posted 7/30/2012 by the Salt City Sinner
Andrew Breitbart (1969 - 2012) was a professional @$$hole, "media provocateur," cheap shot artist, and generally repellent human being who was very, very good at being very, very bad.
Breitbart was one of the most influential and innovative members of the new right wing media sphere elite.
His contributions to conservative media include a stint at the Drudge Report, the establishment of Breitbart.com, BreitbartTV, the websites Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism, and the mentoring of young, startlingly amoral mini-Breitbarts like James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles .
Breitbart died on March 1, 2012, but his site - and his "values," such as they are - live on.
For example: on April 17 of this year, ALEC spoke at the Heritage Foundation's "Bloggers Briefing," an outreach event for the right-wing blogosphere that was livestreamed by BreitbartTV (video here ). As the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch explains :
Fly, my monkeys, fly!
For some reason, the minions didn't exactly leap to ALEC's defense on social media, except to take the usual potshots at Van Jones. Even legislative lackeys of ALEC seem a little weird and freaked out :
Utah's Sutherland Institute (whose one-man brain trust Paul T. Mero you may remember from this very blog ) did spread their mite-infested wings and fly to ALEC's defense:
(The paper they are referencing can be found here : judge for yourself what kind of "good work" it represents. Hint: the Alliance for a Better Utah published the paper to expose what ALEC has been up to in Utah, while ALEC - which meets behind closed doors in secret - has fought every step of the way to conceal their role in various bills passed by state legislatures. Why isn't ALEC trumpeting that "good work" to the heavens, Paul?)
Breitbart's flying monkeys, on the other hand, didn't seem so eager to leap to ALEC's defense. Now, two of the more intrepid souls did show up at the ALEC Welcoming Committee protest - more about that in another post - and got up to the usual bull$h!t ("going undercover" with "hippie costumes," aggressive shove-a-camera-in-your-face videography, bullying, etc.), but for the most part the response has been, well, interesting to say the least.
One Breitbartlet, "Rebel Pundit," was caught on camera by $h!t Scott Walker Is Doing To My State bad-mouthing the organization:
Breitbart.com' has responded to the release of information about - and criticism of - ALEC in two ways so far.
The first has been to compare ALEC to the National Conference of State Legilsators, which is a stupid comparison . The second is to whine about how unfair media coverage of ALEC is. Other than that, deafening silence.
Which begs the question: why?
Because I Can posted :
This type of strategy - "studiously ignore anything that you can't shoehorn into your ideological loafer and maybe it will go away" - is quintessentially right-wing, and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Breitbart eventually comes out with.
Breitbart was one of the most influential and innovative members of the new right wing media sphere elite.
His contributions to conservative media include a stint at the Drudge Report, the establishment of Breitbart.com, BreitbartTV, the websites Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism, and the mentoring of young, startlingly amoral mini-Breitbarts like James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles .
Breitbart died on March 1, 2012, but his site - and his "values," such as they are - live on.
For example: on April 17 of this year, ALEC spoke at the Heritage Foundation's "Bloggers Briefing," an outreach event for the right-wing blogosphere that was livestreamed by BreitbartTV (video here ). As the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch explains :
The blogger briefing was in response to an effective campaign by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and allies to convince ALEC corporate funders to drop the organization due to its extreme agenda, an agenda made apparent when CMD published over 800 ALEC cookie cutter "model" bills in the summer of 2011...[ALEC Director of External Relations Caitlyn] Korb briefed the friendly audience by handing out a new ALEC "Frequently Asked Questions" giving bloggers the ALEC party line. She noted that they might not have heard of ALEC because "we haven't been the subject of many headlines in the last 35 years...
Korb pleaded for help on social media: "We're getting absolutely killed in social media venues -- Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest (I didn't even know Pinterst was a forum for a lot of political opposition, but now it is) --- so any and all new media support you guys can provide would be so helpful not just to us but to average people who don't know much about this fight but are seeing us get really heavily attacked with very little opposition."
Fly, my monkeys, fly!
For some reason, the minions didn't exactly leap to ALEC's defense on social media, except to take the usual potshots at Van Jones. Even legislative lackeys of ALEC seem a little weird and freaked out :
Utah's Sutherland Institute (whose one-man brain trust Paul T. Mero you may remember from this very blog ) did spread their mite-infested wings and fly to ALEC's defense:
(The paper they are referencing can be found here : judge for yourself what kind of "good work" it represents. Hint: the Alliance for a Better Utah published the paper to expose what ALEC has been up to in Utah, while ALEC - which meets behind closed doors in secret - has fought every step of the way to conceal their role in various bills passed by state legislatures. Why isn't ALEC trumpeting that "good work" to the heavens, Paul?)
Breitbart's flying monkeys, on the other hand, didn't seem so eager to leap to ALEC's defense. Now, two of the more intrepid souls did show up at the ALEC Welcoming Committee protest - more about that in another post - and got up to the usual bull$h!t ("going undercover" with "hippie costumes," aggressive shove-a-camera-in-your-face videography, bullying, etc.), but for the most part the response has been, well, interesting to say the least.
One Breitbartlet, "Rebel Pundit," was caught on camera by $h!t Scott Walker Is Doing To My State bad-mouthing the organization:
Breitbart.com' has responded to the release of information about - and criticism of - ALEC in two ways so far.
The first has been to compare ALEC to the National Conference of State Legilsators, which is a stupid comparison . The second is to whine about how unfair media coverage of ALEC is. Other than that, deafening silence.
Which begs the question: why?
Because I Can posted :
So...Breitbart was recognized media...at the ALEC annual meeting. Not one peep from them on the web.
Where are Breitbart's multitude of reports on the annual meeting - and the goodness of ALEC?
Are they waiting for the ALEC PR firm to approve their writing? Are they waiting for the ALEC chair to approve their ALEC propaganda?
...What we do know is that the ALEC conference started six days ago:
- Breitbart was there
- and they have had nothing to report.
Nothing!!!
This type of strategy - "studiously ignore anything that you can't shoehorn into your ideological loafer and maybe it will go away" - is quintessentially right-wing, and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Breitbart eventually comes out with.
Thanks Salt City Sinner! Very nice piece!
ReplyDeleteThe "Breitbartlet" doesn't quite bad-mouth ALEC. But you do get the impression by the end of the video that he's questioning them in his head.
ReplyDelete