Sullivan gives Breitbart an award for demanding that O’Keefe explain himself- because it takes real courage to stand up to a planned sexual attack. Real profile in courage, that Breitbart. Let me guess, Sully- I bet Breitbart has also taken bold stances against child rape, slavery, and the Holocaust. And I’m not even going to get into the ludicrous notion that we should be looking to lunatics for critiques of the media.
But while we’re demanding explanations, does Breitbart want to tell us yet where he got the videotape of Shirley Sherrod, and why he decided to run it without having seen the whole speech?
Derelict
Maybe DimBart can also explain just how it was that he came to push O’Queef’s ACORN tape without properly vetting it.
But who are we kidding? DimBart is now in integral part of the Wurlitzer. The next trumped-up piece of racist bullshit he produces will be eagerly taken up by the media and hyped until it becomes obvious how bogus it is. And the same will apply to the piece after that. And the piece after that.
scav
I’m rather enjoying the idea of de-maning explanations and I can’t exactly explain coherently why (Oh, you think you’re a big beefy tough rationale on a boat o!Keefster, well, watch this! <twist>), I’ve clearly lost it. . .
ETA: O’Queef? like it! how bout O’Queeg?
Trentrunner
Also note how Breitbart rejecting O’Keefe’s ambush positions Breitbart as moderate and reasonable.
And Sullivan falls for it.
Uloborus
‘No.’
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
I don’t hate Daily Dish, I often like Sullivan’s writing, and I like the funny links and excellent writing about the Catholic church.
But part of the reason I added all those reader blogs was to help myself stop reading Daily Dish. Those “Yglesias awards” and what-not were making my head hurt.
General Stuck
Oh yea, The dread “Democrat Media Complex” if you look hard enough, can be found deep within Candy Crowley’s furrowed brow.
Three-nineteen
This quote perfectly explains Breitbart’s thinking. He hates ACORN and Landrieu, so O’Keefe’s tactics were fine then. But now, O’Keefe has targeted someone Breitbart likes, and that just won’t do.
BombIranForChrist
I am so with you, John.
Breitbert obviously jumped the shark with his last escapade, and he knows it, so he is now using the recent O’Keefe escapade to try to massage his image a bit, as if to say, “See, I’m not a crazy person, I denounced O’Keefe’s crazy antics”! And Sully is giving him cover.
Sully, as usual, is being dragged around the intellectual landscape by his immediate emotional impulse at any given second in time.
MattF
Breitbart ‘demanding an explanation’ is just… Well. I’m even willing to suppose that he finds O’Keefe’s behavior gross and offensive, as he says he does. But how does he manage that without finding his own behavior gross and offensive… Hmm?
Amanda in the South Bay
This is why I hate Sully and his minions so much. For all of the criticism of the modern conservative movement and the GOP that they do, they always engage in intellectual shenanigans in order to, however convoluted, in order to…not quite divorce themselves from the GOP and the modern conservative movement. Its like battered person syndrome.
jl
Should the scam artist mentor get any credit when the scam artist mentor shoves his scam artist protégé out the door after the scam artist protégé incompetently blows up a particularly vile and stupid scam?
Sounds like a good topic for discussion in an intro ethics class.
I say Breitbart should get a little credit. Let’s all chip in and send him 1 (one) buck toward a can of those non hybrid seeds flacked on Beck’s show, with a note that we hope they come in handy in the near future.
Edit: see, always try to be constructive. On the down side, little Andrew will likely get poor marks in my propsed class exercise.
Corner Stone
I say we continue “Demaning” things til Gloria Allred tells us it’s ok to stop.
Kryptik
Weren’t we told that the Shirley Sherrod fiasco was supposed to totally taint Breitbart’s credibility with the media, since he insulted their intelligence?
What happened to that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: So is it a typo in the word “demanding’ or the word “demeaning?”
ETA: There is something almost Yglesian about it.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: could also be de-maning or de-manning (I’m hoping I manage to convey the different body parts removed in those two alternatives). . .
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: “De-manning”.
Clearly, us men can never fail we can only be failed.
WereBear
For them to criticize each other is a symptom of just how crazed they have gotten; they shrug off so many moments and decisions that would be too much for Captain Obvious, that I think ones they choose to denounce are indicative of fruitful ground.
Bordo
What I laughed at was Breitfart’s suggestion that James O’Whiteboy III has “legions” of fans. In what alternative universe would that be?
I wish Ms. Boudreau had an older brother who could defend her honor by punching this skinny little shithead right in the face. O’Whiteboy has earned a serious ass-kicking. He’s such a wimpy little pussy even I could kick his scrawny ass…and I’m old. Of course, being a typical conservative WATB, anyone who gave this creep the beating he deserves probably would be sued into oblivion. That’s how the faux macho rightwingers roll.
arguingwithsignposts
Tell me again WTF the Matt Yglesias Award even means? And that statement from Breitbart is about as “non-apology” as it gets.
Jay S
@Kryptik: “What happened to that?”
We are seeing “G. Gordon Liddy” style redemption now done in internet time. Now available for serial offenders. We can hope the lather rinse and repeat cycles take a little longer the more often they step in it, but really, do you expect people to remember past last yesterday? Oh look, theres a new bright and shiny over there!
Yutsano
What. The. Fuck. Over.
Breitbart’s statement is pure garbage. I’d even lay out money he didn’t write it himself but paid some intern. His name started getting dragged into the O’Keefe fiasco so he sees the need for damage control. This may yet backfire, since this could lead to what he knew and when he knew it. O’Keefe isn’t clever enough to come up with ideas like this on his own. I smell a plausible deniability trail.
Bella Q
@BombIranForChrist:
That point sums up much of why the Daily Dish has come to give me headaches, in spite of some of the wit. That and his misunderstanding that science is about belief. Sigh.
Ben JB
@arguingwithsignposts: The Yglesias Award is for people who take strong stands against their own partisan side. It’s basically the “Oh, you’re not a partisan hack, you’re intellectually honest” gold star.
Now, I like Sullivan’s Daily Dish (though I disagree with it often), but I’m amazed at how his Yglesias award-nominated quotes from conservatives are always full of attacks on the other side. It’s almost always like, “I demand an explanation from O’Keefe, who helped to show that Democrats are the real racists” or “I can never know what’s in our Kenyan President’s Muslim heart, but I support his position on NASA.”
To my ears, it sounds like Sullivan is trying for a modicum of partisan balance for the Yglesias Award (“one for the Dems, one for the Repubs”) but that it’s really hard to find a conservative who is capable of getting out a sentence without a “Wolverines!” here and there.
Comrade Kevin
Breitbart started out with the shark pre-jumped.
joe from Lowell
@Derelict:
No, Breitbart’s toxic. He shot himself in the foot. It’s been months since the Sherrod episode, and he’s been hyping stories ever since.
Nobody in the real media will touch him anymore.
joe from Lowell
@Kryptik:
It happened. Have you seen any Breitbart stories in the real media lately? I sure haven’t.
eemom
In TBogg’s “Manlove” piece the other day he posted a tweet where Breitfart threatened libel against somebody who said he supported O’Keefe.
I thought it was pretty interesting that “libel” was the first thing to pop into Breit’s, um, brain. I sure hope Shirley Sherrod’s lawyers are doing their job and quietly scaring the shit out of him behind the scenes before actually filing a lawsuit.
Keith G
Ah, come on. Give Sully a break. His brain is still sloshing around after he tried a
mano a manoManolo a Manolo with Glen re: the legality of presidential assassination orders.http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/02/assassinations/index.html
Svensker
@BombIranForChrist:
Thank you for summing up what drives me nuts about the Sullster. Exactly right.
DonBoy
Breitbart: “I also defended him when the media, including CNN — during a previous regime, “the Rick Sanchez era” – falsely reported the Sen. Mary Landrieu story as a “wiretapping” plot gone wrong. ”
Awesome. Did you know that the reason CNN’s “previous regime” said something Breitbart didn’t like was that their President at the time — Jonathan Klein — was an anti-Semite? It couldn’t be clearer!
wmd
I don’t see any comments about the hilarious typo in the headline.
While we’re De-man-ing explanations?
That would be O’keefe we’re De-man-ing, correct?
Omnes Omnibus
@wmd: Scroll up, dude. The mockery is there.
wmd
@Omnes Omnibus:
Missed comments 14 and 15 somehow.
Funny stuff!
Bella Q
@joe from Lowell:
There shouldn’t be any, but then Bill Maher shouldn’t call him “a journalist” and put him on a panel either. That’s kind of a tacit (at my most generous to Maher) endorsement of credibility. About which I’m still pissed.
aimai
@Jay S:
Good point. I thought I’d seen all this before. We’ve gotten through incident/confession/absolution/tv show in record time. I can’t wait until O’Keefe gets his own candid camera. Don’t you know he’s just modeled himself on Ali G?
aimai
aimai
@joe from Lowell:
I’m wondering whether that isn’t the real meaning behind his careful phrasing that Abby whatever her name was was a “good journalist” and that he, Breitbart, had personal knowledge of her ok’ness so that made O’Keefe’s actions wrong. I assume that what that means is that Breitbart knows that this O’Keefe thing has the possibility of making O’Keefe and Breitbart and that whole set just toxic to interviewers and to TV in general. Its one thing to be known as a joker who fucks with black people, or poor people–its another if the interviewer and her staff won’t have you on for fear of you attacking and sliming them.
Essentially, Breitbart was always able to have it both ways (a la Bernie Goldberg) which is to say he attacked the media genteely. You could have lunch with him, you could invite him on to your show and be sure that he would mostly train his guns away from you. O’Keefe crossed the invisible line by turning on the interviewer herself, in such a creepy way. Since attention is the lifeblood of these guys they really have fucked up because now no one wants to be in the room with them. No interviews means no friendly air time. They get shunted to the level of stock footage clips and voice over commentary and they know just how vulnerable they are when they can’t control that kind of media coverage.
aimai
Blotto von Bismarck
I think that we need to put O’Keefe in the stocks, and let the public throw eggs at him. Every liberal who throws an egg at O’Keefe is a rabid partisan; every conservative who throws an egg at O’Keefe is bipartisan.
quaint irene
I’m demanding somebody arrest this little punk’s ass. He violated his parole at least once.
stuckinred
@quaint irene: Screw arresting him, someone needs to kick his narrow fucking ass.
Mona
Sing it, brother John. The notion that Breitbart merits some sort of respect for a tactical decision to distance himself from O’Keefe is puke-inducing. Notwithstanding all of BigBart’s railing against the “Democrat media,” he wants to remain a talking head on TeeVee and major pundit-player; thus he cannot afford to be seen as approving plans for a (truly disgusting and juvenile) ambush of a CNN “journalist.”
different church-lady
I notice down the right side of Sully’s page is the following link:
… and without even clicking through, I’m thinking, “Wow, this is gonna be a backboard shattering slam dunk for somebody. Why does she set herself up like this?”
bryanD
Breitbart is in psychic pain because his boy ward, O’Keefe, has exposed them all to The Google as homosexual guerrillas and dildo shoppers who had to trust some double-crossing Martians for advice on how to seduce wimmenz of Earth Planet.
And that’s where Sullivan’s empathy comes in, maybe.
(At times like this, Drudge really can really appreciate his own agoraphobia)
Keith
I know he took a pretty bold stance on children being forced to be soldiers.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Even a triple murderer will beat the crap out of a rapist or child molester in prison. There are some things even a sociopath won’t sink to.
(Though I think this is all just CYA by Breitbart. He doesn’t give a shit what O’Keefe was planning, only that it now reflects badly on him.)
IM
And indeed Brad Delong already called Mcardle wrong and dishonest.
joe from Lowell
@Bella Q: Bill Maher has all kinds of cranks on his panel.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. Pretty much this.
Bex
@41 different church lady
Economic modeling is in a sad state. Did you see where one of the girls fell off her five inch heels, broke her ankle and tumbled to the bottom of the Laffer Curve?
arguingwithsignposts
@Bex:
With obvious effects on her Pareto Efficiency.
Jay S
@aimai: I think O’Keefe aspires to Daily Show fake interview competition rather than Candid Camera. He’s like a humorless Jason Jones. Perfect for Fox News Red Eye.
The Republic of Stupidity
But you have to admit… O’Keefe did manage to come up w/ something so odious that even Breitbart was forced to back away from it… and that’s well-near neigh impossible, no?
This brings up the faaaaaaaaaaascinating prospect that Jimmy, in a desperate, Hail Mary attempt to regain his mojo, is busy plotting some sort of truly over the top comeback punking for an unsuspecting libr’l/Dem somewhere…
One can only hope the natural, unavoidable consequences of such a stunt on O’Keefe’s part is suicide-by-cop, or at the very least, a good, stiff 20 yr stint for a righteous felony bust…
dmsilev
@IM:
I’m pretty sure he has a macro set up to do that. Avoiding Repetitive Strain Injuries and all that.
dms
Brachiator
@joe from Lowell:
But here’s the problem. Even more than child raping priests, apparently once you are anointed a journalist or pundit, you can do no wrong. So Maher invites Breitbart onto his recent TV show and only once, obliquely and jokingly, even alludes to the Sherrod issue. But Breitbart is allowed to pander whatever BS he wants, because he is a “journalist” and he is a spokesman for conservatives.
I even have problems with his references to Christine O’Donnell: “yes, she was a fool, but she was cute.” And good TV. Which is really all that matters.
CAE
“The Yglesias Award is for people who take strong stands against their own partisan side. It’s basically the “Oh, you’re not a partisan hack, you’re intellectually honest” gold star.”
And it’s called the Yglesias rather than the Greenwald ?
There’s basically only 1 leftwing blogger who didn’t show their criticisms of Bush to be conveniently placated by an inauguration.
I’m thoroughly disgusted by most by all of them.
Jewish Steel
I’m against kicking puppies
Where the fuck is my award?
Mnemosyne
@CAE:
Well, yeah, because it only counts when the person on the left accepts the argument from the right. Having a person on the left continue to argue from the left doesn’t count. If Greenwald declared that he now understood that we had to invade Iraq, then he’d be in line to have a contrarian award named after him.
Bex
@ 49 arguingwithsignposts
You’re right. The Pareto stilletos were to blame.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@eemom:
There are other bold-faced names I could list who like to threaten to sue. Given your likes and dislikes, I think you be very amused if I gave you an example.
eemom
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Go ON….
Emma
Can we PLEASE just stop pretending that Andrew Sullivan is anything more than a pretentious, overeducated, monstrously self-centered, misogynistic, delusional conservative? Please?
J.W. Hamner
I’d need a signed affidavit before I made that bet.
eemom
@Emma:
we can’t, because then we are stuck with the eternal mystery of why John and DougJ persist in liking him.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@eemom:
I think he’s a good prose stylist and I like the videos and links. That’s it.
General Stuck
@Emma:
Yes, all true, but once in a while, one or two neurons fires from Sully’s brain mush, from something like a conscience, that briefly lights the eternal republican dark and stormy night.
There is so little chance to like any republican these days, some folks can’t resist an occasional daisy seeming to sprout from the primal wingnut swamp.
Me, all wingnuts look alike these days, even the confused ones./
Emma
General Stuck: Gotcha. The fallacy is a common one among liberals. One more reminder: just because they say they’re on your side once in a while doesn’t mean they won’t stick a knife in your ribs whenever they get a chance.
John B.
@J.W. Hamner:
And you’d be right to be skeptical. Child rape, slavery, and the Holocaust are all things that liberals oppose: therefore, he revels in the opportunity to provoke.
KevinNYC
Um, Breitbart released his comment on 9pm on a Friday night. Which has Media Matters pointed out was 60 hours after it became public. So no points for bravery there.
Also let’s not pretend that this was 60 hours after Breitbart learned of this incident. This happened in August. They knew this shitstorm was coming. No one reached out to Andrew for advice? No one tipped him that a shitstorm was on the way?
Frankie T.
Sullivan has been really good on the Bush torture policies, which he has pursued for years with moral clarity, passion, and tenaciousness. But out of the blue last week he invoked the NEWOT* to justify targeting American citizens for extra-judicial assassinations. Then he gives one of his Yglesias awards to Breitbart for speaking truth to his own side, even while citing a quote from Breitbart defending the phony ACORN sting! If I understand Andrew’s modus operandi correctly, we will either get some sort of (very) delayed mea culpa for this idiocy, or an angry justification premised on “presenting all sides of the debate”.
*Never-Ending War on Terror