Political Ruminations

Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43

Andrew Breitbart, Conservative Wingnut activist, responsible for much of the ongoing godawful craziness to be found festering in the modern Republican Party, died this morning of unknown causes. The New York Times:

Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger and activist who used
undercover video to bring discredit and disgrace to his liberal targets, died Thursday. He was 43.

Mr. Breitbart was as polarizing a figure as he was popular. Hailed by the political right as a truth-teller who exposed bias and corruption, he was derided by many on the left as a provocateur who played fast and loose with the facts to further his agenda.

“Fast and loose with the facts” is apparently New York Times speak for “the left thought Breitbart to be an outrageous liar and con-man.” And so he was.

Like Bob Cesca, I have nothing positive to say about Andrew Breitbart.

“Andrew Breitbart’s slash-and-burn pursuit of his own career destroyed countless lives and livelihoods. Innocent bystanders in the public debate — noncombatants as I sometimes call them — were crushed by Andrew’s mendacity, his obsessive careerism and his unethical business practices. Workers at ACORN and everyone who that organization sought to help have been crushed. The war against Planned Parenthood was started by Andrew Breitbart and that’s led to its defunding by both Congress and Komen. Who knows how many women will ultimately be hurt by Breitbart’s scams and prank videos. I have nothing positive to say about him.”

Adding....Breitbart’s reaction to the death of Ted Kennedy.

Image from the NYT: Andrew Breitbart at a DC rally in November 2011.
Photographer Nicholas Kamm/AFP — Getty Images

Updated: Breitbart blackmailing Congressman Weiner

Isn’t this illegal? News Hounds, emphasis mine:

But poor Breitbart – the guy who threatened to blackmail President Obama, the guy who hoped to bring down the institutional left in three weeks (more than a year ago) – is just so unfairly persecuted. “There’s a lot of vetting going on because even when you get a story airtight, they still attack you.”

Morning Quote: Chez Pazienza

Chez Pazienza on the Huffington Post-Andrew Breitbart debacle:

There's been a hell of a lot of indignation of late being 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.

Adding…..Arianna Huffington has apparently had a change of heart (or just caved due to the criticism), and while Breitbart is still allowed to post at Huffington Post, his tripe will no longer appear above the fold.

Adding more..... This does not change my mind about either Arianna or Huffpo. When she removes Breitbart completely, I'll reconsider.

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RELATED POSTS: Arianna Huffington Digs in Her Heels Over Calls to Ban Andrew Breitbart\

Opportunist Arianna Huffington Reverts to True Colors

Arianna Huffington Digs in Her Heels Over Calls to Ban Andrew Breitbart

Gah.

I did an opinion piece last week on this topic, and had no intention to revisit it, but in view of the wide publicity generated by this incident, felt that it deserved an update.

Arianna Huffington’s response to the legitimate criticism engendered by her decision to give the notorious Andrew Breitbart front page space on her site, was to refuse to ban Breitbart from the Huffington Post. Greg Sargent:

The Huffington Post is coming under mounting pressure from some on the left to stop giving Andrew Breitbart a front-page platform, with some wondering whether the granting of prime real estate to Breitbart signals that HuffPo is trying to broaden its ideological appeal.

But according to a statement sent my way, HuffPo will stand by Breitbart and continue publishing him. HuffPo spokesperson Mario Ruiz emails:

From the beginning, The Huffington Post has welcomed voices from all sides of the political spectrum, including conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz, Tom Coburn, Laura Ingraham, Bob Barr, George Pataki, David Frum, Byron York, Mary Matalin, and Ken Blackwell. The idea being that dialogue -- from a wide range of perspectives -- is preferable to silence. The fact that Andrew Breitbart’s first post on our site drew over 1,635 comments, conducted in a civil manner, seems to validate the premise and the decision to publish his blog post.

My take? That’s all very well and good, Arianna, but Breitbart has admitted his chicanery in the case of Shirley Sherrod. He is also responsible for the demise of ACORN, in concert with James O’Keefe and Hannah GIles.

Opportunist Arianna Huffington Reverts to True Colors

Well, now she’s done it.

As if many of us haven’t been saying for years that Huffington is a fake  Progressive, an opportunist in it for the money and fame, she had to go and prove us right, or at least make us feel like we were dead on right.

Arianna Huffington, formerly the Queen of the Liberal Political Kingdom online, has hired Conservative ideologue Andrew Breitbart, the same guy who spends so much of his time colluding with known con artist James O’Keefe, worked as an editor for the notorious Matt Drudge, worked for Ms. Huffington previously as a researcher, and helped her to launch The Huffington Post.

She not only hired him, she allowed him to use her site, her front page, to defend James O’Keefe’s latest scam video which targets NPR, a scam which resulted in a vote by the 112th Wingnut Congress to defund NPR.

FishbowlLA:

Big news. But we want to talk about something else. Andrew Breitbart is now blogging for Huffington Post. Here’s the first graph of his very first post.

The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.

Yes, not only is the conservative agitator now blogging on the formerly iconographic liberal website, he’s using the site to credit his propensity for “honest debate.”

Honest like taking out-of-context videos of Shirley Sherrod, putting them online and–knowingly mind you–falsely accusing her of being a racist?

Et tu, HuffPo?

Huffington, like one of her many contributors, Jane Hamsher, is an opportunist.

Like Huffington, Hamsher has also teamed up with a much despised Right Wing ideologue, Grover Norquist, and like Huffington, she has spent much of the first two years of the Obama presidency on various television shows, as well as on her website, shrieking about how President Obama is just not ever good enough. All that shrieking, as well as the blatant encouragement by Hamsher’s drones to sit out the election, contributed much to our huge losses in November 2010.

I don’t know about you, but at this point, I am unwilling to give Arianna Huffington and/or the right-leaning AOL, any more clicks than I absolutely have to.

She is so over.

March 24 UPDATE

Another Right Wing Hack

James O’Keefe, of ACORN fame, and other sundry scams.

MMFA shreds O’Keefe’s cred, which was already shredded, but said shredding clearly bears repetition:

Conservative activist James O'Keefe has released a video purporting to show an NPR executive making inflammatory comments to two people posing as members of a "Muslim Brotherhood front group." As has been the case in the past, conservative media outlets and blogs are hyping O'Keefe's video.

It's not clear why anyone would believe anything that O'Keefe says about what is seen in the video.

• O'Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge for entering Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans under false pretenses.

• O'Keefe falsely claimed that his ACORN tapes were a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" that implicated many ACORN employees. In at least six of the eight heavily edited videos, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit.

• Three separate investigations cleared ACORN workers of criminal wrongdoing, and a 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that O'Keefe's surreptitious videotaping may have broken laws in California and Maryland.

• O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart withheld an exculpatory ACORN video from Los Angeles for two months in late 2009, during the height of the ACORN frenzy.

• A September 18, 2009, New York Times article reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, said she "grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe asked Farkas to help deceptively "edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at the University of California at Los Angeles.

• In a 10-minute video posted on BigGovernment.com in June 2010, O'Keefe stated that he had been hired as a Census worker and attended two days of training. He said, "What I found were Census supervisors systematically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." The video includes clips of census leaders, who according to O'Keefe, "didn't seem to have a problem with the discrepancy" of the hours recorded on his time sheet versus the hours he claimed to have worked. O'Keefe omitted a clip that was later aired by ABC, which shows a census leader emphasizing the importance of accurately reporting on miles driven by census enumerators.

• O'Keefe reportedly planned to "seduce" and publically humiliate CNN investigative reporter Abbie Bourdeau. In an article posted at CNN.com, Bourdeau reported that when she arrived for an interview with O'Keefe, she was informed by O'Keefe's colleague Izzy Santa that O'Keefe planned to lure her aboard a boat where he would secretly record his attempts to "hit on her" using "strawberries and champagne." Boudreau reported that a document she obtained suggested O'Keefe would also use props including a "condom jar," Viagra, pornography, a ceiling mirror, and "fuzzy handcuffs." The document explained the motivation: "The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN. Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television." O'Keefe later claimed that he had been "repulsed" by the scenario laid out in the document when it was presented to him, and that it did not represent his actual plan for the interview.

Breitbart is Bloodthirsty

Matt Osborne, referring to Breitbart's reasons for going after Shirley Sherrod :

Breitbart tasted blood early with ACORN, and liked it. He’s been trying to repeat that feeling ever since. He likes it.

Andrew Breitbart Served at CPAC

The New York Times reported today that Shirley Sherrod filed suit, and Breitbart was served at CPAC, emphasis mine:

Andrew Breitbart, the owner of several conservative Web sites, was served at the conference on Saturday with a lawsuit filed by Shirley Sherrod, the former Agriculture Department employee who lost her job last year over a video that Mr. Breitbart posted at his site biggovernment.com.

The video was selectively edited so that it appeared Ms. Sherrod was confessing she had discriminated against a farmer because he was white. In the suit, which was filed in Washington on Friday, Ms. Sherrod says the video has damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work.

Mr. Breitbart said in a statement that he “categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech.”

Fine. Protect the creep’s right to free speech, and charge him with cyberstalking.

Jamie at Intoxination:

What’s funny is if you follow Breitbart on Twitter, there’s been more than one instance where someone says something about him and he threatens a lawsuit. He’s a typical right-wing thug, that thinks he has constitutional protections, yet people he disagrees with don’t.

I wish Mrs. Sherrod all the best, and I sincerely hope that she is able to teach Breitbart a well deserved lesson in respecting the rights of others.

VIDEO: Maddow and Letterman on Andrew Breitbart and Fox News

Maddow and Letterman take apart Fox News and Andrew Breitbart, and go on to discuss the state of cable news in general. Really good piece.

VIDEO: In his own words ~ Andrew Breitbart loves him some terrorists

MoveOn.org

Cartoon of the Week: Sherrod vs Fox News

A week that began with Andrew Breitbart and Fox Network spewing lies regarding a low level USDA official, Shirley Sherrod, and ended with Mrs. Sherrod as the absolute victor. FTW.

Via Slate

VIDEO: Andrew Breitbart Confession

In this "unedited" video, Andrew Breitbart stands before an audience and admits to all manner of interesting things such as doing crack cocaine during the birth of his children, having sexual issues, being a narcissist and finally, at the end of the video, states

“I'm kind of a fraud.”

Today's Republican Witnittery in Brief

I did not make that word up, I think maybe Bob Cesca has that honor. At least he isn’t comparing himself to Shakespeare..snicker…

To the point. Having been offline most of the day, I haven’t had time to post, so for my benefit and maybe yours, I’m going to do a summary of the day’s events in Republican Nitwittery. [this might be a regular feature as I get busier with moving]

--->> Andrew Breitbart, the Republican thug who perpetrated the ACORN video hoax last year, has struck again.

A new video, a new accusation, and USDA appointee, Shirley Sherrod, is forced to resign. The White House denies any involvement, and the farmer’s wife defends Sherrod. Sherrod and Eloise Spooner [the farmer’s wife]on CNN today

It turns out to be another hoax by Breitbart.

--->> Only two Republicans voted to extend unemployment benefits for 2.5 million Americans today.

Democrats broke the filibuster, which had been ongoing since the end of May, when Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) was sworn in to temporarily replace Sen. Robert Byrd in the Senate. The bill passed, 60-40, with Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins joining the Democrats to vote for the bill.

--->> Would it be a good political move for House Republicans to join Bachmann’s Tea Party caucus?

The pundits weigh in.

I may be updating later.