Andrew Breitbart dies of "natural causes"

[Danzig]

coroner says it was heart failure.

[Rupert Pupkin]

I was reading some of the earlier posts in this thread. Breitbart was no worse than anyone else. It is extremely common in politics for someone to make a person look bad by quoting something that that person once said. You go over a person's speeches and find something they said that was stupid. This happens every day. And when this happens, the attack article almost never has the whole speech. They just have the inflammatory quote. So often times the quote is taken out of context.

The incident that Breitbart is criticized for the most is the Shirley Sherrod story. In this story, he did nothing worse than what is done every single day by left-wing journalists, right-wing journalists, mainstream journalists, and practically all political operatives. It wasn't like he only played a 10 second clip of her speech. He played at least 45 seconds of her speech. She said what she said. It sounded pretty bad. But if you listened to the whole speech, it didn't sound nearly as bad.

Playing the most inflammatory part of a speech is hardly unusual. This is done every day. This hardly makes Breitbart some sort of evil villain like many of you make him out to be.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I was reading some of the earlier posts in this thread. Breitbart was no worse than anyone else. It is extremely common in politics for someone to make a person look bad by quoting something that that person once said. You go over a person's speeches and find something they said that was stupid. This happens every day. And when this happens, the attack article almost never has the whole speech. They just have the inflammatory quote. So often times the quote is taken out of context.

The incident that Breitbart is criticized for the most is the Shirley Sherrod story. In this story, he did nothing worse than what is done every single day by left-wing journalists, right-wing journalists, mainstream journalists, and practically all political operatives. It wasn't like he only played a 10 second clip of her speech. He played at least 45 seconds of her speech. She said what she said. It sounded pretty bad. But if you listened to the whole speech, it didn't sound nearly as bad.

Playing the most inflammatory part of a speech is hardly unusual. This is done every day. This hardly makes Breitbart some sort of evil villain like many of you make him out to be.

Nonsense. Breitbart lied and edited the video to make Sherrod sound racist, when the complete opposite was true. He was lying scum. He cost her her reputation and job before his fraud was revealed. And no, "everybody" in media doesn't do that. He financed other fraud with his financing of James O'Keefe and the faked, falsely edited "ACORN does prostitutes" lies that unfairly ruined that organization via his lies. Normally lying to Congress is an offense. Not for Breitbart.

Breitbart cost many people their jobs and livelihoods by his lies and fraud for his own personal political goals and gain. Good riddance.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Nonsense. Breitbart lied and edited the video to make Sherrod sound racist, when the complete opposite was true. He was lying scum. He cost her her reputation and job before his fraud was revealed. And no, "everybody" in media doesn't do that. He financed other fraud with his financing of James O'Keefe and the faked, falsely edited "ACORN does prostitutes" lies that unfairly ruined that organization via his lies. Normally lying to Congress is an offense. Not for Breitbart.

Breitbart cost many people their jobs and livelihoods by his lies and fraud for his own personal political goals and gain. Good riddance.

Your characterization of the Sherrod incident is 100% false. There was nothing "edited". Brietbart simply played a portion of her speech. You use all these words such as "lies" and "fraud". There were no lies and there was no fraud.

The media plays portions of people's speeches every day.

Here is a more accurate description of what actually happened:

"The video clip was posted by right-wing blogger and Tea Party supporter Andrew Breitbart. In it, Sherrod seemingly tells a group she did not help a white farmer as much as she could have more than twenty years ago."

"But missing from the clip was the rest of the speech, which was a lesson in overcoming racial prejudices. Sherrod tells the crowd that she eventually realized her mistake and helped the farmer."

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010...sack-tea-party

Breitbart didn't lie. He played about 45 seconds of the video that had been sent to him. He didn't play the whole thing. That is not unusual. That is done every day.

I don't know if you're trying to BS me or what. You can't BS me because I saw the video of Sherrod's whole speech and I saw the part of her speech that Breitbart posted. There was no editing done. He simply didn't play the whole speech.

Here is an excerpt of Shirley Sherrod's speech. Here are her exact words. I'm not "lying". I'm not "editing". I am simply posting a portion of her speech.

"And young people: I just want you to know that when you're true to what God wants you to do the path just opens up -- and things just come to you, you know. God is good -- I can tell you that.

When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people -- and to black people only. But, you know, God will show you things and He'll put things in your path so that -- that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people, you know.

The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he -- he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. What he didn't know -- while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me -- was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him.

I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough so that when he -- I -- I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the -- or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him.

So I took him to a white lawyer that we had -- that had...attended some of the training that we had provided, 'cause Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him.

That's when it was revealed to me that, y'all, it's about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white -- it is about white and black, but it's not -- you know, it opened my eyes, 'cause I took him to one of his own and I put him in his hand, and felt okay, I've done my job. But, during that time we would have these injunctions against the Department of Agriculture and -- so, they couldn't foreclose on him. And I want you to know that the county supervisor had done something to him that I have not seen yet that they've done to any other farmer, black or white. And what they did to him caused him to not be able to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy."

I think different people would have different reactions to her speech. Some people would think it was reprehensible that she was so prejudice at one time. Other people would commend her for overcoming her prejudice.

Here is a transcript of the entire speech:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/spee...acpfreedom.htm

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Nonsense. Breitbart lied and edited the video to make Sherrod sound racist, when the complete opposite was true. He was lying scum. He cost her her reputation and job before his fraud was revealed. And no, "everybody" in media doesn't do that. He financed other fraud with his financing of James O'Keefe and the faked, falsely edited "ACORN does prostitutes" lies that unfairly ruined that organization via his lies. Normally lying to Congress is an offense. Not for Breitbart.

Breitbart cost many people their jobs and livelihoods by his lies and fraud for his own personal political goals and gain. Good riddance.

There were several liberals out there who knew Andrew Breitbart very well. Lawrence O'Donnell did a whole segment about Breitbart. The opinion of liberals who knew him was totally different from your opinion. Maybe you should consider the opinions of people who knew him, rather than listening to the half-truths that some leftist sites say about him. Here is Lawrence O'Donnell's segment on him:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/lawrence-...irley-sherrod/

I assume you know that Breitbart helped launch the Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington has nothing but good things to say about him. If he was such a "liar" and so "unethical" and all these things, I highly doubt all these people would have worked with him and been friends with him.

He was a passionate conservative. Just because he had a different opinion than you on most issues, that doesn't make him a "liar". You have a horrible habit of calling people "liar", even when you have no evidence of them lying. If you don' like a person, they are automatically a "liar".

Let me quote you on George Zimmerman. This is from post #146 in the Trayvon Martin thread. Here is what you said about Zimmerman: "He's a ****ing liar, and he needs to be brought to justice."

You have no evidence that Zimmerman is a liar. You have zero evidence. Could Zimmerman be a liar? Yes, he could be. Anything is possible. I personally like to wait until I have have some proof before I call someone a "liar". But that's just me. Call me nutty.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Your characterization of the Sherrod incident is 100% false. There was nothing "edited". Brietbart simply played a portion of her speech.

Baloney. Breitbart deliberately edited that video - by not playing all the relevant parts - to deliberately change her meaning, and cost her her reputation and her job. I heard it. He lied to make Shirley Sherrod seem racist, on purpose, when her words revealed she was anything but.

Breitbart financed James O'Keefe, and his edited lies about ACORN, costing that organization it's existence and people their jobs.

You can try to justify Breitbart's deliberate lies and destruction of innocent people's lives for his political goals, but thanks, I'm not buying. His screaming drunkenly at the Occupy protesters pretty well outlines what he became in his profession at the end.

It has nothing to do with his politics, or "leftist sites", and everything to do with Breitbarts repeated public display of his lack of ethics and morals. He cost innocent bystanders their reputations and jobs just so he can make a splash on his media site. You can miss his contribution to the political scene. I sure don't. Good riddance.

And btw: George Zimmerman has given varying and different accounts to the police of what happened when he killed Trayvon Martin. That's called "lying", too.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Baloney. Breitbart deliberately edited that video - by not playing all the relevant parts - to deliberately change her meaning, and cost her her reputation and her job. I heard it. He lied to make Shirley Sherrod seem racist, on purpose, when her words revealed she was anything but.

Breitbart financed James O'Keefe, and his edited lies about ACORN, costing that organization it's existence and people their jobs.

You can try to justify Breitbart's deliberate lies and destruction of innocent people's lives for his political goals, but thanks, I'm not buying. His screaming drunkenly at the Occupy protesters pretty well outlines what he became in his profession at the end.

It has nothing to do with his politics, or "leftist sites", and everything to do with Breitbarts repeated public display of his lack of ethics and morals. He cost innocent bystanders their reputations and jobs just so he can make a splash on his media site. You can miss his contribution to the political scene. I sure don't. Good riddance.

And btw: George Zimmerman has given varying and different accounts to the police of what happened when he killed Trayvon Martin. That's called "lying", too.

You can continue to say Beitbart "lied" about Shirley Sherrod all you want. It is simply untrue.

I posted a portion of the transcript of her speech. Was the part I posted a "lie"? Was it misleading? Did you read the part I posted?

Did Shirley Sherrod admit that when the white farmer came to her 20 years ago, that she was somewhat reluctant to help him because he was white? The answer is "yes".

On the other hand, when you consider her background (a white man killed her father) and you consider that she admitted that she was wrong for holding the man's color against him, I think most people would forgive her and not really hold the incident (from 20 years ago) against her. But no matter what anyone thinks, Sherrod did admit that she held a white farmer's color against him 20 years ago.

If I state right now that Shirley Sherrod admitted that in an incident 20 years ago, that she had some racial prejudices against white people, is that a true statement?

[Riot]

The only reason Breitbart posted his grossly and purposely misedited clips of Sherrod's talk was to purposely and deliberately mispaint her to be a racist.

And yeah - that's lying. When you purposely misrepresent, via omission, the meaning of what a speaker says deliberately and with malice, to make the public think the opposite of what the speaker said, that's lying. That's why Breitbart had legal charges pending against him by Sherrod, and was going to trial, when he died.

You know it, and so does everybody else who saw the video when it happened.

Breitbart is lying scum, he's been publicly caught out being lying scum, his lies have cost multiple people their jobs and incomes. The ACORN lies were even worse.

You want to try and make excuses for him, talk to your mirror. No takers for that ridiculous nonsense here.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

The only reason Breitbart posted his grossly and purposely misedited clips of Sherrod's talk was to purposely and deliberately mispaint her to be a racist.

And yeah - that's lying. When you purposely misrepresent, via omission, the meaning of what a speaker says deliberately and with malice, to make the public think the opposite of what the speaker said, that's lying. That's why Breitbart had legal charges pending against him by Sherrod, and was going to trial, when he died.

You know it, and so does everybody else who saw the video when it happened.

Breitbart is lying scum, he's been publicly caught out being lying scum, his lies have cost multiple people their jobs and incomes. The ACORN lies were even worse.

You want to try and make excuses for him, talk to your mirror. No takers for that ridiculous nonsense here.

That is simply untrue. The clip Bretbart posted was in no way "grossly misedited". It is true he didn't play the whole video. But the media practically never plays an entire speech. They play what they think was a relevant clip. If the journalist has an agenda, they will play the clip that furthers their agenda.

Do you think Breitbart had something against Shirley Sherrod personally? I'm sure he didn't even know who she was.

Breitbart certainly had an agenda. I'm not denying that. He was targeting the NAACP, not Sherrod. Breitbart often clashed with the NAACP. The NAACP is always screaming about racism. Someone sent Brietbart a video of an NAACP event where a black woman (Sherrod) was talking about her own racism (granted her own racism from 20 years earlier and how she overcame it). I'm sure Breibart was really excited when he got the clip. Here you have a group (the NAACP) that is always crying about racism and here is a video where one of their own members is admitting to her own former racism against whites. I'm sure Breitbart jumped at the chance to release the video

By the way, if a white person (let's say Mitt Romney for example) made a speech practically identical to Shirley Sherrod's, do you think it would be a big story? Of course it would. If he admitted that 20 years ago, a black person came into his office and he didn't really want to help the person because the person was black, I think there would be a big outcry. Even if Romney said that he was wrong at the time and he was able to overcome his prejudices, I think it would still be a big story. And I'm sure you and other liberals would be all over him for it.

With regard to Sherrod suing Breitbart, anyone can sue anyone for anything. Her suit is a joke. She has no case. That case will be thrown out in 2 seconds.

I'm not going to get into a big debate about O'Keefe right now but I will admit that those videos (unlike the Sherrod video) were heavily edited. Does it discredit everything on the O'Keefe videos. No, it doesn't discredit everything but it discredits much of it.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Here is a little more on the whole O'keefe ACORN story. As I said, O'Keefe heavily edited the videos, making the videos quite misleading. This discredits much of what was on the videos, but not everything. Here is the truth about the unedited O'Keefe videos:

"By December 2009, an external investigation of ACORN was published that cleared it of any illegality, while noting that its poor management practices contributed to unprofessional actions by some low-level employees.[42][43][44][45] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would dissolve due to loss of funding from government and especially private sources.[46] On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn found that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in New York.[6][47] In late March 2010, Clark Hoyt, then public editor for The New York Times, reviewed the videos, the full transcripts and the full audio. Hoyt wrote, "The videos were heavily edited. The sequence of some conversations was changed. Some workers seemed concerned for Giles, one advising her to get legal help. In two cities, Acorn workers called the police. But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context."[48]"

Read that last sentence very carefully. I think I will repeat it. "But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context." That is from the New York Times after reviewing all the transcripts and all the unedited O"Keefe videos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O'Keefe

[Riot]

Take the Breitbart Apology Tour elsewhere. He's a liar, he deliberately tried, and achieved, destroying lives. Innocent victims of his political aims. Breitbart is scum.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Take the Breitbart Apology Tour elsewhere. He's a liar, he deliberately tried, and achieved, destroying lives. Innocent victims of his political aims. Breitbart is scum.

You can say whatever you want. But you have no evidence. Did Shirley Sherrod admit that when the white farmer came to her 20 years ago, that she was somewhat reluctant to help him because he was white? The answer is "yes".

Do you think your rhetoric is compelling? I'll do my imitation of you. Barrack Obama promised he would close Gitmo. He also promised that he would force companies selling GMO (genetically modified) foods to label them. He hasn't done either one of those things. He is a "liar". He is "scum". He is "evil".

By calling Obama a "liar" and/or "scum", does that make my case more compelling? Does that make me sound more intelligent?

By the way, if someone did call Obama a "liar" about these things, at least it would be accurate.

[timmgirvan]

Originally Posted by Riot

Take the Breitbart Apology Tour elsewhere. He's a liar, he deliberately tried, and achieved, destroying lives. Innocent victims of his political aims. Breitbart is scum.

....broken record much?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Do you think your rhetoric is compelling? .

LOL - I'm not trying to "compel" you. I don't care what you think about Andrew Breitbart. Think whatever you wish.

I already know what I think about that loser. He's been around quite a few years, and "what he is" was always quite evident.

Your postmortem rewrite isn't something I'm interested in buying. You said, "Breitbart was no worse than anyone else."

Uh. No. No way in hell, in fact. So it goes.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Take the Breitbart Apology Tour elsewhere. He's a liar, he deliberately tried, and achieved, destroying lives. Innocent victims of his political aims. Breitbart is scum.

You can take the Breitbart Hate Tour elsewhere.

According to your definition of what a "lie" is, you are "lying" about O'Keefe. According to your definition, if you only tell half the truth to mislead people about something, then that is a "lie".

That was exactly what you did with O'Keefe. You didn't give us an honest assessment of the ACORN story. Did you tell us what the guy from the New York Times told us? He reviewed all the unedited tapes and transcripts. He said, "The most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context."

You didn't tell us that, did you? You tried to act like O'Keefe's whole ACORN sting was misleading and out of context. That is not true. Some of it was misleading and out of context, but much of it was not. You didn't tell us that. So does that make you a "liar"?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Take the Breitbart Apology Tour elsewhere. He's a liar, he deliberately tried, and achieved, destroying lives. Innocent victims of his political aims. Breitbart is scum.

Any time a journalist does a negative story or an expose', it can hurt peoples' lives and careers. Does that stop journalists from doing these stories? Of course not.

[timmgirvan]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Any time a journalist does a negative story or an expose', it can hurt peoples' lives and careers. Does that stop journalists from doing these stories? Of course not.

there must have been massive evidence for ACORN to be defunded as they were!

[Antitrust32]

i will always be grateful to Breitbart and co for shutting down that sham organization ACORN.

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

i will always be grateful to Breitbart and co for shutting down that sham organization ACORN.

Yeah, well see how the shut down has affected people...







It's all Obama's fault..

[Riot]

Originally Posted by timmgirvan

there must have been massive evidence for ACORN to be defunded as they were!

Nope. Just gullible congresscritters. And a public that doesn't pay attention when the story is later debunked.

Just google "ACORN Breitbart fraud" and you'll gets multiple hits on the exposure of Breitbart as a dishonest liar about ACORN, when investigated by various Attorneys General and the Congressional Research Service".

Investigations by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, among others, have served to exonerate ACORN of the most outrageous charges of criminality (while still criticizing ACORN employees and leadership).

More important, from the perspective of journalistic ethics, those investigations revealed that the videotapes released and promoted by Breitbart’s website were selectively and deceptively edited to serve as propaganda, not news.

http://www.salon.com/2010/07/21/acorn_10/

The right-wing zealots were forced to release their unedited ACORN pimp tapes to California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Brown found that O'Keefe had never claimed to be a pimp, and that the editing was creative to the point of dishonesty.

He's not the first to find similar nefarious-ness behind the ACORN tapes. James O'Keefe, an activist who thinks he's a journalist, had claimed that he'd wandered into ACORN offices dressed as a pimp, accompanied by a friend dressed as a prostitute, and found them willing to dispense illegal advice. Previous investigations had found that, and Andrew Breitbart (his mentor at BigGovernment.org, who aired the videos) had done some, um, creative editing.

But Brown's findings are the most damning yet. Here, via MediaMatters, is one excerpt from Brown's office's report, and another from their press release. The findings echo those of all the professionals — including the Brooklyn DA's office — who have looked into the matter

http://gawker.com/5508190/okeefe-and...everely-edited
.

Hey - what do you think of ALEC, btw? Pretty outrageous, huh?