Andrew Breitbart Is Proud Of Being A Liar

The terminally choleric Andrew Breitbart is up to his old tricks in a new and bizarre tale of dishonesty and ethical collapse. It is startling that anyone even pays attention to this bombastic deceiver after all the examples of his low moral and professional character. This is, after all, the emotionally stunted jackass who posts videos of rivals picking their nose. Is this someone who should be taken seriously?

The latest trumped-up scandal from the Breitbart lie factory involves his posting a video that purportedly shows an African-American employee of the Department of Agriculture admitting to racially prejudiced behavior toward a white farmer. The problem with this (and every other) Breitbart video is that it has been deceptively edited to deliver a message that is patently false. Breitbart knows that the impression given in his cut does not represent the truth, yet he still says this about it:

“We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions. […] In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer.”

Breitbart flatly states the Sherrod discriminated against someone she was supposed to be helping in her role as a USDA representative. However, the truth is that Sherrod was relating an experience she had over twenty years ago when she was not working for the government at all. And furthermore, it was an experience wherein she shared her revelation that race had nothing to do with carrying out her duties in public service. It was, in fact, an inspiring story of tolerance and equality.

Despite these facts, Breitbart’s lie was quickly disseminated to the right-wing press who cooperated by regurgitating the lie and further slandering Sherrod and the Obama administration for whom she worked. But the most troubling part of this story is that the administration, and even the NAACP, accepted the phony video as factual and acted on that basis. The NAACP condemned Sherrod’s behavior and the Department of Agriculture fired her. All of this before attempting to ascertain the facts.

What is going to to take to get people to realize that Breitbart operates a thoroughly dishonest enterprise and ought not to be regarded as credible? His attacks on Van Jones were lies. His attacks on ACORN were lies. He demonstrated his support for child molesters when he sent ambushers out to harass Cong. Alan Grayson over a bill that would protect children. If the administration, or anyone else, continues to act on the garbage that emanates from Breitbart they will continue to be embarrassed and to hurt good people, as they have done to Sherrod in this sorry episode.

As if this weren’t enough, after Breitbart’s video was revealed to be a fraud, did he apologize or express regret? Of course not. He criticized the NAACP and the Obama administration for believing him. Seriously! After conceding that his own video took Sherrod’s remarks out of context, Breitbart didn’t try to correct the record or apologize for the damage he caused. Instead, he pointed accusatory fingers at the people who were naive enough to assume that he could be honest. He actually took pride in the fact that his bogus reporting shook up the administration and resulted in an unfair termination. This followup on Breitbart’s web site is like a perverse episode of Punk’d.

“…it shows the extent that Breitbart, Fox, and the Tea Party have gotten under the skin of the White House. Rather then to think it through they overreacted and forced Sherrod to pull over on the side of the road and resign without telling her side of the story.”

In effect Breitbart is boasting that rather than recognize that he is a scumbag liar, they believed him. And now Breitbart is mocking them for thinking he was honest. It would be understandable for me to criticize the administration for believing Breitbart, but for him to offer that criticism is downright schizophrenic. Breitbart is taunting them with something like this:

“Ha ha. You thought I was telling the truth when I’m really just a sleazeball who lies for sport. Boy are you dumb.”

In the end, the administration deserves to be mocked. They should have learned long ago that Breitbart, and Beck, and Limbaugh, and Fox News in general, are not to be taken seriously. They should certainly never be the impetus for any official action without first obtaining independent verification.

The NAACP has already retracted their statement condemning Sherrod and apologized to her. The White House should see to it that she is reinstated. And everyone should take to heart the lesson that is obvious to those of us who have been paying attention: The disreputable fakers in the rightist media should be spurned, condemned, or at the very least, ignored. And for God’s sake, stop thinking that they will ever be honest.

Advertisement:

12 thoughts on “Andrew Breitbart Is Proud Of Being A Liar

  1. I believe it was President Truman who once said, “When the Republicans quit lying about us, we will quit telling the truth about them.”

    • Good one. The only problem is the one Twain observed about how quickly lies travel.

      • “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

        That’s the truth. I think it’s because most people are gullible. They don’t stop to think about what the facts are. They take whatever they hear and they believe it whole-heartedly, which is why Faux News has such a following. They can lie all they want, and it is truth to the millions of unthinking chattel who watch their shows.

  2. baiter taunts bait-takers for taking the bait. this is a story for the ages. Sherrod is about to become a verb, and Breitbart a different kind of bait.

    • I think I’d rather Breitbart become the verb meaning: to lie with sociopathic tendencies.

      For instance:
      – When he spoke of WMDs, George W. Bush breitbarted the nation.

      – Responding to Sarah Palin’s talk of death panels I said, “Don’t breitbart me.”

  3. I’ve concluded a long time ago that it is no longer practical, feasible, desirable or safe to allow total freedom of speech. The hate mongers and dangerous liars now abuse this right routinely and present a danger to the stability and safety of the country.

    They intentionally incite hatred and violence and we will eventually see some serious violence.

    The people this hate speech is directed at are the same crowd that gave us Eric Rudolph, Tim McVeigh, and the Holocaust Museum shooter.
    They are mentally unbalanced, armed to the teeth, predisposed to violence and a powder keg which the like of Limbaugh, Beck, Breitbart, Bachmann, Savage, etc. are trying to ignite through their demagoguery.

    Either these people are silenced or this country will pay a very heavy price.

    • I know how you feel but I can’t agree. I’d like to shut those people up too, but would do it by exposing them as liars, not restricting speech.

      The problem is we need a diligent and competent media to present the truth when these liars spout off. The solution is to restore integrity to the media, not censorship.

  4. It’s amazing how quickly everybody dumped on Sherrod and demanded her resignation in the most super-knee-jerk way. She said on an interview today she got the text “you must resign immediately” and that was that! Are they so afraid of Ruperts evil monkeys that the woman can”t even respond to what’s going on. Afraid the blond platoon at the FNC desk will say bad things? They are going to do that anyway, no matter what goes on.

  5. Mark, Breitbart’s unapologetic stance is aggravating to be sure, but this response from him is chilling:

    “I feel bad that they made this about her, and I feel sorry that they made this about her,” he told MSNBC. “Watching how they’ve misconstrued, how the media has misconstrued the intention behind this, I do feel a sympathy for her plight.”

    What he goes on to say, in blaming the “media” for the whole controversy, is that it wasn’t what Sherrod said that he was highlighting, it was the audience’s reaction to what she said.

    He is saying, in essence, that he didn’t think what she said was wrong, but the audience reaction to the not wrong things she said was racist. Furthermore he is saying this knowing that when Sherrod later reveals the point of her story, that there shouldn’t be racism on either side, that audience applauds. And he is saying this even though his introduction to the edited tape says nothing about the audience’s behavior while detailing Sherrod’s employment and descriptions of her alleged racism.

    If his disseminating hasn’t been illustrated by this and the ACORN fiasco, then PLEASE let the intelligent world learn the baseness of his character from this self-serving dishonesty.

  6. The assassination of Shirley Sherrod.
    Obviously the viewer needs to watch the entire clip.
    A stellar example why CONTEXT MATTERS !

Comments are closed.