Breitbart, who had already hinted at being dissatisfied with the way Beck had treated him during the affair, went on a full Twitter assault Tuesday night, challenging Beck to respond to him publicly and his fans to justify Beck’s behavior or repudiate it. Breitbart made it explicit that he had attempted to keep the matter as private as possible, and asserted he had visited Beck’s office earlier this year and expected public repercussions for it. “You don’t know half the peril he put me in,” Breitbart told one tweep, asserting he had hoped Beck would reconsider publicly. Not seeing any, he is now going public, bringing back the $100,000 challenge he initially proposed to get access to the full archives of JournoList to request Beck take a lie detector test.

He then asked of Beck’s fans (many of which, presumably, are also his) a series of questions, the last of which accuses Beck of siding with Media Matters for America over Breitbart:

As of press time, Beck and the Mercury Arts team have had about 48 hours to respond to the accusations and have kept mum on the matter, so their side of the story remains to be seen, though most of the accusations are rather clear. The murkiest of the lot is Breitbart’s claim that Beck “hired away my editors”– though one could assume by deduction he could only mean current Blaze head Scott Baker, who was previously the head of Breitbart.tv. Breitbart has yet to name names on this front, however, and as with every other accusation Breitbart has thrown at them, Mercury Arts have not given comment.

The main accusation, however– that the true wrongful editing of Sherrod occurred on The Glenn Beck Program and not on Big Government– requires a thorough scrutiny of the timeline of the events of that day, which it likely won’t properly receive unless either legal action is taken or Beck speaks up. That is all to say that the merits of Breitbart’s case are not (pun intended) media matters, but investigative ones. What is more the concern of those who follow the moves of relevant media figures is what a public spat between Breitbart and Beck would look like, and who would more likely come out winning.

Attacking such a prominent member of the right is uncharted territory for Breitbart. While Breitbart’s empire has taken on many large targets– the NAACP, NPR, the SEIU, et al– it has never participated in friendly fire of the caliber it currently attempts. This means it has never had to cultivate public sympathy in the same demographic as its enemy. The way the current media landscape is set up, there is nothing Breitbart could possibly do to attract the political sympathy of someone who thinks, say, Eric Boehlert is mostly correct in his political notions or vice versa. A fight with Beck is a completely different beast. After the initial confusion of realizing these two libertarian-leaning conservatives are disputing over something, they then, based upon the above facts, have to take a side. And much of that determination will hinge upon the persuasive mechanisms of the two political figures, and the machinery they have at their disposal. After all, you can only go to war with the army you have.

With that in mind, here is a tale of the tape, if you will, of where Breitbart and Beck stand on the three media platforms they inhabit, which should clarify why, should Beck choose to engage, this would be quite the uphill battle to grab conservatives’ attention:

• The print world: This category only recently became fair ground on which to compare the two, as Breitbart’s book Righteous Indignation recently came out in stores. Here Breitbart is dealing with a veteran New York Times bestselling author– from An Inconvenient Book to Arguing with Idiots to Broke– and, according to sources familiar with the book sales of both parties, it shows. Beck’s latest book, The Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, sold six times the number of Righteous Indignation, and his penultimate, Broke, fared 20 times better. Obviously this is not a completely fair comparison given the amount of time the books have been out and the comparative advertising power behind both, but the print world is murkier about numbers than, say, the internet or television and so this is about as close to a ballpark measure as we can arrive at here. This is by far the most vulnerable wing of the Breitbart media empire on account of being new, and many onlookers within the conservative media community see him here at his weakest– one source with whom we spoke joked: “Andrew Breitbart is an American original. The way he rode Drudge’s coattails to a place where he now rivals Jerome Corsi in total book sales is simply remarkable.” And let’s not forget that Beck also has proven to have amazing power is telling his audience what to read, even if it’s “evil“– so maybe a battle with Beck might actually boost Breitbart’s book sales.
• Cable news: This category is slightly more difficult to evaluate than the other two, as Beck has the clear advantage of hosting a nightly television show, though not for long. Rather than counting the number of appearances, which would give Beck at least six a week (the extra one typically on Friday night’s O’Reilly Factor), I used TVEyes to count up the number of mentions both have on five major cable channels: Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNN, and C-SPAN. In the past month, Beck has received 258 mentions, with Breitbart– despite going on a media blitz for his new book, received five.
• The Blogosphere: Of the three, this may be perhaps the most necessary for Breitbart to dominate. This is his home turf and where he has cultivated most of his following. Using Quantcast’s statistics, even here Beck’s The Blaze appears to do better in traffic than the Breitbart sites (which all redirect to the Breitbart.com domain– e.g. BigGovernment.Breitbart.com). The Blaze averages 3 million visitors a month to Breitbart.com’s 1.4 million. These numbers, however, do not account for the individual traffic that goes directly to the Big sites one by one– it only accounts for direct links to the news-aggregating homepage and the @breitbart.com host domain. Taking into consideration the traffic directly to Big Government, Big Journalism, and Big Peace, that still adds up to 699,000 a month– though that does not include Big Hollywood, for which Quantcast does not currently have statistics.

So using these indices as a way to evaluate the extremely elusive quality of influence, Breitbart has the home advantage on the internet (though it’s not helping arithmetically) but his bully pulpit among print readers and television viewers present a serious disadvantage. As formidable as his online army may be, he still has millions of viewers to contend with that take Beck’s word for gospel, and tons more that, as casual viewers, may have only heard his name correlated with the Sherrod scandal such that the entire idea of Beck being behind her smearing will seem alien. Then there’s the bizarre lie detector challenge, which is derivative on both counts– the $100,000 he offered before for the full archives to Journolist; the lie detector test was first proposed to Martin Bashir, which for once may make Beck sound like the more rational of any two people by virtue of not yet having said anything.

But while the $100,000 offer still stands, Glenn Beck hasn’t returned fire, nor has he indicated he has any interest in using his bully pulpit to fight Breitbart’s claims. Here’s to hoping that for the sake of the organized right– which, if judging by the 2012 presidential field, is having more than enough time organizing itself– the former allies clean this mess up with as little carnage possible, and can go back to delivering delightful cable news nuggets like this:

It didn’t take long for those sparks to fly, either: almost immediately after Breitbart defended himself saying he once told “a very prominent conservative” to “stop it with the birther crap,” Flanders jumped right on him: “You’re like the guys who set the fire and then condemn the place.” Soon, it moved on to Flanders trying to get Breitbart to apologize to Shirley Sherrod – she didn’t get what she wanted on that one, either. We did, though, get Breitbart saying once again that Glenn Beck threw him under the bus, saying he “cut up the video” to make Breitbart appear unfair…and we even got a positive shout-out from Breitbart to Chris Matthews on top of that.

It continued along those same lines – Flanders calling Breitbart “a con man,” Maher finally trying to turn the discussion back to Donald Trump (he’d wanted it to be about Trump from the beginning), and debate over Obama’s writing, scholarship, and former hairstyle. Oh, and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon was there, too, but he didn’t get to say much.

At the end of the clip you’ll see below, Maher says, “I think we’ve all had a chance to voice our opinions.” In the cases of Breitbart and Flanders, at least – yeah, we’ll say. Video via HBO.

After going over the details of the case, the best moments came when he issued this personal message to Breitbart:

“Did you have parents? Were you brought up in an outhouse some place, in a toilet, in a public urinal? Did you have parents and this is how they raised you? To deliberately and maliciously attack a woman for sport, you pig? Is this how your parents brought you up? Shame on you, Breitbart. And I bet your parents, if they’re still living, just hang their heads in shame about what a piece of human waste they raised.”

Malloy said he knew Breitbart would get the message because his “little cockroach colleagues in the right-wing blogosphere are busily recording everything” he says. Sure enough, a video of the moment is now the number one feature on Breitbart.tv with the claim that Malloy threatens Breitbart (Malloy says some mean things but that’s a stretch).

Now it’s time for the big question of political talk radio: When your enemies seem to enjoy your attacks more than you do making them, is it time for a different attack?

Check out the clip from The Mike Malloy Show below (H/T Breitbart.tv):

For those of you who don’t remember, the Sherrod story absolutely consumed the news for a few weeks this summer and gave us the fun new term “Sherroding” (sher·rod – 1. verb, to publish comments made by a person in an edited fashion so as to imply their overall message was different than it actually was typically for political gain, 2. noun, a cold-water fish found in Canada). Sherrod was an employee of the USDA who gave a speech at an NAACP banquet in which she described how she overcame her racial prejudices to be come a better person. A video of the speech was posted on Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com but was edited to remove the overcoming parts of her speech, leaving only the racial prejudices part. An uproar quickly arose and Sherrod was fired from her job by higher ups in the Obama administration. It was only then that someone pointed out what Sherrod actually said which led to an even bigger uproar and an apology from the President himself.

Breitbart has responded to the lawsuit in the form of a press release that doesn’t mention Sherrod by name, instead linking her to the ongoing Pigford settlement. From Big Government:

“Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2011 – Breitbart.com LLC announced today that its Chairman and CEO Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv, Larry O’Connor, have been sued in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by a central figure in the Pigford ‘back-door’ reparations case. The Pigford case involves over $2.5 billion in US taxpayer money and constitutes one of the biggest cases of corruption
and politically-motivated fraud in the history of the United States. Mr. Breitbart and Breitbart.tv have been investigating and reporting on the Pigford case since late summer 2010.
Andrew Breitbart said, in response to being sued, ‘I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred. It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so.’”

Aw, news stories from the summer returning to the headlines. It’s like running into your summer camp girlfriend during the summer. It’s nice, but will the spark still be there?

The conversation sprung from comments made by former president Jimmy Carter, who once again recently denounced Beck by name as an example of how the media can be counterproductive. Beck didn’t really seem to mind Carter’s comments, though he did take the time to note that “no one listens to Jimmy Carter” and no one ever did, “not even when he was President.” After laughing a bit at the former president’s expense (O’Reilly also mocked him for having “a book out every three weeks… more than [Beck], which I didn’t think was possible), the duo discussed several on-air errors they made and corrected them once again, in the interest of fairness. These included O’Reilly’s premature condemnation of Shirley Sherrod and Beck erroneously labeling former White House Green Jobs Czar Van Jones a “convicted felon.”

The the conversation veered toward Sen. Rockefeller and the impending Comcast/GE deal. Beck perceived the attacks on MSNBC from liberals as a sign of doom for the network given the new corporate proceedings, and suggested that the intent on the left was to make MSNBC a “sacrificial lamb” and hope that the right follows suit with Fox News. O’Reilly found the theory innovative and lended his support: “You’re very perceptive!” he cheered.

The dialogue on spelling doom for MSNBC as a corporation seems hyperbolic and immature at this point in the Comcast proceedings, though perfect bait for the anchors on the other side to bite.

The segment from this evening’s O’Reilly Factor via Fox News below:

While I don’t buy the various defenses that are being deployed on Williams’ behalf, there is an important principle at stake that is being washed away, not in the name of “political correctness,” but expediency. While loose lips have always been in danger of sinking career ships, the bar has been lowered to a level that can only serve to end our most valuable conversations.

On the subject of Juan Williams’ firing, several blogs have pointed out that the full video of Williams’ remarks (which Mediaite has posted) show him advocating for tolerance, but in reality, he is employing the same “one of the good ones” rationale that has been a staple of in-denial bigots for generations. While he asks for a distinction between moderate and extremist Muslims, it is a distinction that he obviously cannot divine from his airline seat. A generation ago, Archie Bunker might have asked how he could tell whether the black man approaching him on the street was one of the “good ones,” or one of the “bad ones.”

Unfortunately, Williams was supposed to be the voice of reason on that panel, and if he had been, he would have pointed out that his (remarkably honest) confession about fearing Muslims on a plane had more to do with an instinctive response that can be overcome with reason, rather than a political correctness-threatened reality.

As Matt Lewis points out, though, firing Juan Williams guarantees that that conversation never happens.

While inflammatory comments have ended careers for as far back as I can remember (Jimmy the Greek, anyone?), the touchstone for the current trend seems to be the firing of Don Imus for referring to the Rutgers Women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” At the time, Reverend Al Sharpton pushed hard for Imus’ firing. While Imus’ remark was reprehensible, many suggested that a far more productive consequence would have been for Imus to engage in a weekly discussion on race with someone like Sharpton. Instead of reaching Imus’ audience with constructive dialogue, his firing made him a martyr to them, and naturally hostile to the notion of racial sensitivity.

Williams’ dismissal comes at a time when careers are ending over inflammatory remarks at an ever-increasing pace. Rick Sanchez was fired by CNN with dizzying speed following some distasteful remarks about Jews in the media. Helen Thomas saw her long, iconic career end in a flash over criticism of Israel that, as widely reported, smacked of nostalgia for concentration camps, but in context, were nothing of the kind. Dr. Laura Schlessinger quit her radio show under pressure almost immediately after using a string of “n-words” to “prove a point” to a caller. Shirley Sherrod was the rare beneficiary of context when she was exonerated of charges of racism upon release of her full speech, but she still lost her job.

None of these decisions were made, however, in the interest of furthering our understanding of issues that have the potential to sharply divide us. These were business decisions, made in the name of expediency. Having Rick Sanchez explain himself, and having someone else engage him in honest rejoinder, is a much heavier lift than just firing him.

Sometimes, these decisions are justified. Rush Limbaugh‘s dismissal from ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown pregame show, for example, was brought on by his assertion that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was given undeserved credit for his team’s success because he is black. While Limbaugh’s commentary could also have led to a revealing conversation about race, social commentary isn’t integral to the network’s brand. ESPN stood to gain nothing by doing this, while retaining Limbaugh would have damaged them. Ditto the NFL’s decision to deny Limbaugh a chance to purchase the St. Louis Rams. While some unsourced quotes were attributed to Limbaugh in the run-up to that decision, there were more than enough real ones.

Luckily for people like Limbaugh, they usually operate in a world where there is no price to pay for saying inflammatory things. When Glenn Beck (like Limbaugh) calls health care reform “reparations,” it enhances his brand. Unfortunately, they also perform mainly in monologue, which prevents the tough conversations just as surely as these firings do. Furthermore, their Teflon presence mitigates the possible benefit that firing people like Sanchez, et al, will have any impact on the coarsening of the airwaves.

In fact, this points up the most insidious effect of the trend. While Limbaugh, Beck, and Bill O’Reilly are free to speak their minds, the unforgiving tide of dismissals serves to encourage self-censorship, and therefore, to prevent honest discussions about our most important issues. As Matt Lewis observes, Attorney General Eric Holder‘s words about our nation’s cowardice on race has no truer illustration than this. It doesn’t take courage to sing “Kum Ba Yah.” It takes courage to admit that you feel a knot in your stomach when you see someone who’s different from you, and to have that discussion. We won’t always like the way these conversations turn out, as with Williams, but firing people for being honest ensures that we never will.

The small, yet rather significant comment reads:

We here at Breitbart.tv don’t run stories or reference in any way reports from this show, and because of the history of statements, and erratic and overly emotional editorializing from this anchor we do not and will not trust his judgment.

Why is Breitbart taking at aim at the respected Smith? Perhaps because Smith took aim at Breitbart (and his network of Big sites) during the Shirley Sherrod affair.

“We here at Studio B did not run the video and did not reference the story in any way for many reasons, among them: we didn’t know who shot it, we didn’t know when it was shot, we didn’t know the context of the statement, and because of the history of the videos on the site where it was posted, in short we do not and did not trust the source.”

Fun! Watch the video of the initial report below:

In the last few minutes of this clip, however, Breitbart dives back into the Shirley Sherrod controversy, explaining the real reason Sherrod was fired from the USDA, suggesting that she was part of a fairly corrupt scheme:

Part 1:




Part2:

Breitbart  is correct when he says that many Pigford claimants have “never seen a piece of farmland,” but that’s because the USDA discriminated against them!

The Pigford case is a class action lawsuit that was brought by black farmers after the USDA admitted it had been discriminating against black farmers for years. In essence, Clinton Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman said, “Hey, all you black farmers out there, remember when we denied you that loan? It was because you’re black.”

Black farmers, naturally, were like, “Oh, well, that’s messed up. I could’ve saved/purchased my own farm with that loan. Pay me.”

Shirley Sherrod was the leader of a group of farmers called New Communities, Inc., who were collectively awarded $13 million for the loss of 6,000 acres of land due to USDA’s racial discrimination, and Sherrod was awarded $150,000, as was her husband Charles. Sherrod’s work on behalf of black farmers in this case is precisely why she was hired by Vilsack, to help “turn the corner” on decades of discriminatory practices.

Track A of the Pigford settlement was structured so that a fixed payment of $50,000 would be awarded to any black farmer who could prove that he:

• owned or leased, or attempted to own or lease, farm land, applied for a specific credit transaction at a USDA county office during the applicable period
• the loan was denied, provided late, approved for a lesser amount than requested, encumbered by restrictive conditions, or USDA failed to provide appropriate loan service, and such treatment was less favorable than that accorded specifically identified, similarly situated white farmers.
• the USDA’s treatment of the loan application led to economic damage.

Anyone who wanted to seek a larger amount would use “Track B,” which had an even stricter burden of proof.

Critics of Pigford, such as right-wing radio host Ben Shapiro and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) cite purely anecdotal evidence to assert that 75-90% of Pigford settlement payouts are fraudulent, lazy blacks who are gaming the system at the behest of their greedy pastors, but had to be paid out anyway. The truth is that only 15,640 (69%) Track A claims were approved, versus 6,910 (31%) denied.

Furthermore, tens of thousands of farmers never even had their claims considered because they missed the deadline, due in part to what even the judge called incompetent legal counsel for the claimants. An additional $1.15 billion settlement was reached for these claimants, but the funds have not been appropriated yet.

It is these so-called “Pigford 2″ cases to which Breitbart refers, and whether you agree with the Pigford settlement or not, it is just silly to claim that there is some effort to keep it secret. At the height of the Sherrod scandal, with all eyes on him, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack extensively referenced Sherrod’s involvement with Pigford during a nationally televised press conference. Just last week, Vilsack released the following statement, urging Congress to fund the settlement: (via email)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2010 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today released the following statement on the need for Congressional action to fund the Pigford II settlement agreement:

“Black farmers throughout the country unfortunately faced discrimination in past decades when trying to obtain services from USDA. This discrimination is well-documented, the courts have affirmed this discrimination, and Congress has twice acknowledged the need to settle with those who have suffered from this discrimination. It is now time for Congress to pass the funding so the victims of this discrimination can get the opportunity to receive the compensation that they are due.

“While members of Congress have noted the bipartisan support for this legislation, it is time for Congress to turn their support into action and fund the settlement agreement once and for all. The time for Congressional action to fund the settlement agreement is running out, and the victims of this discrimination should not need to wait a day longer. Congress should not leave today without exhausting every option for passing legislation that provides for the funding.”

Breitbart is correct to note that funding Pigford is a tough sale, politically, but it has been for quite some time, and that’s certainly no secret. That is not to say that Pigford won’t be a bigger story going forward. If the Republicans manage to wrest control of the House from the Democrats in November, this will be high on their list of endless investigations.

But since that day, Breitbart, a media presence on the rise, has been absent from cable news. Did the Sherrod story damage his personal brand?

Fox News and MSNBC did not respond to requests for comment about the story, and CNN tells us there is “no directive” not to book Breitbart. He was only rarely on CNN and MSNBC before the story broke, but he did occasionally show up.

And while he wasn’t a regular Fox News guest, he did appear on the network three times in July before the Sherrod story, on Hannity and Red Eye (according to TV Eyes). Breitbart did not appear on the network during news hours.

We reached out to Breitbart as well to see if his cable news silence was self-imposed, a way to get out of the spotlight until he was ready to return with new ammunition, but he did not respond to requests for comment.

The name “Breitbart” certainly hasn’t disappeared from the cable news airwaves in the last month-and-half. Every network has mentioned the new media star more than a dozen times. And he’s still around on Twitter – although significantly less than he was before the Sherrod story. But the notable absence from cable news seems to indicate the Obama administration and USDA weren’t the only ones hurt by the story.

Breitbart himself has taken a new, more sudued role, in the aftermath so far.

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You will likely recall that last month Maddow accused Fox News of ginning up the Shirley Sherrod tape debacle in an effort to “scare white people” and as a result Maddow thinks between that and ACORN and Van Jones and the Black Panthers we should be “familiar with the formula.” Says Maddow:

What’s worth noting about all of these different ‘scare white people’ stories is that they’re not really actual news stories. No real news organizations started running with this story as actual news. The best ‘scare white people’ stories are invented out of whole cloth, from inside the conservative media world so they can be the just right kind of scary, in just the right kind of way, in order to drive the just right political consequences. So ultimately if the conservative media drives this to make it big enough than normal news organizations pick it up too, sometimes because they’re guilted into it by conservatives. But no non-Fox News, non-conservative media outlet ever starts these things.

And she has a point. That has been the (successful) trajectory of most of these stories. And this mosque story was not news until the New York Post and subsequently Sarah Palin stoked it up and media outlets hungry for headlines jumped in. However, unlike some past examples Maddow offers, this one seems to have taken on a very real, possibly dangerous life of its own. As Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald noted, this ain’t no August news story anymore: “The Park51 conflict is driven by, and reflective of, a pervasive animosity toward a religious minority — one that has serious implications for how we conduct ourselves both domestically and internationally.”

On Sunday Maureen Dowd said “the unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of their systems.” And I think she also may have a point, some of the “protests” in Manhattan this weekend weirdly felt like a long-delayed reaction to 9/11.

Maddow, meanwhile, worries that without any “adults around to hit the brakes” the far, far right wing of the conservative party is now being allowed to drive the national conversation on Islam. Watch the segment below.

She told reporters she did not think she could say yes to a job “at this point, with all that has happened.” There had been indications that Vilsack, who apologized to Sherwood for pushing her out, had offered her a position in the Office of Advocacy and Outreach, which works in the civil rights area.

“It is a new position,” she said. “I look at what happened ow. I know he has apologized and I accept that. A new process is in place and I hope that it works. … I think I can be helpful to him and the department if I just take a little break and look at how I can be more helpful in the future,” Sherrod said.

This looks like a wise decision by Sherrod, whose high profile will allow her to be a much more effective civil rights advocate from outside the department.

Update – In a lengthy interview earlier today, Sherrod sat down with CNN’s Tony Harris to explain in much greater depth her reasoning behind not accepting the job.

But the NAACP’s statement wasn’t about Dr. Laura – it was from Shirley Sherrod. In a clear demonstration that she sees herself and the NAACP allied in a fight against a common enemy – and in a remarkable bit of redemption for NAACP head Ben Jealous – Sherrod blasted Andrew Breitbart and Fox News for their roles in last month’s kerfuffle. Calling Breitbart’s clip “heavily edited” and “intentionally deceptive” she notes that she won’t “yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out.”

The NAACP was, in fact, not at the forefront of calls for sponsors to drop Dr. Laura – that leadership was position held primarily by Media Matters. Although Dr. Laura’s offense was to repeatedly spout the n-word and demean the political choices of the African-American community, it was the progressive community broadly that held her to account. This despite Dr. Laura herself invoking the name of the organization, famously suggesting to the black caller in the incident that the caller was “taking things out of context” and exclaiming, “Don’t NAACP me!” The irony of referring to taking words out of context as “NAACPing” – and not “Breitbarting” – was lost on the good doctor.

In her resignation, Dr. Laura sputtered and fumed about “special interests” who somehow revoked her First Amendment right to say whatever she wanted. Or, in her words to Larry King, she no longer has “the right to say what she needs to say.” You know, like the n-word.

Dr. Laura’s comments were tone-deaf and out of touch, the result of a media environment that makes it difficult to pause, to temper, to reflect. Shirley Sherrod was caught in that same environment, the victim of the NAACP’s difficult choice in a swirling news cycle: act immediately with the information at hand, or risk being pilloried for allowed a purported racist to go unchallenged. It was a situation in which the NAACP couldn’t not act.

In the case of Dr. Laura, the NAACP didn’t need to act. Dr. Laura didn’t get “NAACP’d.” She got “modern American cultured.” She was unable to articulate why her comments were wrong or to admit her mistake. That her announcement to Larry King placed the blame on everyone except Dr. Laura means that her decision to leave the air is the right one – she is no longer able to comment effectively on the world in which she lives, because she doesn’t understand it. In a way, I guess she did get NAACP’d – in the sense that she was the victim of society that increasingly understands and agrees what that organization strives for.

Shirley Sherrod got “Breitbarted” – and got over it. Dr. Laura got “2010′d” – and in 2011, will no longer be on the air.

The Boston Globe reports that “Breitbarting” can now be defined as “intentionally taking a statement out of context for political ends.” So, like its predecessor “swift boating” one supposes we can expect to hear it put to use a lot in the coming months leading up to the midterms.

According to the Globe, Breitbart managed to beat out Shirley Sherrod (“Sherroding”) as the ultimate definer of underhanded behavior (in political circles anyway).

It’s interesting that Breitbart was chosen for eponymization rather than Sherrod. Part of it must be due to Breitbart’s reputed history of giving less than the full story (he was also the source for some selectively edited videos which implied that voting-rights group ACORN gave advice on tax evasion). Part of it must be linguistic: breitbart is easier to conjugate and use as a verb than sherrod: Is it sherroded? Or sherrodded? (And where do you put the stress?) But part of it must be because Sherrod is indisputably the victim here, and thus not a suitable source of an active verb.

I don’t know, I think to be “Sherroded” has a certain ring to it. It remains to be seen whether this will officially be the year of “Breitbarting” though thus far all signs appear to point towards yes.

In this case, the offender is Media Matters, which tries to prove that Glenn Beck‘s radio co-hosts were saying Keith Olbermann was responsible for the deadly Manchester workplace shooting.

Here was Media Matters’ (sic’ed) headline: “Beck sidekicks Gray and Burguiere: Keith Olberman and media responsible for Manchester shooting.”

The sidekicks are Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere, who co-hosted with Beck out today. And why did Media Matters write this? Well, because that is what Gray and Burguiere said – at first. Gray: “Obviously Keith Olbermann is responsible for those eight people dead.”

And Burguiere: “A guy like that who’s a little bit unstable anyway can’t help but react to the constant pressure of Keith Olbermann on the air on MSNBC and all of MSNBC talking about all the racism there is out there.”

But the problem is, the co-hosts were being sarcastic, to make a point. A minute later they get serious, and Stu says “Keith Olbermann was not responsible for any shooting,” but that part is conveniently out of the Media Matters audio. Because Media Matters cut the audio right before they make it clear.

Right after the Media Matters edit, Burguiere says:

Obviously we’re making a point here. Let’s move that to the case against the tea party members. They’re constantly convinced that the government is after them, that they are going to come take their guns. Well, who is always talking about that? Glenn Beck. So therefore he’s responsible for every time anyone does anything, even, you know, violent.

Later, Gray says, “Just like he can’t blame Keith Olbermann for this dumb racist thing.” And Burguiere reiterates: “Keith Olbermann was not responsible for any shooting. Keith Olbermann is not, it’s not possible for him to sit there and inspire that by talking about a topic.”

> Update: MMFA has updated their post:

CORRECTION: The original headline on this clip did not make clear that Beck’s co-hosts were being satirical when they linked MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to the Manchester shooting. The original clip also did not include their subsequent statements that Olbermann was not responsible for the shooting. Media Matters regrets the error.

In other words – the exact opposite of Media Matters’ post. Here’s the full audio of the segment:

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What happened? Video of Shirley Sherrod aired when it was supposed to be Rep. Maxine Waters.

During a segment on the possible ethics violations of Rep. Waters, Greta had ABC’s Rick Klein On The Record. As he talked, b-roll of Rep. Waters was supposed to air, but instead it was about five seconds of Sherrod, followed by actual footage of Waters (video below).

In a Gretawire blog post titled “OOPS…we so screwed up on this one and we are sick about it…” (that’s actually the headline), Greta writes:

We hate it when we screw up here at ON THE RECORD. Right now we are trying to console ourselves with the fact that, while we did a doozy of a mistake, at least it was unintentional, we noticed it immediately and scrambled to fix it immediately. And yes, even with telling ourselves that, we still feel horrible! (and we should feel horrible!)

What happened? I hate to tell you but we need to fess up to this one. Somehow when we were talking about Congresswoman Maxine Waters during the news show, tape went up on our screen of Shirley Sherrod and not Congresswoman Waters. Yes, a very bad mistake and a painful one for which we are very apologetic.

Obviously, when race is involved in the mistake, even honest errors take on extra meaning. But even though this was likely a screw-up by a production assistant, Van Susteren felt she had to take the lead and apologize and draw attention to the fact that the show did notice. Of course, a blog post that begins “OOPS” will end up drawing more attention to the incident.

Here’s the fairly minor, innocent mistake:

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In the opening of a segment regarding Sherrod, Cooper noted that it had been one week since his interview with her and, watching the video again, he realized he had let the comments slip by unnoticed. The comments were clearly offensively to Breitbart, who brought them up when asked by Newsweek whether he would apologize to her. Cooper apologized for letting the comment slip and promised that it wouldn’t happen again:

“In the course of that interview, I failed to do something that I should have. I believe in admitting my mistakes… She, of course, is free to believe whatever she wants, but I didn’t challenge her that night, and I should have. I don’t want anyone on my show to get away with saying things which cannot be supported by facts. I should have challenged her on what facts she believe support that accusation. That’s my job, and I didn’t do it very well in that interview, and I’m sorry about it. If I get the chance to talk to her again, I will.”

Cooper’s apology below:

According to Politico, the announcement noted that it was a “scheduling change” and that RNC spokesman Doug Heye commented that the party is “working on scheduling and we fully plan to have another event based on existing trips to California.” The reason for the scheduling change was not given, nor an exact date for the new event, but it seems that, whatever the reason, the event will end up taking place further away from the epicenter of the Sherrod scandal and closer to Election Day.

Politico also notes that Steele canceled an appearance today with the National Association of Black Journalists, in a similar event to the one where Sherrod announced that she planned to sue Breitbart. Steele cited food poisoning as the reason for the cancellation.

The interview is significantly less aggressive than Breitbart’s initial appearances when the scandal broke in which he repeatedly defended himself by nothing that he was not the one that made the decision to fire Sherrod and that he “could care less about” her. While he refused to apologize in Newsweek before meeting with Sherrod personally, he noted that his initial motivation to post the video– to highlight “that there’s consistency here in the Democratic Party to strategically issue the race card”– was “absolutely pure” and that he regretted that Sherrod’s individual story had overtaken the narrative. He also noted that “if I could do it all over again, I should have waited for the full video to get to me” and, while he noted that it would be “easy” to blame everything on him, he argued that “I don’t think anybody looks particularly good in this thing”– all a far cry from wondering aloud whether the farmers interviewed by CNN were the actual protagonists of Sherrod’s story when talking to John King.

Sherrod has not exactly taken the attacks sitting down. She has called for Big Government to be shut down and is planning a lawsuit against Breitbart for posting the video. While he refused to comment on the lawsuit, he did extend to Sherrod a peaceful proposition: “I’d be more than happy to meet with her in private and have a discussion with her.” But what would Breitbart have to say after the whole ordeal:

“I’d have a long discussion with her and I’d tell her that I’m not one of these people in this country that thinks racism doesn’t exist. And that I’m not one of these people who says that she hasn’t suffered from racism. And that the scars of her racism aren’t warranted. But I’d also tell her that my passion in life and my political trajectory from left to right was born from watching the Clarence Thomas hearings. I didn’t understand how he NAACP sat on its hands while privileged white gentlemen hammered him mercilessly and humiliated him and the media and the NAACP allowed for it to happen.”

Sherrod, as mentioned before, is not particularly happy with Breitbart, but his move to invite her to a private chat leaves the ball in Sherrod’s court and, in contrast to Sherrod’s accusations that Breitbart supports slavery, makes Breitbart appear the victim of Sherrod’s demonization, with the burden on her end to prove his malicious intent. If the Breitbart/Sherrod Meeting of the Minds does end up happening, let’s just hope they serve beer.

According to reference.com, “propaganda” is defined as “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.” Given what we now know about how the Shirley Sherrod scandal, this appears not only to be true, but pretty much what Breitbart has admitted himself (though his candor has been lauded by some unlikely media personalities.) But does Todd, who’s goal is to be an “objective reporter,” really want to get involved with the Cable News/Internet name calling?

Apparently so – and we will delight in covering his participation.

In the initial live 5PM segment, the conversation between Dean, Matthews, and Walsh turned uncomfortable as Matthews repeatedly defended Breitbart’s tape as “unedited.” After several “that’s not true”s and “you’ve got to trust me on this”s, Matthews still insisted the video was unedited, and, when asked if he had seen the news on the Drudge Report, snapped, “I don’t watch Drudge.” Take 1 of the segment is below:

The above video never made it to the online Hardball channel, as it appears that sometime in between the two airings of the program, the decision was made to do the segment live once again at 7PM, because what aired during what is typically (and, with this segment the exception, was) a rerun was the following video– the same discussion, except with Matthews agreeing that the video was edited and, instead of Gov. Dean, Politico‘s Ken Vogel:

In the second take, Matthews emphasizes the fact that the Breitbart tape was, in fact, incomplete, and even plays the Breitbart version of the tape to make the point that it was so. At the end of the segment, Matthews acknowledges the errors in the first take, telling the audience before he thanks Walsh for returning:

“That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what we’re doing here in our 2nd edition tonight, trying to clarify. It’s a better story tonight. We had a good narrative tonight. I think everybody heard what happened. It’s a tricky one, a few rough edges– we got it tonight.”

Hardball has been around for well over a decade, there is a chance that this isn’t the first time they’ve had to retape a segment to replace what would have been the typical rerun. But outside of special Election Day editions of the program where Matthews is embedded on the campaign trail, this is the first time in recent memory that Hardball has run live at 7PM, and probably the first time when the program has run live for only one segment, only to return to the rerun afterwards, barring a major news break.

It seems that Matthews and his crew were not willing to let history repeat itself thanks to a preplanned rerun, and on the rest of the network, MSNBC rarely, if ever, retapes segments for reasons outside of technical error (Matthews not knowing the facts on the Sherrod story is certainly not the fault of technology). It’s a truly rare occasion to see a cable news personality admit a mistake– the best that can typically be hoped for is a passing apology on the night after– and impressive that it took less than two hours for Matthews to make his segment right and acknowledge that things didn’t go so smoothly the first time around.

Update: Walsh expands on her Hardball appearances in a new Salon column posted tonight.

That said, it was a tad disconcerting to watch the President tread the path to the hot topics couch, but once ensconced I think both he and the ladies acquitted themselves well. Better, in fact, than a number of “serious” interviews I’ve seen the last few months. Turns out it’s harder to wiggle your way out of a direct answer when you are face to face with five inquiring women and a live audience. To be sure, the questions were not terribly in depth, but they were reasonably substantive, and commensurate with with the sort of questions one imagines The View‘s audience would be interested in answers to. Namely, the economy, his children, the economy, Shirley Sherrod, cable news (no mention of Fox by name), Afghanistan, health care, Lindsay Lohan, Sn00ki, and Chelsea Clinton. Mostly in that order.

Two exchanges in particular that caught my attention: The discussion about Shirley Sherrod. And Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Televised discussions about race in this country tend to be painted in fairly broad strokes, and I thought that between Barbara asking the president why he didn’t call himself a biracial president, to Whoopi asking him how black people should think of themselves in America, the discussion went a bit deeper than it might otherwise have in a different setting. For the record, Obama conceded “”people in [his] administration” overreacted in the case of Sherrod.

Obama also noted that the things the media may focus on are not necessarily the things he is focused on, and that signing letters to family members of men and women killed in Afghanistan tends to put things in a different perspective. What is frustrating, he conceded, was the sense that he was always on on the campaign trail: “we shouldn’t be campaigning all the time…there’s a time to govern.” Moreover, Michelle doesn’t think any of the [cable news] criticism is fair. (Neither does Joy.)

Enter Elisabeth Hasselbeck, whom I happen to think was rather impressive. Hasselbeck is well-known to viewers of the View for her conservative politics and is never shy about voicing her criticism of the president. What I found impressive was that she managed to respectfully articulate her economic concerns to the president, instead of shying away from the discussion when the spotlight was on. Anyone who has watched Jon Stewart go soft while attempting to interview face-to-face one of the subjects of his sharp criticism knows it is not easy to be critical to someone’s face, let alone the President of the United States. It actually left me wondering whether she has political aspirations. (Palin-Hasselbeck 2016 anyone?)

Now for the celebrity portion: Obama knows Lindsay Lohan is in jail, doesn’t know who Sn00ki is, and hasn’t watched a Mel Gibson movie in years. Bases covered! Watch clips from the hour below.

This was the brief AP alert:

Ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports.

She has previously said she wants BigGovernment.com shut down. Here’s all our Sherrod coverage.

> Update: Here’s MSNBC with the news:

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Bret Baier responded with video evidence to Howard Dean‘s latest charges, while FNC admitted there had been an online “breakdown” in the publication of a story about Sherrod before it was announced she resigned.

In a “fact check” segment on Special Report last night, Baier responded to what Dean said on MSNBC’s The Ed Show by visually displaying what we’ve been saying for a week – the out-of-context clip didn’t air on Fox News until Bill O’Reilly‘s 8pmET show. “Not a single frame of that video hit the air all day,” he said, while the entire day’s programming played in fast forward.

Unfortunately for Baier, he’s already behind – Dean has moved on from this initial charge and expanded his criticism to how O’Reilly and Sean Hannity covered the story Monday night and the rest of the week. This cannot be disputed with some video evidence.

Meanwhile the one Fox News entity that did touch the Breitbart video before Sherrod’s resignation was FoxNews.com – a point some have continued to focus on. Politico talked to Fox News SVP Michael Clemente, and he did admit a “breakdown” that led to the story’s publication:

But FoxNews.com did run a story about the existence of the video, titled “Video Shows USDA Official Saying She Didn’t Give ‘Full Force’ of Help to White Farmer” at 5:58 p.m. on Monday, an hour before the Agriculture Department announced Sherrod’s resignation. And Wednesday, Clemente told POLITICO that was a mistake.

“There was a breakdown in the system, and it is being addressed,” he said. “But it must say something about the power of Fox, that a week after she resigned, we’re still talking about this.”

According to Sherrod’s timeline, 5:58pmET is still after she was forced to resign (she had to do it “before Glenn Beck” at 5pmET). But this was an admission of a mistake nonetheless.

Here’s the Baier segment (via Johnny Dollar):

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Speaking to Dylan Ratigan fill-in and Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, Dean stood by his comments, and dismissed Clemente’s criticism, while Cenk noted the long roster of “failed candidates” who populate Fox’s air. (h/t Aaron Wysocki)

I also thought it was interesting that a network with Sarah Palin as a contributor would describe an opponent as a “failed candidate,” especially when you consider that Dean was the architect of the 50 state strategy that helped to defeat Palin’s vice-presidential bid. Also, Dean did finish his full term as governor. Actually, he finished five full terms.

I don’t think the fact that Shirley Sherrod resigned before Fox News ever aired the story factors into Dean’s criticism, which was of the way Fox personalities like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity covered the story. As Steve Krakauer pointed out, CNN reported on the edited tape Monday night, too, but none with the gusto of Fox’s opinion shows.

Dean’s argument doesn’t rest on the Shirley Sherrod story alone, either. Whether or not you agree with Dean that there’s a pattern of racism, it is upon this foundation that Dean’s argument rests, and not simply whether Fox had a hand in Sherrod’s resignation.

But there is also no doubt which type of media drove it into the ground – cable news.

Take a look at this chart, from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. It illustrates the Sherrod story in the media last week:

From the report:

The story accounted for 33% of the airtime studied, twice as much as the second-biggest story for the sector, the oil spill. During the last half of the week, from July 21-July 25, the story consumed 41% of the cable airtime, quickly overtaking developments in the oil rig disaster and a well-orchestrated rollout of the Washington Post’s series on the nation’s intelligence-gathering bureaucracy.

That’s an incredible chunk of time devoted to the story, which essentially came to a conclusion by Tuesday. Meanwhile, it only accounted for approximately 10% of online coverage. (For background on the outlets counted as “online,” here’s the full list.)

This doesn’t excuse a powerful force in the new media from starting the story, but it does shed more light on how Shirley Sherrod became the media star she has become. While Bob Schieffer knocked new media Sunday, it was the cable news outlets that turned the minor story into a major one.

In total, however, Pew found economic issues were the most covered stories of last week. The crisis (“the merits of extending unemployment insurance benefits and Wall Street regulatory reform”) accounted for 17% of all news coverage, while Sherrod was #2 at 14%.

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Then again, there are plenty of people populating the American political and media landscape whose continued employment at times remains a mystery. In the last year or so particularly the idea that a person might resign over something like marital infidelity, be it on the Appalachian Train or Buenos Aires, has gone from a given to not necessarily necessary. In recognition of this shift here a selection of the of people who are still employed.

Mark Sanford (1 of 10)

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Mark Sanford simultaneously set the standard for what politicians might hope to get away with while in office, and marked the turning point where they were somehow allowed to get away with it. Sanford, who famously took off for Argentina with his mistress while telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian trail, remains Governor of South Carolina. Meanwhile his wife Jenny has morphed into the poster child for political wives who have no desire to stand by their man.

Hayes was beginning a segment on black farmers– those who Hayes argued were being ignored the most throughout the scandal– and describing what he perceived as the “bizarro world” nature of the way Breitbart had been treated, going directly from the center of a Shirley Sherrod firestorm to a posh Beverly Hills Republican fundraiser. In “normal” world, Hayes expected Breitbart’s “race-baiting website [to lose] all credibility as a legitimate source.” In his “bizarro world,” the Sherrod story was something to raise the site’s profile on:

“Today, Talking Points Memo revealed an invitation to a big RNC event happening next month in Beverly Hills. And whom do Republicans want to be associated with? Who instead of getting run out of town on a rail is the first name featured on the invitation? The very same guy behind the entire sorry trumped up hoax, whose name I’ll happily refrain from mentioning. By now, after his fake ACORN scandal and after his fake Shirley-Sherrod-is-a-racist-and-so -is-everybody-at-the-NAACP scandal, no one should say that guy’s name. He should be an exile and there should be a rule in every politicians Outlook to forward every email with his name on it to “junk.” Instead, h’es a draw. He’s good for Republican fundraising. In bizarro world.”

Hayes is doing more than many in the media by keeping his eye on the ball and targeting Breitbart specifically, instead of getting lost in the quagmire of blame that spans the spectrum from Fox News to the Obama administration. The one indisputable fact in this entire story is the fact that its existence is based exclusively in the fact that a video of Sherrod was posted on Big Government. But calling for the “exile” of the kind of polarizing figure that is beloved as much as he is hated, especially when tangled up in the greater political web of Journolist intrigue and the conservative narrative of liberal censorship, is a risky card to play.

Last night’s Rachel Maddow segment via MSNBC below: