Breitbart's Last Dance: The Obama Tapes and More
MARCH 5, 2012 TAGS:
This weekend's political talk shows had little to say about the unexpected death of right-wing activist and provocateur Andrew Breitbart. The "mainstream media," so often the bete noire of Breitbart's entire project, chose to ignore much of Breitbart's new media legacy (Drudge Report poster, early editor of the Huffington Post and founder of the BigGovernment family of web sites) in favor of focusing on another explosive political sideshow, Rush Limbaugh's laughably provocative name-calling against Georgetown law student and Congressional panel witness Sandra Fluke.
Culture wars are back y'alls. It's just this time Andrew Breitbart had little to do with it. Of course his institutions are still in place (and rumor has it that Breitbart media empire is zeroing in on a series of "Obama tapes"). Those who would defend Breitbart's advocacy or damn him as a demagogue are still to be found across the web. But on a weekend before the Big GOP primaries, Rush was the right wing blowhard commanding the political commentariat's attention. Long live the King.
Here are however, some leftovers from Breitbart reactions:
Obama tapes, Breitbart's last "get"?
Speaking at this year's CPAC annual conference, Breitbart suggests that he might have ferreted out tapes from President Obama's Harvard days.
“[w]e are going to vet [Barack Obama] from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008 ..
Could these be Breitbart's final victory?
The Longview Takedown
Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic pens the most wholly devastating takedown of Breitbart not in its vindictive language or ad hominen attacks, but by reaching back through the Shirtey Sherrod affair to see the broader history between whites and blacks that she exemplified. Breitbart seems a pretty petty fellow in Coates' estimation:
"Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss. "
In Praise of his inquisitive nature
Mickey Kaus at The Daily Caller points to moments where Breitbart did in fact doubt his own accuracy and took pains to examine his assertions.
"Exhibit A: At the height of “Weinergate,” the moment of Breitbart’s greatest triumph, he began to have doubts about the key source, one “Dan Wolfe,” who had caught Rep. Anthony Weiner’s off-color tweet. Instead of burying these doubts, Breitbart went public with them, something that threatened to badly complicate his side’s narrative. (“Is there a real ‘Dan Wolfe’ … or has someone for months elaborately pretended to be?”) He got a lot of grief from some conservatives for this."
A media landscape forever changed
At Salon, Alex Pareene takes the media criticism route to explain the Drudge-effect of political news on the Web. The Drudge-effect is of course, Andrew Breitbart's doing as well:
The apotheosis of Drudge-bait is Politico, a site that aimed to take the national politics section of a newspaper and strip it of everything but Drudge-bait. Some days half its content seems to be relatively fact-free stories proposing or reinforcing Drudge-friendly narratives (Obama is angry and uses teleprompters, some say).
Culture wars are back y'alls. It's just this time Andrew Breitbart had little to do with it. Of course his institutions are still in place (and rumor has it that Breitbart media empire is zeroing in on a series of "Obama tapes"). Those who would defend Breitbart's advocacy or damn him as a demagogue are still to be found across the web. But on a weekend before the Big GOP primaries, Rush was the right wing blowhard commanding the political commentariat's attention. Long live the King.Here are however, some leftovers from Breitbart reactions:
Obama tapes, Breitbart's last "get"?
Speaking at this year's CPAC annual conference, Breitbart suggests that he might have ferreted out tapes from President Obama's Harvard days.
“[w]e are going to vet [Barack Obama] from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008 ..
Could these be Breitbart's final victory?
The Longview Takedown
Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic pens the most wholly devastating takedown of Breitbart not in its vindictive language or ad hominen attacks, but by reaching back through the Shirtey Sherrod affair to see the broader history between whites and blacks that she exemplified. Breitbart seems a pretty petty fellow in Coates' estimation:
"Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss. "
In Praise of his inquisitive nature
Mickey Kaus at The Daily Caller points to moments where Breitbart did in fact doubt his own accuracy and took pains to examine his assertions.
"Exhibit A: At the height of “Weinergate,” the moment of Breitbart’s greatest triumph, he began to have doubts about the key source, one “Dan Wolfe,” who had caught Rep. Anthony Weiner’s off-color tweet. Instead of burying these doubts, Breitbart went public with them, something that threatened to badly complicate his side’s narrative. (“Is there a real ‘Dan Wolfe’ … or has someone for months elaborately pretended to be?”) He got a lot of grief from some conservatives for this."
A media landscape forever changed
At Salon, Alex Pareene takes the media criticism route to explain the Drudge-effect of political news on the Web. The Drudge-effect is of course, Andrew Breitbart's doing as well:
The apotheosis of Drudge-bait is Politico, a site that aimed to take the national politics section of a newspaper and strip it of everything but Drudge-bait. Some days half its content seems to be relatively fact-free stories proposing or reinforcing Drudge-friendly narratives (Obama is angry and uses teleprompters, some say).
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