The folks over at Breitbart’s joint are feverishly striving to exonerate Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman. Their web sites are plastered with stories that either defend Zimmerman or shift the discussion to other persons or subjects.
In one article, Breitbrat Dan Riehl makes the inane argument that ABC News was “reckless” in their decision to release a police videotape showing Zimmerman arriving at the police station for questioning. The video is significant in that it contradicts prior assertions that Zimmerman had been beaten and bloodied by Martin. There is no evidence of any injury to Zimmerman in the video.
Nevertheless, Riehl advances rebuttals that sound as if he is working for the Zimmerman legal defense team. He begins by suggesting that the video was too low quality to reveal anything conclusive. Then, contradicting himself, writes, “True, there appears to be no blood on Zimmerman’s shirt.” Then Riehl invents scenarios wherein Zimmerman was allowed by police to change his allegedly bloody clothes before arriving at the station, which would be a severe violation of procedure and ethics. What’s more, it makes no sense because a bloody shirt would be evidence of a struggle during which Zimmerman could claim to have felt threatened. Why would police suppress evidence that would have justified their decision to release Zimmerman?
Riehl’s account is blatantly biased and incoherent. And he tops it off by blasting ABC for releasing the video saying that the network “should be ashamed of its reckless highlighting of a non-story.” So apparently Riehl is of the opinion that ABC should have kept the video a secret. That’s how Breitbart’s BigJournalism practices the craft of journalism.
Another article, this time by Joel Pollak, editor of Breitbart’s BigGovernment site, seeks to tie President Obama to the Martin story. Pollak’s theory is a nearly incomprehensible mashup of Martin, Obama, and Derrick Bell, the subject of Breitbart’s failed attempt to expose the President as a college radical.
Pollak’s article is titled, “Critical Race Theory and the Trayvon Martin Case.” Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a legal/academic concept that Bell had written about and studied. It holds that there is more to racism than just the attitudes held by individuals, that it is also ingrained in society via traditional economic and judicial hierarchies. Pollak simplistically and falsely begins his narrative by defining CRT as “characterized by white supremacy–an idea Obama invoked by insisting that Americans ‘examine the laws’ that supposedly led to Martin’s death.” To be clear, Pollak is referring to the comment Obama made in response to a reporter’s question:
“I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened.
“And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”
I’m not sure how any fair person could object to that. Yet that’s the statement that Pollak regards as an evocation of white supremacy. If anything, the Martin tragedy supports CRT by demonstrating the flaws in the judicial system. This is a case where after an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed, his body was tagged as a “John Doe” and tested for drugs. The shooter, on the other hand, was never tested for drugs or alcohol and was released by police with his weapon and no plans to investigate or indict him for any crime. If that isn’t reason enough to examine the laws than what on earth would be?
Pollak continues saying that Obama “waded in, playing up the racial drama,” and then remarkably writes “Obama–the center of the crisis, and to some extent its intended beneficiary.” Obama is only the center of the controversy in the warped minds of extremist, right-wing provocateurs like Pollak. And where he gets the notion that Obama was the “intended” beneficiary is beyond comprehension. If Pollak actually believes that this crisis was conceived and executed to help the President, he is seriously in need of the psychiatric attention that is now available to him thanks to ObamaCare.
Pollak closes by saying that “To speculate that Zimmerman is guilty based on the available facts is one thing; to convict him based on his supposed race, and on Martin’s, is the classic definition of “prejudice.'” However, the people protesting the handling of this affair are not convicting Zimmerman of anything. They are merely demanding that the ordinary process of justice be observed.
Ordinarily after a shooting there is an arrest and an investigation, which could lead to a trial if the evidence warrants. But the Breitbrats are all fired up to whitewash this crime and sweep it under their racist rug. They load up their web sites with tangential stories about celebrity Tweets, and over-zealous protesters, and bogus accusations of media bias, and absurd connections to a conspiratorial White House that must have planned the whole thing.
All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing that Breitbart wasn’t around when Martin Luther King was assassinated. They would surely have defended James Earl Ray and blamed the whole thing on President Johnson.
“And he tops it off by blasting ABC for releasing the video saying that the network ‘should be ashamed of its reckless highlighting of a non-story.'”
Looks like someone’s jealous that someone else’s video got more attention.
Ha. Good point.
Be that as it may, it’s hilarious that Fox Nation can’t keep a Trayvon Martin thread open for more than hour without being “closed for comments.”
Why does that happen? (ie close for comment) Yes, this is a genuine question.
It is odd since FoxNews.com keeps their threads open for the most part. You can quickly see the level of hate and depravity among its users. FoxNation harbors more of the far right, so perhaps the editors of that site are more sensitive toward outing their base?
Mark?
In my observation, Fox Nation closes its comments when…
1) The level of controversy overwhelms their moderators.
2) There are too many comments that oppose the spin of the article.
3) The article incites offensive, racist, or violent comments.
Fox Nation is an odd entity. They also don’t have a search function on the site. All of the other Fox sites (linked at the top of their page: FoxNews, FoxBusiness, FoxLatino, etc.) have a search box prominently placed at the top of the page. What is Fox Nation trying to hide?
I’m going to need to control my curiosity in the future – but thanks for the responses anyway.
FoxNation closed comments, presumably for the same reason they were closed on the story of the ancient ape-like man: racist comments.
And Mark is correct, FoxNation has no search box. You have to do a Google (or other) search with “FoxNation” in the search.
“…they surely would have defended James Earl Ray…”
That’s it, Junior. If you seriously thought you had any credibility, you have shown with that sentence that you don’t have the slightest modicum of credibility. You spew nothing but lies and libel and idiotic ad hominem. Shame on you.
And for the record, I just watched the first segment of CNN’s “AC 360”, and Anderson Cooper is stating that the police video is inconclusive with regards to whether Zimmerman was injured or not.
As usual, you failed to address a single thing I wrote. Your reference to Anderson Cooper actually advances my point. Breitbrat Riehl said both that the video was too grainy to be conclusive, and then he drew his own conclusions. So which is it?
One thing we know about the video is that it shows a man whose lawyers and spokespersons say had his nose broken and head bashed into the pavement. Even if the blood was “cleaned up” by police or paramedics as claimed by Zimmerman’s camp, there would have been bandages over the wounds, but clearly Zimmerman has none.
Hey, I’m sorry if you feel that way Scotty boy. I’sm sorry that bad old Mister Mark said a nasty thing about your hero Mister Breitbart. Hey look up there in the cornner. There’s the link to nother one of your heros, Nister Beck. You just know HE always the truth. Why don’t you hit the link and go cry to him?
Mark need not to feel any shame because he has written nothing that is’nt backed up and proven. Of course, if someone called out one of your hero’s for lying or biassed, you would only consider that to be an insulting personal attack, In regards to shame, you are beyond shame.
The video also doesn’t fit in with the Zimmerman story that he was attacked, there was a struggle, Trayvon tried to take his gun so he shot him.
If he shot him at close range, where’s the blood from that?
Also, there is a 911 tape with somebody begging for help. It seems like it shouldn’t be that difficult to determine whose voice that is.
Be that as it may, if it’s okay for Zimmerman to shoot when he feels threatened, why wouldn’t it be okay for Trayvon to punch when HE feels threatened?
“Riehl advances rebuttals that sound as if he is working for the Zimmerman legal defense team.”
If Dan Riehl is pretending he’s a savvy defense team lawyer, George Zimmerman is as good as in prison. He’s a right wing lizardbrain moron with the ethics of a hyena.
He along with Robert Stacy McCain once attacked an Alaskan blogger critical of Sarah Palin by writing to the blogger’s employer saying the blogger was a pedophile. It wasn’t true and the employer knew it, but the blogger and employer were in sensitive positions in the community, so the blogger voluntarily quit his job before the smearing and the attacks got worse.
Those same two attacked another blogger the same way, with the result being cessation of investigative blogging, this time to protect the blogger’s spouse’s sensitive and responsible position in the community.
Riehl and McCain are the kinds of people who are attacking the memory of Trayvon Martin. Like Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, they’d say anything and do anything to achieve their goals. “The ends justify the means”.