The Other McCain

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

NBC Interviews Breitbart

Posted on | July 22, 2010 | 20 Comments

First, I would object to this headline:

Blogger: It’s about NAACP, not fired worker

Andrew Breitbart is not just a “blogger.” Not to be derogatory of the blogosphere, but Breitbart is New Media mogul who may yet prove to have the kind of revolutionary influence in the online world that Rush Limbaugh had in talk radio and Roger Ailes had in cable news. The headline would have worked just as well with his name:

Breitbart: It’s about NAACP, not fired worker

But I suppose someone at NBC didn’t want to suggest that Breitbart is becoming so famous — or notorious, if you insist — that his name has celebrity recognition value. With that quibble noted, here’s the video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At this point I believe it is generally accepted, even by Breitbart, that he jumped too hard on the Shirley Sherrod video, claiming that it proved things that it did not prove. Still, as he says, his target was the NAACP’s outrageous blanket accusation of racism against the Tea Party movement.

Andrew Breitbart has at least succeeded in getting those “progressives” who are now attacking him to grant an important premise: Unfair accusations of racism are a very bad thing.

That’s one happy ending of l’affaire Sherrod — who has been offered another job by the Department of Agriculture and offered an apology by the White House — and there are more moral-of-the-story takeaways to this week’s Breitbart-induced teachable moment, which played out in an interesting online tango with the not-entirely-unrelated Journolist saga:

  • Online media have a powerful impact — You may say. “Well, duh,” but between them, Breitbart and the Daily Caller grabbed hold of the news-space this week in a spectacular way.
  • The Obama administration is running scared — According to Sherrod, after Breitbart posted the video, she was hounded by phone calls from her bosses at USDA, one of whom finally told her she must resign because Glenn Beck was going to air the video on his show that evening. (Which, in fact, he did not.) Remember that Sherrod’s USDA bailiwick is Georgia, and where former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes is seeking a comeback this year. Don’t you think that the Barnes campaign and other Georgia Democrats recognized the explosive potential of the Sherrod video? Democrats can still win statewide elections down South, but they can’t win them without a respectable showing among rural white voters and the immediate impression created by the Sherrod video (which we now know was unfairly edited) was anathemic to any such prospect. I’ll bet Roy Barnes made at least one call to his friend Tom Vilsack during all this.
  • Democrats don’t think they can win without the race card — This is where the Sherrod affair really intersects with the Daily Caller’s Journolist revelations. Why were members of Journolist so eager to kill the Rev. Wright story in April 2008? If the story of the “G–d– America” preacher had torpedoed Obama’s campaign during the Democratic primaries, the result would have been that Hillary Clinton got the Democratic nomination. Yet the Journolisters viewed such an outcome as unacceptable, even though Hillary’s “progressive” bona fides are as solid as Obama’s. (She did her senior thesis at Wellesley about Saul Alinksy, remember?) The obvious explanation is that the Journolisters perceived that Obama’s race would function as a sort of political Kryptonite against the GOP, so that liberals could automatically accuse Republicans of racism merely for opposing Obama.

Wasn’t the constant playing of the race card by Team Obama what finally disgusted the Hillary-supporting PUMAs like Cynthia Yockey and HillBuzz? And over the first 18 months of the Obama administration, we have seen this race-card Kryptonite tactic employed over and over again.

Oppose the stimulus bill? Raaaaacist! Oppose civilian trial in Manhattan for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Raaaaacist! Oppose the health-care bill? Raaaaacist! In the Era of Hope and Change, there is no political controversy, major or minor, which Democrats will not use as an opportunity to play the race card.

Since I’m currently en route to an undisclosed location (this is advance-posted) let me direct you to “Why Can’t Media Matters Read?” Also, ABC News has an exclusive interview with Breitbart, but not yet the Diane Sawyer interview alluded to previously.

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Racism

Andrew Breitbart: ‘I Have to Take This Call, I Think It’s Diane Sawyer’

Posted on | July 22, 2010 | 30 Comments

That’s how my phone call to the man concluded today. When he answered, I heard him say to whoever he was with, “This is what it’s been like today.” And then, “Hello?”

He’s on my speed-dial, but I’m not on his.

“How’s it going, Andrew?”

“Stacy, what’s going on?”

A conversation ensued and, since there was no time to clarify whether we were on or off the record, I’ll say only that (a) he had just gotten off the phone with Bill Plante of CBS News, (b) Breitbart is planning a four-day camping trip this weekend, and (c) we had only been talking a minute when he signed off as per the headline.

Do not envy the famous. It’s not easy being Andrew Breitbart.

Dan Riehl has a good defense of Breitbart today. Of course, it’s not easy being Dan Riehl, either, but at least Dan doesn’t have to deal with network news anchors calling him all the time. It’s hard enough for Dan that I’m calling him all the time.

Category: Andrew Breitbart

Oh, Joy! Guess What the Journolisters Had to Say About Sarah Palin?

Posted on | July 22, 2010 | 55 Comments

Jonathan Strong is back with more delightful disclosures of progressive groupthink:

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. . . .
The tone was more campaign headquarters than newsroom.
The conversation began with a debate over how best to attack Sarah Palin. “Honestly, this pick reeks of desperation,” wrote Michael Cohen of the New America Foundation in the minutes after the news became public. “How can anyone logically argue that Sarah Pallin [sic], a one-term governor of Alaska, is qualified to be President of the United States? Train wreck, thy name is Sarah Pallin.” . . .
“What a joke,” added Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker. “I always thought that some part of McCain doesn’t want to be president, and this choice proves my point. Welcome back, Admiral Stockdale.” . . .

(For younger readers, that’s a reference to third-party candidate Ross Perot’s not-ready-for-prime-time running mate in 1992.)

Ryan Donmoyer, a reporter for Bloomberg News who was covering the campaign, sent a quick thought that Palin’s choice not to have an abortion when she unexpectedly became pregnant at age 44 would likely boost her image because it was a heartwarming story.
“Her decision to keep the Down’s baby is going to be a hugely emotional story that appeals to a vast swath of America, I think,” Donmoyer wrote.
Politico reporter Ben Adler, now an editor at Newsweek, replied, “but doesn’t leaving sad baby without its mother while she campaigns weaken that family values argument? Or will everyone be too afraid to make that point?” . . .

(Paging Dr. Andrew Sullivan, OB-GYN!)

Time’s Joe Klein then linked to his own piece, parts of which he acknowledged [in his message to the list] came from strategy sessions on Journolist. “Here’s my attempt to incorporate the accumulated wisdom of this august list-serve community,” he wrote. And indeed Klein’s article contained arguments developed by his fellow Journolisters.

You can read the whole thing. It has been pointed out that most of the people participating in Journolist were not straight-news reporters. Toobin and Klein are pundits easily recognized as purveyors of liberal arguments. So in a way this is kind of like what might happen if some liberal got hold of Bill Kristol’s e-mail caches from 2002 and tried to portray that as evidence of a Zionist neocon Fox News warmonger conspiracy — “Protocols of the Learned Elders of PNAC.”

Nevertheless, the Daily Caller’s Journolist revelations are valid evidence that the synchronicity of liberal media messaging during the 2008 campaign was not altogether coincidental.

UPDATE: Best Headline of the Day:

Salon Editor-in-Chief Accuses
Conservatives of Distorting Facts, Then
Has to Apologize for Distorting Facts

That shows classic Ace of Spades HQ influence. Not as good as this headline, but still very good. More relevant to Journolist, Ace gets in a couple of shots at Dave Weigel:

When Dave (“Who?”) Weigel wanted to bash conservatives about Palin, he asked why we were freaking out over Joe McGinnis invading her privacy, because “any journalist” would jump at that chance.
See, that’s the problem Dave: No they wouldn’t. How do I know this? Because they haven’t. Bill Clinton’s a big, important figure to write biographies about; how come no one’s renting the apartment across the street from his wink-wink “executive offices” in Harlem and peeking at him to see who visits him?
Same with Hillary. There are a lot of interesting subjects who’d sell a lot of biographies — and for all of them, the lurid promise of exxxtra special access!!! Spy footage!!! would sell even more copies.
So why, Dave, if this is something “all journalists” would jump to do, do they not… actually… do… it?
It’s because you’re wrong. Not “all journalists” would do this about their subjects. Not because they don’t want to sell more books. But because the peer disapproval from their like-minded liberal colleagues discourages them from spying on Hillary Clinton.
And they do it to Palin because none of them care if Palin’s privacy is invaded; in fact, they applaud it. Because she is “The Other.” She is inhuman — and you can treat her worse than an animal.

What Ace is saying — and you should definitely read the whole thing, because I’m hoping for the Ace-o-Lanche here and don’t want to be accused of not throwing the maximum traffic his way — is that there is a partisan double-standard in coverage. That is, in itself, neither new nor shocking. But reporters aren’t forced to confront their own biases because except for The Other (i.e., someone who can be automatically dismissed as a down-the-line Fox News/GOP shill) no one will call bullshit on them.

If all politicians with an “R” beside their names are presumed to be fundamentally illegitimate and unworthy of high office,  that premise supports a syllogism with certain conclusions, including:

  • Covering the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign with the idea of helping the candidate who seemed most able to defeat the Republican in November.
  • Covering the 2008 Republican presidential primary campaign with the idea of helping the candidate who seemed easiest for Democrats to defeat in November.
  • Covering the anti-Palin accusations of ax-grinding Alaska gadfly bloggers (Dennis Zaki, Jesse Griffin, et al.) as if they were legitimate news stories, while attempting to shut down coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
  • Treating the motives of Tea Party activists with an attitude of hostility and suspicion not applied to, inter alia, SEIU.

Again, I say, such behaviors are logical consequences of the premise that the Republican Party is inherently illegitimate. If you are a young liberal whose formative political experiences were the Lewinsky scandal, the 2000 Florida recount, the 2004 “Swift Boat” campaign, etc., then it may be very easy for you to buy into the belief that Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes — the “Right-Wing Noise Machine” — are the only reason Democrats lose elections. And because you don’t ever want those nasty Republicans in charge again, you consider it a matter of humanitarian philanthropy to move heaven and earth to stop Fox News and other conservative voices from influencing the mainstream media narrative.

Thus, the young Journolisters refuse to recognize any basic wrong in their efforts, because to undertake such a reappraisal might lead them to reconsider the validity of their political worldview.

What Ace calls the “Otherization” of conservatives is basic to liberal belief. Remember, I was an ethusiastic partisan Democrat who never questioned that affiliation until I was well into my 30s. Given this personal background, I want to believe that it is possible to change hearts and minds, to persuade Ezra Klein and his smart young friends to re-evaluate their political commitments.

And if they choose instead to remain loyal liberals, then we should emulate Ronald Reagan — another ex-Democrat — in saying that the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they need their heads smashed through a plate-glass window.

Uh, your mileage may vary.

UPDATE II: From the comments, on the “distinction without a difference” between pundits and reporters, which is not fully perceived by many TV viewers:

When Jeffrey Toobin is pontificating on CNN (when he’s not cheating on his wife), my elderly family members view him as another straight news reporter.

Or, at least, as a political analyst, rather than as a partisan hack. And this is an important point about television as a medium. I’ve remarked that the best spokesman the Obama campaign had in 2008 was the Allstate Man. If you don’t get that point, you should read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Meanwhile, Jimmie Bise takes a snapshot of the bleeding mess that is Journolist, and I remind people that “smart” is not a partisan affiliation.

Category: Media Bias, Sarah Palin

Lindsay Lohan Begins Serving Life Without Parole Two Weeks in Jail

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 22 Comments

She’s not a victim:

With a thick glass partition separating them, Lindsay Lohan received her first visitor in jail – her attorney.
“Understandably, Lindsay’s having a difficult time adjusting as it would be for anyone,” Shawn Chapman Holley told PEOPLE after the brief visit with her client Tuesday. “She’s trying to make the necessary adjustments to an extremely stressful and difficult situation. There were some tears.”

Boo hoo. Let Merle Haggard explain something very basic:

“I turned 21 in prison
Doing life without parole.
No one could steer me right, but Mama tried.
Mama tried to raise me better,
But her pleading I denied.
That leaves only me to blame, ’cause Mama tried.”

We all fail from time to time and, no matter how often I succeed, every time I fall short of my own expectations or disappoint others, the sense of failure is psychologically devastating. So why do I sometimes seem so unsympathetic to my fellow losers and screw-ups?

Because misguided sympathy can be a poison.

Everyone must come to grips with and make sense of their own failures. Excuse-making, blame-shifting, scapegoating — “It wasn’t my fault!” — prevents us from learning the lessons of our failures. If it wasn’t really our fault, there’s no need for us to change and improve and strive to prevent repetition of the failure.

Persistently attempting to externalize blame for our own failures is a recipe for moral disaster. Offering criminals ready-made scapegoats for their resentments and excuses for their crimes is neither merciful nor “tolerant.”

Other people with far fewer advantages than Lindsay Lohan have overcome far worse problems than she’s ever experienced. Like Merle said, that leaves only her to blame for her “extremely stressful and difficult situation.”

Category: Celebrities, Crime

Irony Alert: Eric Boehlert Is an Expert on What Is ‘Ugly and Contemptible’

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 77 Comments

“. . . that didn’t stop him from launching the smear campaign. And that’s what Andrew Breitbart and Fox News and the right-wing media does. They’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s sort of ugly and contemptible, and if he had any decency, he’d apologize to Shirley Sherrod. He’d also stop with this incessant race-baiting that we’ve seen.”
— Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America

Much, much more at Memeorandum, including an ill-considered anti-Breitbart piece by David Frum and a kind of wishy-washy piece by Jonah Goldberg.

A couple of points: First, Andrew Breitbart didn’t fire Shirley Sherrod; Tom Vilsack did. Secondly, according to Steve Doocy, “Fox News never mentioned the story until after Sherrod had quit” — and if Doocy is right, as Dan Riehl says, the administration’s pre-emptive Blame-Fox excuse is non-operative.

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, Media Bias, Racism

Is This What They Mean By
‘Junk In The Trunk’?

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

The Puffington Host reports the cover for Stacy’s cousin’s book has been released:

TFA states that she “writes about her experiences on the campaign trail, how the party veered so far off track, why she is still a Republican, and more.”

This blog applauds the way Meghan has courageously gone to that traveling trunk and torn through that layer of junk at the bottom.

So many people, tragically, just meander through life, piling up the old luggage full of boarding passes; travel guides; foreign coinage; that other blue sock with the white argyle pattern whose purportedly solitary mate was thrown out roughly two years ago; food wrappers from that teeny bit of cheating on the diet; un-mailed post cards written out to that handsome fellow in Ibiza who turned out to be such a cad (though clearly not a hockey cad!); even *gasp* the voodoo doll for–

People need closure. This book promises to be exactly the sort of purging Meghan and, yes, even the GOP, so desperately need, as they desperately seek some form of irrigation for their closure — some epistemic tsunami, if you will, that can expunge the collective trunks and mental cobwebs full of old nonsense holding back progress.

We’re pulling for you, Meghan. In the vast intellectual tug of war, we’ve got the moral equivalent of a towing hawser hitched up to that trunk, and gang of impressed lackeys heaving around trying to move that overloaded junk container in some useful direction.

Keep up the great work and fantastic leadership, Meghan; we need you, lady.

Further reading at Left Coast Rebel

Category: Republicans

Election ’08: Virtual High-Fives and Online Obamagasms for Journolist

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 7 Comments

As previously noted, the Daily Caller must have the complete Journolist archives, and now they share the unsurprisingly ecstatic Election Night reactions from?progressives.

UPDATE: Instapundit has been a one-man aggregator of all things Journolist the past couple of days. James DeLong’s point that reporters on the list might be accused of “hijacking” the publications that paid their salaries is solid.

That everybody and his dog is currently commenting on this story is one reason I haven’t done much blogging on the subject.

UPDATE II: My American Spectator colleague John Tabin:

Particularly disturbing is Spencer Ackerman saying it’s a good idea to hurl bad-faith accusations of racism. . . . We’re talking about a guy who was fired from The New Republic after starting a blog called “Too Hot for TNR” to denounce his employer. He then took a flamethrower to all his bridges by airing gripes about all his coworkers.

Think about a kid fresh out of college who lands a job at The New Republic — a real plum gig, starting out the career climb so far above the lower rungs of the journalism ladder — and then bites the hand that feeds him, so as to get fired within two years for insubordination.

This kind of arrogance, which transcends political categories, is quite common among young writers. They are very aware of their own intelligence and abilities, but fail to recognize that brains and eloquence are no substitute for knowledge and experience. Having previously succeeded spectacularly by virtue of superior IQ, they resent having to “pay their dues” doing journalistic scutwork and become impatient for glory. The Internet (and especially blogging) makes such glory-seeking  easier and, by the time the Young Turk wises up to his errors, he’s burned more bridges that Sherman’s Army.

Category: Barack Obama, Media Bias

The Case of the Fake Kosher Sausage

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 31 Comments

Impersonating a Jew for carnal purposes:

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.
Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not “a classical rape by force,” the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.
The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. “If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated,” they added.

Obtaining sex “under false pretences” is a crime in Israel? It’s against the law in Israel to get sex by feigning interest in “a serious romantic relationship”? OK, you bachelors out there, let’s have a show of hands: How many of you guys have ever lied to get some nookie?

Everybody? I thought so.

Just don’t try that in Jerusalem, buddy. And let this be a lesson to you Israeli ladies: Just because a goyim tells you it’s kosher . . .

(Via Memeorandum. More at Da Tech Guy.)

Category: Crime, Israel, Sex
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