Dammit, dammit, dammit. Anthony Weiner Admits He Tweeted Lewd Photos, Will Not Resign:
“Last Friday night I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle,” he said, fighting back tears. “Once I realized I had posted to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said I had been hacked. I then continued to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.”
.jpg "Andrew Breitbart")
Andrew Breitbart. Image from Wikipedia. Click to view source.
Anthony Weiner apparently doesn’t know the difference between an @reply and a DM. (This link is for you, Anthony. Go forth and learn.) You know what really annoys me about this? We will never hear the end of this from Andrew Breitbart.
Look, folks, I need to talk to you about Andrew Breitbart, why I hate him, and why I take his delusions of journalism personally.
Breitbart runs a number of websites including Big Government, Big Hollywood, Breitbart.tv, and a few others. You can find them from Breitbart.com if you’re so inclined. The guy is basically a tabloid reporter, churning out the kind of crap you’d expect from, say, the Enquirer. He deals strictly in sensationalism and lies, by which I mean to say, if he can’t find something tawdry enough to spew, he just makes it up. See Shirley Sherrod for an example of Breitbart’s work.
Breitbart’s reputation is so shoddy that when news broke about Anthony Weiner, most of us automatically disregarded it simply because it had come from Breitbart.
Okay, now, granted, those of us who are big fans of Weiner tend to be pretty loyalist. (I am totally a big fan of Weiner, by the way. So’s my boyfriend, Jim.) It’s hard not to get behind a progressive politician with a great big swinging set of huevos. (As is apparently evidenced by some of the pictures. Haven’t seen ‘em myself, but I’m told Anthony’s got nothing to be ashamed of.) I mean, check out the video here. How can you not love a guy who does that? Particularly after years of being force-fed bland, gutless democrats?
So, yes, a lot of us were willing to leap to Weiner’s defense because he’s awesome, but we also all know that if Andrew Breitbart says the sky is blue and the sun is shining, we should take an umbrella with us when we step out the door.
Media Matters has a 2010 article on Breitbart’s involvement in the trumped-up ACORN scandal, among other things:
Breitbart threatened to release more tapes during election unless DOJ investigates ACORN.During the November 19, 2009, edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Breitbart offered a “message” for Attorney General Eric Holder:
BREITBART: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle. Or else, if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution, that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes. If you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.
Following up on his comments with a November 21, 2009, blog post on BigGovernment.com, Breitbart stated, “There will be consequences if there isn’t an investigation into ACORN. The videos will be shown and at a particular moment.”
Note that we’re talking about James O’Keefe’s edited-especially-to-look-bad ACORN pimp videos, here. Breitbart’s got a thing about video that’s been edited to show something that didn’t actually happen, by the way. (Shirley Sherrod, again.) So, basically, what Breitbart said is that if the government didn’t launch an investigation, he’d trump up some more false, sensationalist video to make people look bad during the elections. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s called “blackmail,” and last time I checked, it’s a crime.
Breitbart’s been up to more shenanigans since then. Check this out: Breitbart Starts Big Push To “Go After Teachers” With His Trademark Deception.
A week after [Andrew Breitbart] promised to “go after the teachers and the union organizers,” his website BigGovernment.com started running a series of choppy, heavily edited videos taken from labor studies courses taught at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The posts promoting these videos claim, among other things, that the professors “instruct students on how fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools,” and that they teach their students that the US flag is “racist.”
[...]
1.) Big Government Edited A Rejection Of Violent Tactics To Make It Sound Like An Endorsement
The opening to Big Government’s first video, “Thuggery 101,” quotes Professor Don Giljum to make it sound as if he recommends that unions use violent tactics.
Andrew Breitbart has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can’t be trusted. He can’t be believed. So the fact that he was actually right about Anthony Weiner’s Twitter pics? Sheer luck. Folks, if you throw enough shit at the wall, eventually some of it will stick.
Lots of people in the media are liars. (*coughFOXNEWScough*) I don’t take them personally, though. The reason why I take Andrew Breitbart personally is that after proving himself a duplicitous, self-aggrandizing, attention-whoring liar again and again and again, he still gets treated by some media outlets as though he is a legitimate news source.
- One Year After Debunking Breitbart’s “Slander,” CNN Welcomes Him Back As Newsmaker
- Andrew Breitbart blogs at Huffington Post
Seriously, what does this guy have to do to get discredited? Kill orphans? And now that the stopped clock managed to be right once, we’ll never be shed of him.
Related articles
- Weiner May be More of a Hero Than Andrew Breitbart (woodgatesview.wordpress.com)
- Weird Gets Weirder (talkingpointsmemo.com)
- Rep. Anthony Weiner Admits Sending Pictures; Apologizes. But first, Andrew Breitbart hijacked the press conference. (crooksandliars.com)
- Andrew Breitbart: New Woman Comes Forward Who Claims More Weiner Shots (mediaite.com)
- Andrew Breitbart Puts the Shake On Congressman At Hijacked Presser (theawl.com)
- Andrew Breitbart: ‘I Didn’t Know That (Weiner) Was Going To Fess Up’ (mediaite.com)
- Quote of the Week (Obviously) (deusexmalcontent.com)
- Andrew Breitbart: X-Rated Weiner Photo In My Possession (huffingtonpost.com)
- Right-wing gadfly Breitbart stings again in Weinergate (cnn.com)
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