WeinerGate 2011

Breitbart basking in glow of U.S. mainstream media respect


By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News Washington Correspondent June 8, 2011 4:45 PM



* Story
* Photos ( 1 )


Andrew Breitbart, who runs BigGovernment.com, speaks to members of the media before a press conference held by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), in which Weiner both admitted to having numerous sexual relationships online while married, and apologized to Breitbart, at the Sheraton Hotel on 7th Avenue on June 6, 2011 in New York City. Breitbart, whose publication was one of the first to break the story of Weiner's sexual conduct, was accused of lying.

Andrew Breitbart, who runs BigGovernment.com, speaks to members of the media before a press conference held by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), in which Weiner both admitted to having numerous sexual relationships online while married, and apologized to Breitbart, at the Sheraton Hotel on 7th Avenue on June 6, 2011 in New York City. Breitbart, whose publication was one of the first to break the story of Weiner's sexual conduct, was accused of lying.
Photograph by: Andrew Burton, Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Until he published details of New York congressman Anthony Weiner’s cyber-cheating escapades, blogger Andrew Breitbart was something of a middling celebrity in America’s conservative media establishment — ever-present, but always overshadowed by outsized personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Now that he has brought down one of the most pugnacious liberal politicians on Capitol Hill, Breitbart has the spotlight to himself — and is positively basking in the attention.

“I think we were vindicated,” Breitbart, 42, told reporters this week. “Everything we reported was true on that story.”

It’s a statement the right-wing muckraker hasn’t always been able to make.

A one-time protege of online rabble-rouser Matt Drudge, Breitbart has earned his own, somewhat dubious reputation in recent years with no-holds-barred attacks on American liberals, who he says are given a free ride by the “Democratic media complex” in America.

A favourite of Tea Party activists who praise him as fearless, he’s called an an ideological “hitman” and master of the smear by his opponents.

Breitbart led the conservative media’s charge in 2009 against ACORN, an advocacy group for low-income Americans, publishing “sting” videos online that alleged to show the group advising clients on illegal activity.

In July 2010, Breitbart published another heavily edited video on his website BigGovernment.com that appeared to show a black Department of Agriculture employee, Shirley Sherrod, telling a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People audience that she once discriminated against a white farmer because of his race.

Sherrod was immediately fired from her job. But a review of the full speech showed Sherrod was telling a story about overcoming prejudice. She had actually helped the farmer keep his land, and is now suing Breitbart.

In April, Breitbart published a video that seemed to show two University of Missouri professors advocating violence as a legitimate tactic in labour disputes. An investigation by the school found the videos were “definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.”

So when Breitbart broke the “Weinergate” story on May 27 — publishing a lewd photograph of Weiner in his underwear, along with the congressman’s claims his Twitter account had been hacked — mainstream news outlets were skeptical. And liberal bloggers went into full attack mode.

Joan Walsh, editor of Salon.com, said Weiner was the victim of a “right-wing smear machine” led by Breitbart.

At CNN, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Breitbart’s “stories tend to fall apart on close inspection.”

In fact, Breitbart was right about that the congressman had sent the photo to a 21-year-old student. And he subsequently published new charges of Weiner’s social media mischief, made by 26-year-old single mother Meagan Broussard, which triggered the congressman’s tearful confession on Monday.

“I think the media was initially skeptical because it was coming from Andrew Breitbart. The mainstream media was saying, ‘You know what, we don’t know if we can trust this guy,’ ” Dan Abrams, founder of the website Mediaite, said in a televised interview.

“And as more evidence came out, more photos came out, I think now the mainstream media is looking back and saying, ‘look he was right and we probably should have been covering this earlier’.”

Walsh, at Salon.com, admitted: “I look kind of stupid.”

Breitbart has posted both Abrams’ and Walsh’s video clips on his website, underscoring a perception that he craves the mainstream media’s respect as much as he hates how it operates.

Even as he rails against liberal bias in the media, Breitbart has displayed an eagerness to engage with his ideological foes. He appeared recently on the comedian Bill Maher’s HBO program, joking with the liberal host in a collegial fashion that Limbaugh and Beck never would.

Breitbart co-operated on the Weiner story with ABC News, putting the network in contact with Broussard, who had carried on a month-long online relationship with the congressman.

He has also gone on something of a victory tour through networks he recently derided as “sycophants” to liberal organizations. He was a guest with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show, on CNN’s American Morning with Kiran Chetry and on the CBS Early Show with Erica Hill.

Breitbart insists he would pursue conservative sex scandals and corruption with equal vigour, but gets most of his tips from right-wing activists who trust him to expose liberals.

“People come to me when it is a story about a Democrat, because they know if they go to ABC, CBS, MSNBC and The New York Times, then they are dealing with a more liberal class,” he said on CNN.

Breitbart says he has limits in what he is willing to expose.

In a goodwill gesture, he promised not to release a more damaging, X-rated photograph he claims to have of Weiner — unless the lawmaker’s liberal friends attempt to smear him or the women involved in the story.

“I am not the cruel person that the media and certain people on the left think that I am,” he told CNN’s Chetry.

But on Thursday, two U.S. satellite radio hosts published a photo they said was of Weiner’s anatomy — captured from a cellphone picture they said Breitbart had showed to them.

Breitbart’s desire for respect — and redemption — was evident on Monday, when he appeared at the Manhattan hotel where Weiner planned to hold his apologetic news conference.

“Quite frankly I’d like an apology for him being complicit in a ‘blame the messenger’ strategy,” he said, with indignation. He got the apology moments later.

But Breitbart’s critics — on the left and on the right — don’t see Weinergate as Breitbart’s redemption.

David Frum, the conservative writer, said on CNN that Breitbart’s impromptu appearance at Weiner’s news conference was proof “there was a lot of ways to be a narcissistic exhibitionist besides sexting.”

On the left, the writers at Salon are aghast at Breitbart’s image burnishing.

“The press is aiding in the reputation-rehabilitation of an unstable, manic, self-aggrandizing right-wing provocateur, with a history of botched attack jobs and a fungible personal interpretation of ‘truth,’ because they love a comeback story.”

Read more: http://www.canada.com/Breitbart+bas...edia+respect/4914706/story.html#ixzz1OjG2XPgZ

Click to expand...