The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Hanging With Breitbart

Posted on | April 21, 2011 | 3 Comments

We must all hang together or surely we shall all hang separately, so this evening I’ll be hanging out at a reception in Washington, DC, to celebrate the publication of Andrew Breitbart’s new book Righteous Indignation. Let’s hope Martin Bashir doesn’t show up to pester the guest of honor.

Breitbart points out the obvious: “You’re trying to insinuate that I’m a racist here, which is what MSNBC does to conservatives every single day.” What Bashir is doing is engaging in what I call the mala fides attack: Rather than discussing policy or politics, let’s just accuse the other side of acting on malicious motives.

In point of fact, it doesn’t make an iota of difference whether Breitbart is a “racist,” define the term however you will. If tomorrow, it were revealed that Breitbart is in fact the Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, that disclosure would have no relevance to whether his statements about politics or policy are true or false. By attempting to depict Breitbart as a racist, however, Bashir seeks to pre-emptively discredit Breitbart, so that the MSNBC audience is given the clear message: “Don’t believe anything he says — he’s one of Them!”

And this is what liberalism has been reduced to: The politics of demonization, the argument that you should vote Democrat not because Democrats have better policies, but because Republicans are bad people. So you’re paying over $4 a gallon for gas, you’re unemployed, you’re underwater on your mortgage and there is no near-term prospect for improvement — but you can congratulate yourself on your moral superiority, because at least you never voted Republican!

Category: Andrew Breitbart, MSNBC

Comments

Comments are closed.