First things first: The second part of my look into “The Daily Caller,” about Tucker Carlson’s shadowy backer, zillionaire and fake cowboy Foster Friess is delayed, because I stumbled into such a nest of serpents that more research is needed before I can write about it intelligibly. In fact, part two becomes even MORE urgent in light of events since part one was posted.
The New Logo of the GOP
The Daily Caller launched their second salvo against “Journolist” writers yesterday, but were trumped in their latest salvo in the Right Wing’s War Against the Media (and against facts) by a classic of the genre: (yet another) Andrew Breitbat’s [sic] phonied-up video that got Shirley Sherrod fired from the USDA by Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, the former Democratic governor of Iowa.
We pick up the story at David Frum, former Bush speechwriter who still has the integrity to consider facts as paramount, who was fundamentally disgusted by the Breitbat creepiness:
Shirley Sherrod and the shame of conservative media
When Andrew Breitbart unveils a selectively edited tape to defame a federal employee, conservatives blame Barack Obama
POSTED ON JULY 21, 2010, AT 9:10 AMYou want to see media bias in action? Okay — look at the conservative media reaction to the firing of Shirley Sherrod.
Sherrod is the former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee fired for supposed anti-white racism. On July 19, Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com website posted a short video clip from a speech Sherrod had delivered to an NAACP gathering in March.
In the clip, Sherrod confessed to having deliberately declined on racial grounds to help a white farmer faced with a foreclosure on his farm. She was immediately terminated by the USDA and condemned by the national NAACP.
But a second look at the tape made it obvious that the tape had been severely edited, abruptly cut short. Within hours it emerged that the story on the tape was exactly the opposite of the story Breitbart had wanted to tell.
Conservative pundits justify fraudulent journalism on the grounds that all is fair in war.
Sherrod was telling a story about overcoming her own racial antagonisms. She had repented, had helped the white farmer, had saved the farm, had formed a friendship with the farmer and his family that lasts to this day. Besides which: The episode in question dates back to 1986, long before Sherrod ever went to work at the USDA.By the morning of July 20 the Sherrod-as-racist narrative had collapsed.
[...]
But you’ll never guess who emerged as the villains of the story in this second-day conservative react. Not Andrew Breitbart, the distributor of a falsified tape. No, the villains were President Obama and the NAACP for believing Breitbart’s falsehood.
Sadly, the “mainstream media” has been cowed into a silence that can only be characterized as intentional collaboration. The fear of being pilloried for 24 hours a day by the haters of talk radio, and the eternal sneer of Faux Nooz™ has produced exactly the effect that was intended. “Facts” are no longer important; narrative is all. And, when confronted with a bombshell, the lapdogs of the newsrooms can only equivocate, even when equivocation is utterly laughable.
Consider that without the internet and the blogosphere, we would ALL be trapped in an Orwellian/Goebbelsian fake narrative justifying monstrousness. As it is, a huge minority of Americans already are.
Breitbat in his Snuggie™ with Limbaugh border
No, Breitbart’s indignant words on the 20th were aimed at another snippets-out-of-context scandal for the Right: the Daily Caller’s publication of quotations from the JournoList archive in which liberal activists and bloggers jeered George Stephanopoulos for asking Barack Obama about Jeremiah Wright.
[...] Only of course the Wright story was not quashed — unlike the story of Breitbart’s role in Sherrod’s firing, which has been, at least among conservatives.
On the phone on the evening of July 20, a friend asked me: “Can Breitbart possibly survive?” I could only laugh incredulously. I answered: “Of course he’ll survive, and undamaged. The incident won’t matter at all.”
There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbart’s role. By the morning of July 21, the Fox & Friends morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbart’s role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself.
“Orwellian” seems too tepid a characterization for this, our very own Animal Farm.
Breitbat on Hannity, defending his “scoop”
Synchronicity: as I was writing this, the BBC World Service news came on Jefferson Radio, with a summary by the newsreader and a report from a BBC Washington D.C. correspondent. I listened carefully. The only mention of Breitbat’s role in this scandal were “a video found by a conservative activist,” with the rest mildly condemning the Administration for firing Shirley Sherrod and praising Shirley Sherrod, whom everyone agrees was wronged.
Everyone except Faux Nooz™ – who have not only not corrected the story, but have DROPPED it like a hot potato — and newly-professional hater Jim Hoft, at “Gateway Pundit,” who continues to flog the dead pony, still hoping to be first across the finish line:
Team Obama May Give Job Back to Racist Marxist NAACP Speaker Sherrod
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 5:43 AM
Top Obama Adminstration officials announced today that after reviewing the entire tape of Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event in March they may offer the former Georgia Director of Rural Development her job back.
The entire tape shows that not only is Sherrod a racist who attacks white farmers during her speech but that she is likely a Marxist, too. Maybe that’s what got Team Obama to rethink their decision….
The disconnect of living in this psychic cesspool is apparent, as Willie Nelson posted this on Facebook:
Willie Nelson
www.willienelson.comWillie Nelson » News, Farm Aid » Willie Nelson and Farm Aid Stand With Shirley Sherrod, Call for Her Reinstatement by USDA3 hours ago · Comment · Hide Feedback (530) · Share
Several people noted their agreement with this sensible stance. BUT …
One Nelson fan repeatedly and angrily posted this comment three times (not only don’t facts faze him, apparently, but he is immune to time and duration):
I heard the NAACP clip. That woman is a racist. She needs to go
and
i used to like you willie. The NAACP is the most racist organization in the country. DO NO CONDONE THEIR BEHAVIOR!!!!!!
and
Liberals are a funny breed. Not sure what fox has to do with it, but what I can’t believe is that I haven’t heard anyone blame bush yet.
and, the Poster Child for having been brainwashed into complicit phony outrage:
I have read most of these post and what upset me is –first she should never have made those remarks at the begining of her speech–then nothing would have come of it–second Fox News is the only news who gives you upto date and honest news–and if they are wrong at least they are men enough to say they are sorry–they only reported what was given to them–I really think deep down she is a racist and is now trying to beat her way out–she is trying to pull the wool over lots of people’s eyes–it hurt me to think she would say that and now everyone is on her side—not me—and dont comment on my post–I am not interested in your nasty comments–and if you do , just goes to show how stupid you left wingers are
There are “Two Americas” all right.
The angry Breitbat
And one America wants to slit the other America’s throat in the night.
Listen to this, from the Huffington Post:
Sherrod Scandal: Washington Post Finds It Impossible To Form Any Conclusions On The Incident
by Jason Linkins
First Posted: 07-21-10 02:38 PM | Updated: 07-21-10 02:38 PM… Let me pass the mic to Tom Scocca, over at Slate, to stare witheringly at this trainwreck:
Every issue has two sides. Some people believe that an Ivy-educated establishment striver who put Wall Street loyalists like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of the economy is really a Muslim Communist demagogue and a sleeper agent who used time-travel powers to forge his own birth announcement. Other people believe that those people’s passion might be grounded in something other than the president’s performance and policy agenda.
For God’s sake. You stipulate that a “large sinister narrative” exists and go on to state that it’s driven forward by people like birthers? As a reporter, how much Ativan do you have to take to miss the insanely obvious conclusion that maybe we ought not to be paying attention to this narrative?
But all of that is beside the point! This article started off with Shirley Sherrod as the subject, and determining “which side is at fault” as the task. Look how far off the map we’ve wandered! What are we even talking about anymore?
That’s when we get to the second half of the article, which, if you are reading online, is on an entirely different page.
But in Sherrod’s account, her firing was driven more by the exigencies of the news cycle — and the administration’s fear of conservative wrath. She said she was “harassed” to quit by USDA Deputy Undersecretary Cheryl Cook, who told her to “do it, because you’re going to be on ‘Glenn Beck’ tonight.”
This is what one calls “the literal truth.” Why isn’t this in the lede?
A video of the full speech — which runs more than 45 minutes — shows that Sherrod was trying to make a very different point from the one her critics saw in her inelegantly worded account of the episode with farmer Roger Spooner. An examination of her own prejudice, she said, taught her that “there is no difference between us.”
Why isn’t this in the first half of the story? Why did you leave readers hanging to find out this critical detail, until way after you raised the suspicion that the truncated video may have had some truth to it?
Ultimately, she did help the farmer — and on Tuesday, his family was among those who came to her defense. “She’s a good friend. She helped us save our farm,” Spooner’s wife, Eloise, told CNN. “She’s the one I give credit for helping us save our farm.”
Why isn’t this in the first half of the story? Is it because there’s too much invested in tying up this elaborate Gordian Knot of journalistic whimsy to risk the possibility that the Spooners might just slice right through it, with sensibleness?
The reason is because all the actual details of the story are far too conclusive! It takes away from the vagued-up, on-the-one-hand-now-on-the-other-hand, self-indulgent “narrative” that desires, at all costs, to pretend that the ultimate concern here is that there is “ongoing war between the left and right over which side is at fault for stoking persistent forces of racism in politics.” (And remember, that important war is dominated by fools and cranks, like birthers!)
And, elswhere, the obligatory, satanic sophistry, turning CONSERVATIVES into the martyrs here, at The Moderate Voice [emphasis added]:
Turnabout Is Unfair Play
POSTED BY LOGAN PENZA IN AT TMV.
JUL 21ST, 2010Jonah Goldberg gets it right — Shirley Sherrod should get her job back. She was misrepresented in order to play “gotcha” with the NAACP, and that is wrong even in the service of highlighting hypocrisy and dishonesty about race.
The question that won’t go away, however, is whether the outrage now justifiably being expended on behalf of Sherrod would ever be exercised in defense of the many conservatives who are falsely accused of racism. (Recent exposures from Journolist indicate that some prominent liberals embrace false charges of racism as an intentional political tactic. So far, I have seen very few if any condemnations from their fellow liberals.)
It is therefore doubtful that conservatives will ever receive the benefit of the sudden awareness that racism is an inflammatory and unfair charge to use as a political weapon.
As smooth as the brush of a cloud against the full moon.
Because it isn’t about truth, or doing what’s best for the country: it’s about winning, by ANY means possible. Listen to Notso Breitbat on Faux Nooz’s Hannutty last night:
HANNITY: Hang on. Hang on. I just want get some facts on the table and then — I want your opinion on everything else associated with it. All right, but — so you have this tape since April?
BREITBART: I didn’t have the tape. I had recognition that it existed.
HANNITY: It existed. OK.
BREITBART: And the man told me about it. And he tried to send it to me and it came on a disc and it didn’t show up. I said this is annoying. So when the NAACP thing happened, I found his phone number, I called him up, and he sent me to — two excerpts of the video.
HANNITY: OK. And the allegation now of the left is alright, hang on a second, even though she said — and she said she harbored these views in this tape. She described how she racially discriminated against the white farmer. That’s not in dispute. That’s on the video. She’s not disputing that.
BREITBART: And she described the white man as the other — your kind. She describes your kind.
HANNITY: She decides that he’ll get help from one of his own kind and she referred him to a white lawyer. But she also said on the tape that — admits that she didn’t do everything she could for him because he’s white.
Now what critics are saying is well that was edited. And what she’s claiming is that that was edited, that she left out the part that she had learned from this at the end of the tape which we just heard.
Yes, it WAS edited: edited to reverse the meaning, which is the lowest sleaze in journalism, the visual equivalent of plagiarism as the unforgivable crime of journalism. Later, Breitbat will claim that he hadn’t seen the whole thing, which is a failure to do any sort of due diligence, and not a defense, even if it IS true, which I doubt. He realized that the tape from some anonymous Georgia jerk would be a lighted match, and intentionally threw it on the haystick when he had the opportunity.
And no one calls him on it.
Breitbat getting a pass on ABC
Instead, in Satanic fashion, they turn it on the administration: and the Washington Post, and the other MSM go right along … even the BBC! (He’s that “conservative activist” that’s so neatly glossed over.) Listen to Glenn Beck:
Why Was Shirley Sherrod Ousted?Wednesday, July 21, 2010Fox NewsBy Glenn Beck[...]
Fact is, I never asked for the resignation of Van Jones. I asked for an explanation. I wanted to know how a revolutionary communist wound up in the White House. We never got that explanation.
I think Shirley Sherrod is asking the same thing: How did she get ousted out of the USDA and the NAACP without any explanation?
Something isn’t right here. Stop the character assassination without due process. This is related to what we talked about yesterday. This is how this administration does almost everything. They make Congress irrelevant. They make fair trials irrelevant. They announce plans to execute Americans without due process. That’s how they got health care done. That’s how they put another Marxist in as director of Medicare/Medicaid. It’s how they do everything.
Why are they getting rid of Shirley? Why is she being made an example of? Where are the journalists on this? There are a million questions here. Moms, dads, aunts, uncles of journalists — ask them: What the hell is wrong with you? If you see a journalist, ask them politely, what are you doing? Are you not curious? Do you know something we don’t know, besides what Lindsay Lohan wore to jail today? Journalists are supposed to ask questions, what is going on with this story?
• I suppose they could just be afraid of the Tea Party, you and Fox News. Maybe the Van Jones syndrome really kicked in at the White House and they just didn’t want to deal with yet another one?
But that certainly hasn’t stopped them on other issues — like the health care bill, the stimulus package, the financial regulations, plowing forward on cap-and-trade and illegal immigration amnesty. They certainly haven’t made any strong statements about the controversies surrounding the Black Panthers or the NAACP. So what is it?
• They could be just trying to minimize the damage — just like they did with Van Jones. Remember how the Mao-loving communications director, Anita Dunn talked about controlling the media? They know information is power….
Fifties-style Breitbattery
Then, in Breitbat’s own words, he doesn’t give a damn: he’s out to accomplish a propagandistic purpose and doesn’t give a damn who gets hurt while he does it. From Hannity on Faux last night:
HANNITY: Let me ask you a last question. How do you feel about the White House’s firing of her in light of everything that we know and what we’ve learned? Do you think it was the right decision? And do you think, you know, what she — how do you feel in total about what she said on that tape?
Do you think it was racist? Did you want her fired?
BREITBART: I don’t. I don’t — I have to be honest with you. I’m agnostic on the issue because I’m invested in getting the NAACP and the Democratic Party and the Congressional Black Caucus to stop constantly calling the Tea Party racist. That’s my job.
I could care less about Shirley Sherrod, to be honest with you. This is not about Shirley Sherrod.
HANNITY: All right. Breitbart, good to see you.
I will say this, even though you can imagine what the “Breitbat” treatment could do to it:
These are people who are only waiting for a Hitler to appear on a White Horse and lead them to their Great Destiny.
Over the corpses of those who would disagree with them.
Whatever the oratory: they will blindly believe; whatever the command, they will mindlessly obey.
And any words can be twisted
Here’s Breitbat’s final spin [emphasis theirs]:
Breitbart’s New Conspiracy Theory: The ‘Purported’ Farmer’s Wife Is A Plant
Two white farmers who were supposedly discriminated against by former USDA official Shirley Sherrod spoke out on her behalf yesterday, saying “no way in the world” is she racist.
But last night, the right-wing blogger who instigated this faux controversy questioned the white farmers’ honesty and repeated his false racist charges. In interviews with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN, the Iron City, GA couple Roger and Eloise Spooner described Sherrod as a “friend for life” and a “good person” who helped save their farm. Speaking with CNN’s John King, right-wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart challenged Eloise Spooner’s “purported” story, accusing King of trusting Sherrod “that the ‘farmer’s wife’ is the farmer’s wife”:
You tell me as a reporter how CNN put on a person today who purported to be the farmer’s wife? What did you do to find out whether or not that was the actual farmer’s wife? I mean, if you’re going to accuse me of a falsehood, tell me where you’ve confirmed that had this incident happened 24 years ago. [...]
You’re going off of her word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife?
I have seldom been so frightened for our nation.
Too bad he didn’t find the due diligence to vet the ORIGINAL tape. Seems kind of late to be asking it of others, doesn’t it?
And Breitbat skates.
Courage.
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Gateway Pundit is a retard
Well put.