoiacs; the entire reason for their entry into the media echo chamber is supposedly to be a single candle against the near-total darkness of the liberal press. Breitbart believes that just about all media are slanted to the left and therefore out to get conservatives in any way they can. This is a fun little parlor trick and justifies all kinds of lapses in logic: All Breitbart has to do to refute bad press about him or the political stances he happens to take is to ask his readers to "consider the source." It's utter horseshit as an argument, but it's music to the ears of the rabid partisan crowd, who go to his site specifically to have their biases confirmed and wouldn't accept a contrary assertion if it came wrapped up with a bow.

If you need proof of this, look no further than Breitbart's response to the Salon and Washington Independent pieces dealing with James O'Keefe's supposed attendance of a 2006 conference that hosted white nationalists. For the past 24 hours -- through his website, his Twitter page and, apparently, email -- he's been on a fucking talking points rampage. A post on Breitbart's amusingly misnomered "Big Journalism" site takes aim at Max Blumenthal, author of the Salon piece, for, among other things, being Max Blumenthal. The post's author identifies Blumenthal as the son of a "Clinton apparatchik", which is all Breitbart's readership needs to hear to understand that he's not to be trusted. The post goes on to call the stories about O'Keefe proof of "how the left distorts, invents and lies." Ad hominem attacks are par for the course in the ridiculous Kabuki theater that passes for political discourse these days, but what makes the Breitbart piece by Larry O'Connor especially flagrant in its lack of adherence to the basic standards of honest journalism is its acceptance of O'Keefe's own take on events as being somehow above reproach.

Read this and try not to laugh:

"...Here at Big Journalism we think it’s a good idea to actually seek the truth.

So we spoke with James O’Keefe today. This is what he tells us:

He was not 'manning a table' at the event
He was not involved with the organization or operations of the event.
He attended the event with many of his Leadership Institute co-workers since it was
right across the street from their building in Arlington, Va., and it was organized by other LI associates.
The organizer who is being called a 'White Supremacist' is half Jewish and half Korean.
One of the panelist was an African-American named Kevin Martin.
The event was forced to move to a Georgetown University building in Arlington, not at a cross-burning.

We know all this because we called Mr. O’Keefe and asked him. Which is more than other media outlets have done."

Well, that settles it then.

I'm by no means comparing James O'Keefe to a criminal, but imagine the police dragging the suspect in an investigation in for questioning, then upon hearing that suspect say, "Nope, I had nothing to do with it," releasing him, satisfied that he was telling the truth. In order for something like that to happen, you'd have to believe the guy wasn't guilty to begin with and reverse engineer your investigation -- which is exactly the stance Breitbart's site is taking and what it's doing. The problem is that true journalists are like police officers. They dispassionately pursue the facts. They may chase down leads they believe strongly in, but if those leads don't pan out they don't make shit up just to get a collar (at least not in theory). They have an obligation to the truth.

There's a difference between the brand of journalism trumpeted by Breitbart and O'Keefe -- "Big" journalism, I guess -- and that practiced by those who at the very least try to remain objective about the issues they're covering. Which do you think, just at face value, would be more trustworthy?

For the record, what Larry O'Connor was complaining about in the piece on Breitbart's site -- that Max Blumenthal supposedly didn't try to contact James O'Keefe for comment -- is being contested by Blumenthal himself today. He says he did in fact reach out to O'Keefe but got no response. Maybe if O'Keefe had been on Blumenthal's payroll he would've had as little trouble getting the subject of his article on the phone as Breitbart's people did after the fact. This may seem like a cheap shot, but it can't be a coincidence that O'Keefe has generally turned only to friendly outlets -- the ones guaranteed not to hardball him -- when he wants to make a statement or answer questions about his arrest or the various controversies surrounding him. Like Sarah Palin, he knows full well that these days there's no need to suffer through an adversarial interview when his side has its own state-approved media megaphone and all he needs is for the already apostolic to believe and support him for everything to be okay. Besides, any agent of the press who would ask him tough questions about his behavior is simply in league with the enemy anyway.

This is the way Breitbart thinks. The way he, not coincidentally, accuses the left of thinking (and which Eric Boehlert of Media Matters occasionally helps fuel by getting into ugly internet pissing matches with him). As it turns out, each extreme is right about how wrong the other is -- which makes each each extreme more than a little hypocritical. Where Breitbart goes completely off the rails -- besides simply his shoddy journalism, and that's a pretty objective assessment -- is in his demonization of almost all media, his belief in the giant liberal media conspiracy. That's just fucking crazy.

But not as crazy as ending a 3:30am email to a complete stranger with a Footloose reference.

Footloose? Really?

Adding: If you wondered if members of the online wingnut brain trust would immediately sense a conspiracy in the sudden death of Andrew Breitbart and point the finger directly at the White House, give yourself a pat on the back.


Buzzfeed: 25 People Who Think President Obama Killed Andrew Breitbart/3.1.12

Adding More: Simon Owens put together an entirely fair assessment of Breitbart over at the Moderate Voice. It's absolutely worth reading.

Adding Even More (Greenwald Style): Alex Pareene at Salon delves into Breitbart's admittedly interesting history and how it informed his worldview and influenced his eventual rise to fame and infamy.

Quote of the Day

"Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death?"

-- Andrew Breitbart, via Twitter, reacting on August 26th of 2009 to the death of Ted Kennedy

Offered without comment.

Hurricane Andrew

The insufferable Greg Gutfeld calls Andrew Breitbart the most fearless man he ever met.

It's easy to be fearless when you have no scruples whatsoever -- in fact, it comes somewhat naturally.

I'm not going to be ghoulish and applaud the death of Breitbart, who collapsed suddenly early this morning in Los Angeles and apparently couldn't be revived. It should go completely without saying that I wanted to see him dead as little as I'd want to see almost anyone dead, particularly at the personally disconcerting age of 43. But likewise, I can't in good conscience pay tribute to what had, over the past several years, become his life's work: the infusion of scandal, bile and simple dishonesty and fraudulence into the political discourse, without even a hint of regard for journalistic ethics or a dedication to the truth.

I feel this way not because there was a vast chasm between Breitbart's politics and my own -- for the record, I actually admired him quite a bit as a showman and provocateur -- but because there's a difference between a divergence of opinions and flat-out lying. Lying is cheating. It's stacking the deck, particularly when you're dealing that deck to a group of people willing to take any hand you give them and revel in it without question. Again, I thought the world of Breitbart's passion; the discourse in this country simply would've been far better served had that passion come with an equally robust sense of personal and professional integrity. I don't doubt that Andrew Breitbart did many great things in his short lifetime -- and obviously I offer nothing but the sincerest condolences to the family he leaves behind -- but he also did an enormous amount of damage. To journalism, to civilized debate, and to real flesh-and-blood people.

I mourn him as a human being, one who I have to believe wholeheartedly could be a pretty good guy.

But I also mourn the dedication to the truth in media that he helped to destroy.

It's profoundly saddening that that may be his overarching legacy.

The Huffington Post: Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43/3.1.12

Assistant Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I always think to myself, 'Fire the first shot' ... Bring it on. We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns... I’m not kidding."

-- Andrew Breitbart, speaking to Tea Partiers in Massachusetts last Friday

You know, I'd unleash a giant ration of outrage at the fact that the right continues its insatiable addiction to irresponsible, hyper-violent rhetoric even though that kind of thing has already had frightening consequences.

But this is Andrew Breitbart we're talking about. He's a blogger. He lives in fucking Los Angeles. He couldn't be less of a tough guy if he had peacock feathers sticking out of his ass and was sucking on a Hello Kitty pacifier coated with pure estrogen.

If you let Brietbart so much as hold a gun he'd shoot his own balls off.

Quote of the Day

The above grab is from a late night back-and-forth on Twitter between Andrew Breitbart and, as advertised, some random college kid with 293 followers. The mildly antagonistic exchange also included another self-described progressive college student, this one with an impressive 436 followers.

I really kind of have to give Breitbart a certain amount of credit: It takes skill to do that perfect an impression of Biff from Back To the Future and to keep it going 24/7 like some kind of Kaufmanesque performance art. No target is too small, no hapless 80-pound-weakling too far beneath him, to avoid being fucked with when he needs a confidence boost. He really is the big kid torturing the little ones on the playground because he knows full well that when he picks on someone his own size he generally gets the crap kicked out of him in front of everyone.

Now see, if I actually had Breitbart's journalistic sensibilities, I'd immediately be making a big story out of the fact that he's apparently trolling the internet for college boys at 3am.

Anyway, with that in mind -- it's time to bring back my own personal late-night run-in with the man for whom no online feud is too petty.

The Notorious "Big" (Originally Published, 2.4.10)

I have a new BFF.

This morning at 3:13am, I got an email from Andrew Breitbart.

Let's go to the video:

[Title] do you care that okeefe as racist meme is built on bed of lies?

less than a week after same media suffered devastating exposure that 'watergate jr' wasnt and the media that ignored acorn was at forefront of a preposterous rush to judgement?

yet, i have to be a one-man correction cudgel because the press grants james less fairness than any gitmo detainee or al qaeda pantybomber.

you're insinuation that james is a racist is equally egregious: does it ever dawn on you that we conservatives can't fathom how lefties can't see how horrible their social policies have turned out to be for poor and minorities. explore for one minute the implications of what are found on the acorn tapes: almost every employee is SKILLED at helping unqualified people hooked on complicated government run systems like welfare, creating 501C3s as fronts, explaining how to skirt the tax codes, even getting underaged illegal immigrant prostitutes set up as dependents.

james' planned parenthood tapes, similarly, attempt to show how the media narrative is a false one, driven by 'morally superior ' types who think the group is simply good and unquestionably benevolent. a simple google search will show that the group has a racist past and the amount of black fetuses killed since roe is far greater than that of whites.

can james at least not have the opinion that abortion and abortionists are bad and that the philosophy behind PP'a origin in the US is filled with Margaret Sanger and a racist and Eugenics background?

james fucks with liberal narratives. and they can't take it. i am gleeful he has found me. what an historic innovator. i'm sure you and the rest of the town elders will vote that he and his friends can't dance. but i promise you the futre won't be stopped by john lithgow & co this time.

ab

Got all that?

It's kind of unfortunate that it would be so easy to summarily dismiss Breitbart's jumbled words as nothing more than the poorly thought-out product of late-night exhaustion or, seemingly, a hell of a lot to drink. It'd be equally simple to go almost line-by-line and either refute his incoherent arguments -- beginning with the claim that I essentially called James O'Keefe a racist, which I didn't -- or point out how quite a few of them only hold water if you believe that the media have banded together to gang up on conservatives and ensure that they never get a fair shake, which I don't at all. Thing is, it's that very distinction in how the left and right view the media that led me to write yesterday's quickie piece about O'Keefe -- the one Breitbart was commenting on -- to begin with.

My point yesterday was that political coverage may still be important on the surface, because it's true that an informed electorate is a strong electorate, but the partisan voices have become so powerful that it's almost impossible to discern the truth above all the noise. What's more, tainted advocacy journalism has become prevalent to the point where no one needs to bother seeking out an opinion that differs from his or her own anymore. As a nation, we're so fucking divided politically, with each side in possession of its own bullhorn, that there's rarely any common ground for the two sides to meet on because there doesn't need to be any; the left and right have their respective sets of "facts" and that informs their intransigent worldviews. Now more than ever, it's possible to work backward from the conclusion you want to reach and make the details fit that end: Believe progressive America can do no wrong? Watch Olbermann. Think only the Tea Partiers can save this country but the liberal media refuses to report it? Watch Fox -- or read Breitbart.

The problem is that guys like Breitbart assume the role of angry paranoiacs; the entire reason for their entry into the media echo chamber is supposedly to be a single candle against the near-total darkness of the liberal press. Breitbart believes that just about all media are slanted to the left and therefore out to get conservatives in any way they can. This is a fun little parlor trick and justifies all kinds of lapses in logic: All Breitbart has to do to refute bad press about him or the political stances he happens to take is to ask his readers to "consider the source." It's utter horseshit as an argument, but it's music to the ears of the rabid partisan crowd, who go to his site specifically to have their biases confirmed and wouldn't accept a contrary assertion if it came wrapped up with a bow.

If you need proof of this, look no further than Breitbart's response to the Salon and Washington Independent pieces dealing with James O'Keefe's supposed attendance of a 2006 conference that hosted white nationalists. For the past 24 hours -- through his website, his Twitter page and, apparently, email -- he's been on a fucking talking points rampage. A post on Breitbart's amusingly misnomered "Big Journalism" site takes aim at Max Blumenthal, author of the Salon piece, for, among other things, being Max Blumenthal. The post's author identifies Blumenthal as the son of a "Clinton apparatchik", which is all Breitbart's readership needs to hear to understand that he's not to be trusted. The post goes on to call the stories about O'Keefe proof of "how the left distorts, invents and lies." Ad hominem attacks are par for the course in the ridiculous Kabuki theater that passes for political discourse these days, but what makes the Breitbart piece by Larry O'Connor especially flagrant in its lack of adherence to the basic standards of honest journalism is its acceptance of O'Keefe's own take on events as being somehow above reproach.

Read this and try not to laugh:

"...Here at Big Journalism we think it’s a good idea to actually seek the truth.

So we spoke with James O’Keefe today. This is what he tells us:

He was not 'manning a table' at the event
He was not involved with the organization or operations of the event.
He attended the event with many of his Leadership Institute co-workers since it was
right across the street from their building in Arlington, Va., and it was organized by other LI associates.
The organizer who is being called a 'White Supremacist' is half Jewish and half Korean.
One of the panelist was an African-American named Kevin Martin.
The event was forced to move to a Georgetown University building in Arlington, not at a cross-burning.

We know all this because we called Mr. O’Keefe and asked him. Which is more than other media outlets have done."

Well, that settles it then.

I'm by no means comparing James O'Keefe to a criminal, but imagine the police dragging the suspect in an investigation in for questioning, then upon hearing that suspect say, "Nope, I had nothing to do with it," releasing him, satisfied that he was telling the truth. In order for something like that to happen, you'd have to believe the guy wasn't guilty to begin with and reverse engineer your investigation -- which is exactly the stance Breitbart's site is taking and what it's doing. The problem is that true journalists are like police officers. They dispassionately pursue the facts. They may chase down leads they believe strongly in, but if those leads don't pan out they don't make shit up just to get a collar (at least not in theory). They have an obligation to the truth.

There's a difference between the brand of journalism trumpeted by Breitbart and O'Keefe -- "Big" journalism, I guess -- and that practiced by those who at the very least try to remain objective about the issues they're covering. Which do you think, just at face value, would be more trustworthy?

For the record, what Larry O'Connor was complaining about in the piece on Breitbart's site -- that Max Blumenthal supposedly didn't try to contact James O'Keefe for comment -- is being contested by Blumenthal himself today. He says he did in fact reach out to O'Keefe but got no response. Maybe if O'Keefe had been on Blumenthal's payroll he would've had as little trouble getting the subject of his article on the phone as Breitbart's people did after the fact. This may seem like a cheap shot, but it can't be a coincidence that O'Keefe has generally turned only to friendly outlets -- the ones guaranteed not to hardball him -- when he wants to make a statement or answer questions about his arrest or the various controversies surrounding him. Like Sarah Palin, he knows full well that these days there's no need to suffer through an adversarial interview when his side has its own state-approved media megaphone and all he needs is for the already apostolic to believe and support him for everything to be okay. Besides, any agent of the press who would ask him tough questions about his behavior is simply in league with the enemy anyway.

This is the way Breitbart thinks. The way he, not coincidentally, accuses the left of thinking (and which Eric Boehlert of Media Matters occasionally helps fuel by getting into ugly internet pissing matches with him). As it turns out, each extreme is right about how wrong the other is -- which makes each each extreme more than a little hypocritical. Where Breitbart goes completely off the rails -- besides simply his shoddy journalism, and that's a pretty objective assessment -- is in his demonization of almost all media, his belief in the giant liberal media conspiracy. That's just fucking crazy.

But not as crazy as ending a 3:30am email to a complete stranger with a Footloose reference.

Footloose? Really?

Jock Scrap

I was really hoping she and Salon would stay out of it because anything they said was always guaranteed to provide the textbook definition of a really bad cliché but, well -- Mary Elizabeth Williams is kind of taking on Opie and Anthony. Really, you could scour the media landscape and I'm not sure you'd find two more traditionally polarized factions than the hyper-cultured Upper West Side liberals whom Mary Elizabeth Williams speaks for and the Bridge and Tunnel scatologistic man-child demographic represented by guys like Opie and Anthony. That battle -- the one pitting, as the trailer for Caddyshack said decades ago, "the snobs against the slobs" -- is as old as time itself.

Basically, in a column in today's Salon, M-Liz asserts that this week's Anthony Weiner prick-slip -- the one brought to you by Andrew Breitbart, during an appearance on the Opie and Anthony show -- was surprising for the most part because it revealed that shock jocks are still on the air in 2011. If you believe the column, guys like Opie and Anthony are well past their moment as a tolerable cultural anomaly and a desperate grab for relevancy like the one we supposedly witnessed earlier this week proves it in spades.

That O & A's core audience won't care one bit what someone like Mary Elizabeth Williams thinks is so obvious that it isn't even worth expounding on. Likewise, that most Salon regulars probably don't wake up every morning and catch the latest O & A gags is also not something worthy of discussion. Not to single myself out as special or anything, but I've gotta be one of the few who actually does really like both M-Liz's high-minded wit and O & A's low-brow stupidity; there's a place, and an audience, for both in this world and I think it's ridiculous for anyone to make the argument that one side of the equation somehow isn't fit for public consumption. In other words, I'm taking the slobs' side on this one -- because while M-Liz is right in saying that a radio show that occasionally pulls juvenile on-air pranks and which caters to America's overgrown adolescent guy community shouldn't survive if it doesn't, ironically, evolve, she's wrong when she says that shows like that haven't evolved. Many of them have, quite a bit. Just because she doesn't "get it" doesn't mean others don't, or that their opinions don't count, or that the overall joke isn't funny.

Opie and Anthony aren't everyone's brand of vodka, but they're not trying to be. You don't like what they do? The solution is as old as indignation itself: don't listen. Complaining about it from on-high is as tired and pathetic as the genre you're ineffectually railing against.

Pic of the Litter

I was going to add this on to the earlier Breitbart post as an update, but it really deserves its own slot. You know why Breitbart isn't a real journalist and never will be? Do you need further proof that he's a loathsome, unscrupulous turd and nothing more, regardless of how vehemently he may demand professional and personal respect?

Well, how about this: The "X-rated" picture of Anthony Weiner that Breitbart has been boasting about, the one he called his "insurance policy?" It's now apparently leaked online. How did it get out, you ask? Because this morning Breitbart was doing a guest spot on the Opie and Anthony show -- the latest stop on his victory lap -- and he proudly flashed the picture to the show's crew; he apparently carries it around on his iPhone like a trophy, the post-modern digital-age scandal equivalent of his quarry's head on the wall above his fireplace. Needless to say, someone on the show either surreptitiously or right out in the open snapped his own picture of the picture and put it up on Twitter. Voila, what is allegedly Anthony Weiner's erect, naked cock is now available to anyone with access to the internet (in other words, anyone on earth).

I want you to imagine for a second any other journalist in America -- any respectable gatherer and disseminator of news and information -- being so fucking mind-blowingly juvenile as to show off a picture of a U.S. congressman's penis just because he happened to have it. Yeah, Weiner screwed up by putting it out there in the first place, but can you even fathom the notion of, say, Bob Woodward gloating over the spoils of an investigation -- particularly one that took a high personal toll on an elected official, his family and, arguably, the country -- to the point where he revealed them to the crew of a fucking shock-jock radio show? The word "unethical" doesn't even begin to cover it, although at this point I'd expect nothing less from a bottom-feeding douche like Breitbart.

For the record, I've never held back when it comes to my appreciation for the Opie and Anthony show. I started listening to it years ago on WNEW in New York City and I'm a regular listener now that it's on Sirius XM; it's a funny as hell show and the guys who host it are for the most part whip-smart. The only time I tune out, though -- well, besides whenever terminally unfunny Rich Vos is on -- is when they start talking politics. This is because, while Opie tends to stay out of the way and Jimmy Norton is at least balanced in his views, Anthony is tyranically reactionary to the point of being intolerable. For a bright guy, he's an almost unimaginably laughable stereotype: a white multi-millionaire man-child who stalks around his mansion on Long Island fetishistically carrying a gun on his hip just in case one of the welfare queens he blames for taking all his hard-earned money -- that would be the money he makes working 4-hours-a-day -- breaks in and tries to kill him. He's like Howard Hughes, right down to the paranoid racism, if Hughes had never actually created anything worthy of a legacy. Again, funny as hell guy, but completely batshit when it comes to his far-right politics.

My point is that the O & A crew had a hand in circulating this picture -- the one that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else really needs to see, since we all kind of got the point -- but they're not the ones truly to blame here. They're shock-jocks; they're paid to push boundaries, indiscriminately ridicule, and basically be overgrown adolescents. They never claimed to be worthy of anyone's trust.

But Breitbart? I thought he was a journalist.

By the way, if you want to see the unedited photo it's not hard to find. I'm not posting a link to it here, though. Do your own heavy lifting on this one.


Update: Breitbart, as expected, is placing the blame squarely on the O & A show crew: "This is the first time that someone surreptitiously grabbed a photo of it. This is a complete breach of our arrangement that the photo would not be made public. It was a complete violation of trust," he said during an interview with, of course, Fox News.

Right. Except that, as I said, a shock-jock radio show isn't expected to abide by any personal or professional code of ethical conduct. Breitbart, if he truly considers himself a journalist, is. But the temptation was just too much for him; he had to show the other kids on the playground the dirty picture he had in his pocket so they could all have a good laugh about it and he could be the big guy. Breitbart is either being thoroughly dishonest about this or he's just flat-out stupid, neither of which should surprise anyone either way.

I really do love Breitbart; you can always count on him to show his true colors. Just three days ago he was demanding an apology from Anthony Weiner and now Anthony Weiner -- who's by no means innocent in any of this -- is within his rights to demand an apology from him. And everyone else can go right back to regarding Andrew Breitbart as what he is and has been from the very beginning: a fucking low-life.

Quote of the Day

"Just because Breitbart lucked into being correct (the way a broken clock is right at least once a day) doesn’t mean that his long-established pattern of deception should be dismissed. Just because Charles Manson didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe doesn’t mean that he’s innocent of every other crime attributed to him."

-- From a piece in Alternet called "10 Reasons Andrew Breitbart Should Apologize (Or Just Shut Up and Go Away)"

Let me once again make it crystal clear: Breitbart got it right about Anthony Weiner and no one can argue with that. I won't equivocate on that, nor should anyone else. But as I said a couple of days ago and as the above article shows pretty clearly, the one time his rabid anti-liberal obsession actually panned out doesn't erase the litany of past misdeeds that should continue to dog him and make any claim he proffers immediately suspect.

Breitbart isn't a true journalist no matter how ferociously or desperately he demands to be treated as one -- and a big reason for this isn't simply because he's sloppy and doesn't mind playing fast-and-loose with the facts, it's because he begins every word he writes, every column he publishes and every "investigation" he undertakes with a conclusion already in mind. That conclusion, that basic premise, is that those he disagrees with politically are guilty. It doesn't matter of what -- they're just guilty.

It's one thing to comment on a story or news item, to offer your opinion; it's another thing entirely to portray that opinion as fact, the product of a fair and ethical journalistic process.

Quote of the Week (Obviously)

"To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it."

-- Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York

As someone posted on Twitter not long ago, Weiner's startlingly candid and long-winded news conference that just mercifully wrapped up was the kind of thing we usually see in movies -- not in real life.

And as somebody else posted on Twitter, Weiner saying, "I apologize to Andrew Breitbart" is going to be Breitbart's ringtone for the next couple of years. Obviously it's unfortunate to have to admit that Breitbart -- who, make no mistake, remains an unscrupulous turd -- got this one right, simply because it gives him back a shred of credibility in these kinds of matters from here on out that I'm still not sure he really deserves. My argument about Breitbart will remain that even if he hadn't received confirmation that what happened actually happened -- as well as a public confession from Weiner -- it wouldn't have stopped him from at least partially pushing the story. But for now, there's no way around the fact that Breitbart uncovered what he essentially said he uncovered. It doesn't make James O'Keefe or Shirley Sherrod go away -- but he wins this round and gets to claim vindication.

What remains, then, is whether or not the public believes that what's been admitted to is worth calling for Weiner's head. (I really can't believe I just stooped to that.) I stand by my statement last week that I don't care one bit what Anthony Weiner does in his private life and his sexual proclivities are his own. He posted pictures of his penis on Twitter? That makes him, admittedly, really stupid. He sent them to younger women? Well, who the hell would you think he'd be sending them to? He didn't break the law, though, and his being exposed as a bit of a freak doesn't also expose him as a hypocrite, considering that he's never been one of those guys professionally staking out the hyper-religious moral high ground, preaching chastity or purity or whatever-the-hell as policy or in his personal life.

For the record, I really am tired of public "sex scandals" -- particularly ones where there was nothing unlawful involved -- further diminishing our cultural discourse in this country and distracting the already easily distracted and titillated dingbats in the mainstream political press. And I can't stress intensely enough how this belief is in no way a sudden reaction to the fact that I happen to like Anthony Weiner. Yes, the occasionally sordid sexual escapades of our elected officials are a breeze to point and laugh at, but reacting with shock to the notion that somebody is capable of infidelity or enjoys, quite frankly, getting laid as often and as creatively as possible is just laughably puritanical. People fuck. It's what we do. As I've said before, practically as a career lately, we're human and human beings are inherently flawed creatures; looking for reasons as to why people in the position to cheat actually do cheat is a fool's errand. And the more power someone has, the more likely he or she is to use that power to get laid. Jesus, you think nebbishy Anthony Weiner -- who probably got his ass kicked all over his Brooklyn elementary school playground growing up -- wasn't thinking the entire time he was coming up in politics and apparently whaling on his pecs, "I'm so gonna finally get me the college pussy that was denied to me in college"? Make no mistake: If a 25-year-old is what he really wanted out of life, he probably shouldn't have gotten married and tried to settle down as a family man, and what he's now done to his wife and family is unconscionable. But to be shocked, exactly, that he let his dick get him into trouble? You're kidding me, right? Cue the cut to a caveman sitting on a rock somewhere saying, "Ugh, me know what it like, man," as a woman hits him over the head with a club while pointing at naked drawings of him on some other woman's cave wall.

By the way, my favorite tweeted response to today's Weiner newser comes from Anthony Cumia of the Opie and Anthony show:

"I love having a job where I can send dick pics with impunity."

Amen to that.

Adding: The column this is from is actually a couple of days old but leave it to Taibbi to hit Weiner's stupidity with just the appropriate amount of blunt force:

"The truth is, if you're worth the congressional office at all, your automatic answer to any question about pictures like that has to be, 'No, that can't be me in that picture, because I'm a United States Congressman and I don't take digital pictures of my hard-ons."

I don’t want to gloat too much about Weiner. Milligan is right, it’s not like the guy is a serial killer. But as the Monday Night Football crew would say, C’mon, Man! If you want to be a national political figure, run for high office, and also have a family at the same time, you can’t be playing Russian roulette with your wife’s reputation every time you log on to your basement computer.

In other words, when you’re a certain kind of famous, there are a few things you’ve just got to give up in life –- like uploading pictures of your dick, for instance, or tweet-herding hot twentysomething women by the hundreds. Is it really that hard to find other hobbies?"

Andy Grifter

A lot less profane than my take on it, but dead-on nonetheless.

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog: An Open Letter to Cable Newspeople/6.1.11

Quote of the Day

"I don’t know him that well, he has been monitoring relationships that Congressman Weiner has been having with women, young women, who claimed to have relationships with him. I’m not saying what type of relationships, but people that '@RepWeiner' follows. Girls that are quite young -- younger than the girl in question here -- talk openly about Rep. Weiner, who he follows these girls."

-- Andrew Breitbart referring to Dan Wolfe, who goes by the Twitter name @patriotUSA76 (of course) and who supposedly grabbed and reposted a picture that supposedly appeared on Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter account of a semi-erect penis inside a pair of underwear

The above quote came during an interview with Breitbart on CNN, an interview which opened the door to a number of significant questions that deserve an immediate answer, such as what the fuck is Andrew Breitbart doing on CNN?!

Jesus, what does this asshole have to do before the supposedly responsible press stops giving a crap about anything he has to say? CNN actually broke the Shirley Sherrod hoax story, basically blowing Breitbart out of the water on live television, with Sherrod sitting right there on the set as they did it -- and still they invite him on to make defamatory statements that he cannot fucking back up.

How do you know "Weinergate" -- as the Breitbart online Empire of Shit is breathlessly and unimaginatively hyping it -- is probably a bunch of overblown nonsense? Because Breitbart says it's a big deal. When he says anything about somebody, you can be pretty fucking sure the opposite is true. And his willingness to blindly back another no-name right-wing flunkie is likely one of those things he'd live to regret had he anything approaching a capacity for shame and sorrow.

Did Anthony Weiner send a picture of his cock to somebody on Twitter? Who the hell knows. And you know something? I don't really care. You know why I don't really care? Because Anthony Weiner never claimed to be a crusader for family values, hyper-righteous morality, forced chastity or anything else that would make it grossly hypocritical for him to be a bit of a freak. Does it suck for his wife if he really did it and wasn't hacked like he says? Yeah, actually -- but that's their business to sort out. It shouldn't be my responsibility to hold him accountable for something like that and even if I thought it to be mildly contemptible (to say nothing of stupid) I don't think it would have an impact one way or the other on how he does his job. Of course this kind of thing is entertaining and of course it's worthy of an entire arsenal of jokes -- but I'm gonna need a hell of a lot more to go on than the word of Andrew "I Fucking Lie About Everything" Breitbart before I hang somebody out to dry.

Twister and Shout

The last thing I had planned to do was contaminate any discussion of the devastating events in the Deep South with the injection of partisan politics -- not this soon after the actual event, at least. But, not surprisingly, there are some who don't share my shame when it comes to pulling that kind of crap.

I give you, drumroll please, Andrew Breitbart:

"I think they look at the polling and they realize that this is a very polarizing president who needs to shore up his base, who's really investing himself in being the blue state president for blue state people. And so for him, Alabama and a red state, a place that he's almost never gone to Alabama, he knows that he can't win them over so what's the point in investing any amount of time or effort into drawing the maximum amount of help for people who don't support him politically?"

So to turn a really idiotic phrase from Kanye West: Barack Obama doesn't care about red state people -- the people of Alabama. Is that it?

Breitbart goes on to say that the media apparently don't much care about Alabama either, that because it's in the South they're not giving it the kind of coverage that they would if this disaster had struck in, say, New York or California. While he would've been right to imply that nonstop servitude to yesterday's Royal Wedding in the face of this disaster was deplorable, to claim that the fact that these tornadoes flattened Alabama as opposed to some place where members of the national media presumably get their morning lattes is absurd. First of all, if tornadoes had leveled New York or California, it would've been one hell of a story for very obvious reasons related to how often tornadoes strike those places. Beyond that, though, it's certainly true that urban centers -- regardless of where they happen to be in the U.S. or what their politics are -- tend to make for more startling coverage during disasters simply because they offer Americans common points of recognition, also because we like to believe that our cities are impregnable. But Tuscaloosa, Alabama isn't the Australian outback; it's not like it's at the ass end of the planet from us and therefore the most powerful media companies in the country will simply let it slip through the cracks. Katrina did monumental damage down south and the press was on top of it from day one.

Speaking of which: The government was slow to respond to Katrina; that can't be argued with. This time around the response has been swift and for the most part thorough. Federal help was almost instantly dispatched to those in need -- despite Breitbart's asinine assertion that Obama and his progressive cabal are holding back because, well, fuck those hicks -- and requests from states for the very necessary financial aid they need are being honored. But once again, as much as it really does pain me to bring my own partisanship into this, a commenter here mentioned yesterday the irony of state leaders who've spent the past several months howling about the evils of the federal government -- how it needs to be smaller; how government programs have to be cut back; how the states should be left alone and be allowed to nullify federal law if it suits them -- suddenly looking to big, bad Washington for help. But that's the way the federal government works: Sure, it's large and bulky and sometimes bogged down by inefficient bureaucracy, but when something like this happens it sees to it that the consolidated power of the United States of America is there for our fellow Americans. No matter who or where they are.

Oh, and it should be mentioned that Andrew Breitbart lives in Los Angeles -- with the rest of the detached media that supposedly just doesn't give a crap about Alabama.

Grand Ham Breakfast

The New York Observer's Daily Transom column sat down for breakfast with Andrew Breitbart two mornings ago and got -- not surprisingly -- the figurative equivalent of my daughter, at the age of one-and-a-half, angrily hurling her oatmeal across the room. The gist of the conversation was that there's apparently no honor among demagogues, with Breitbart still being sore at his ex-BFF Glenn Beck for "throwing him under the bus."

The most noteworthy line of the interview is one that reveals maybe a little more than Breitbart had hoped:

"According to Mr. Breitbart, fellow Tea Partier Glenn Beck first joined him in editing and eviscerating Ms. Sherrod's 2010 N.A.A.C.P. speech on the radio, before publishing the unedited version on his Web site, discrediting Mr. Breitbart on television and calling for his apology... 'Next thing I know, I'm under complete attack without the support of Glenn Beck, who I thought was somebody I could count on.'"

In other words, Breitbart once again admits that he -- ostensibly with the help of Glenn Beck -- edited the infamous Shirley Sherrod tape to "eviscerate" her and make her appear racist, and he felt that he was screwed over by Beck when the unedited tape was released which exposed what he'd done. This is the point I made on Monday; it's this kind of unconscionable horseshit that separates Andrew Breitbart from your average partisan blowhard.

By the way, the rest of the interview is basically a lot of Breitbart howling about the "Marxist... nihilist... leftist" education system. Feel free to take a look if that sort of thing interests you -- or you can just hit yourself in the face repeatedly with a phone book since it's pretty much the same thing.

Attack of the Ad Hominem Attacks

I like to imagine that somewhere out there is a dead languages fanatic who thought to copyright the term "ad hominem" years ago and who's suddenly wondering why only now, with the rise of our perpetually outraged political discourse, he's seeing royalty checks pour in. When it comes to partisan debate these days, especially on the internet, accusing someone of making an "ad hominem attack" is, ironically, as cliché as calling somebody a Nazi.

So it's not surprising that Andrew Breitbart's misnomered "Big Journalism" site is howling at anyone and everyone who's given up trying to debate the actual arguments of its illustrious founder, claiming that they're engaging in ad hominem warfare. Among that anyone and everyone: yours truly.

From a piece written by Alexander Marlow and posted late last month on the site:

"Here are some examples of these emotive, anti-intellectual smears against Breitbart himself published at… the Huffington Post itself. I did a good-faith search through the (AOL/)HuffPo archives to isolate ad hominem they have published against Breitbart... Chez Pazienza, Editor of Deus Ex Malcontent, Author, in his piece 'ABC News to Redeem Guy With No Redeeming Qualities':

'[Breitbart] is... a serial liar and a scam artist. [...] he’s a raging maniac [...] he’s ignored facts, knowingly created phony scandals, willfully aided, abetted and perpetuated hoaxes engineered by irresponsible con-men like himself [...] He’s a pompous schoolyard bully [...] jackass..."

The point Marlow's trying to make is that I and those like me who no longer bother to debate issues with Andrew Breitbart and by now simply consider the source and reference that source in our criticism of him make statements that should be immediately dismissed -- all because we're employing what's widely considered to be an argumentative fallacy. Here's the thing, though: It's possible for someone to damage his or her reputation so profoundly that after a while it actually becomes acceptable to hammer the person rather than the argument he or she is making. In the case of Breitbart it works something like this: It isn't even necessary to fight with him anymore -- to try to refute his arguments and to debate him like he's an actual adult -- because he's fucked his credibility so entirely, over and over again, that for the most part his views don't even merit consideration. I didn't dislike Breitbart to begin with and now verbally beat up on him because of it; he's earned my derision over time and through a whole lot of inexcusable behavior, and that's made any viewpoint his name is attached to almost instantly suspect.

For the record -- and I've said this before, ironically in the very piece Marlow quoted from the Huffington Post -- I couldn't care less if Andrew Breitbart has an opinion different from mine. Not only is he entitled to believe whatever the hell he wants, he has every right to shout his beliefs from the highest rooftop and to poke those who disagree with him with a stick if that's what gets him off. Being a provocateur isn't a sin and, to his credit, Breitbart's very good at it. Just about everyone who does the online political pundit thing these days is partially in show business; it's the nature of the game. What separates Breitbart from the rest of the pack, though, is his blatant disregard for the facts and his willful lack of shame when it comes to perpetuating hoaxes that take a real-world toll on the innocent. I've said before that as a guy who makes a habit of pissing people off, I actually have a kind of fondness for him; I can certainly identify with that, even though I think Breitbart takes it to truly silly and juvenile depths and tends to behave like a cheap bully. But the crap he's pulled and perpetuated -- for me it began with his refusal to admit his complicity in James O'Keefe's ACORN tape fraud and culminated with the Shirley Sherrod lie -- tarnishes his ability to be taken seriously to the extent that it doesn't even make sense anymore, when addressing him and his behavior since, to waste your time dredging it all up.

It's easier to just say that he's full of shit -- and saying so is no longer an ad hominem attack or an argumentative fallacy, it's just reality. And I wasn't the one who made it that way. I didn't screw Breitbart's credibility -- he did.

Related: DXM: The Notorious "Big"/2.4.10

Post Mortem

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

It's one thing for the mainstream media to wrap both hands around Andrew Breitbart and clutch his doughy white ass while they fellate him, only to suddenly have second thoughts when the act inevitably makes them feel all icky. That's what the mass media are there for: to be hopelessly out of touch with reality. When ABC News embraced Breitbart a while back, infamously announcing that he would be part of the network's mid-term election coverage, then had second thoughts upon being reminded that Breitbart had time and time again proven himself to be an unscrupulous tool, it almost didn't seem like that much of a shock. But while the traditional press may have looked at a guy like Breitbart and only seen his SEO status and Q Score -- and therefore his potential to help it reach that elusive red meat crowd -- you'd think that those within the new media sphere who are intimately familiar with the guy's modus operandi would've known to stay the hell away from him.

Case in point: The Huffington Post.

There's been a hell of a lot of indignation of late aimed at HuffPo for its decision to allow Andrew Breitbart a platform on the left from which to spew his anti-left invective. The argument is that letting Breitbart into one of Progressive America's most powerful media strongholds (I always imagine him being like the Terminator casually wandering into the rebel hideout, sending the dogs into a frenzy then pulling his phased plasma rifle and opening fire on the hapless humans) isn't simply a case of magnanimously allowing for a dissenting opinion or for honest dialogue between two highly polarized political camps; it's a case of giving one of the right's most shamelessly avowed con men -- a guy whose reputation for trafficking in lies and perpetuating hoaxes is irrefutably documented -- credibility as something other than the pompous bullshit artist and schoolyard bully he is. I wish I could argue with this, because I really do think we should try to move past the ridiculous left-vs.-right ethos, but given his track record there should be no abiding Andrew Breitbart -- not by anyone seeking to have a legitimate adversarial debate based on facts.

So, no, Breitbart never should've been welcomed as an above-the-fold Huffington Post contributor (regardless of the fact that he had a hand in creating the publication). That said, the decision by HuffPo to now rescind that above-the-fold status -- to basically allow him to post at the site, just without the raised profile -- is almost too absurd to even comprehend. Just yesterday HuffPo said it stood behind its decision to give Breitbart the kind of spotlight that other, lesser-known contributors would kill for -- but today it's announcing an institutional change of heart. Why? Supposedly because this morning Andrew Breitbart unleashed a vicious "ad hominem" attack on Van Jones in the Daily Caller; in other words, Andrew Breitbart did exactly what Andrew Breitbart does. Once again, it's not like the people at HuffPo couldn't have predicted that Breitbart would at some point say something that would offend their sensibilities; he's made an entire career out of doing that. To claim that he hadn't stepped over the line until this very morning is laughably stupid -- or entirely disingenuous, which is more likely. The fact is that HuffPo was besieged by a hellacious backlash in the wake of its decision to put Breitbart on the front page and, well, it caved.

But why?

Why would the Huffington Post even bother to put Breitbart on the front page -- where he could thumb his nose at those whose belief system he's sought to destroy -- knowing that there would be a revolt, then yank him when the inevitable revolt happened?

Because now all they've done is given Andrew Breitbart exactly what he wanted: the ability to shout to everyone throughout his own online empire that those arrogant liberals try to quash the opinions of anyone who disagrees with them.

By the way, Van Jones is a good friend of Arianna's -- and what have we learned is the one rule of writing for the Huffington Post? You don't insult Arianna's friends. Can you imagine if that's really what this is all about: a pissing match between two very rich new media titans? How fucking shameful and tragic would that be -- and how far removed is that kind of nonsense from the lives of rest of us, the little people who take sides between these two?