Andrew Breitbart Offering $100,000 For Full ‘Journolist’ Archives

Andrew Breitbart is going on another spending spree. Pockets heavy with the $100,000 no one collected in exchange for footage that Tea Party protesters shouted racial epithets at black Congressmen, he is now offering the same amount– as well as complete identity protection– to anyone that can find him the complete archives of the now-defunct JournoList, because “Why should Dave Weigel be the only person exposed and humiliated?”

Breitbart, in giving Weigel space on the Big sites to explain his departure from the Washington Post last week, has already hinted at being on Team Weigel all along, and now it seems he wants to take everyone else on the list-serve down. Noting that “Dave Weigel is a portal into the dark world of hardcore liberal bias in the media,” Breitbart explains that he believes the entire Weigel scandal was due to the people on Journolist finding him ideologically inconsistent and problematic in a world where progressive discipline is key:

“Ezra Klein’s ‘JournoList 400’ is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism. Now that collusion has been exposed when one of the weakest links in that cabal, Dave Weigel, was outed. Weigel was, in all likelihood, exposed because – to whoever the rat was who leaked his emails — he wasn’t liberal enough.”

Breitbart is operating under the assumption that people on Journolist thought that Weigel was a liberal, and then were shocked when he, among other things, stood up for Breitbart– “Defending me publicly is a hangable offense in them thar liberal hills!” That anyone would think Weigel was a liberal and be disappointed when he started obsessing over the Tea Partiers is even more ridiculous than the assumption that the Washington Post thought Dave Weigel was a conservative and were disappointed when he self-identified as a “Paultard,” but that last one turned out to be true, so who’s to say someone on Journolist was as threatened by him as the Media Research Center seemed to be?

Breitbart continues requesting the entire comments of the email archives, providing full protection and a lump some of money:

“I therefore offer the sum of $100,000 to the person who provides the full “JournoList” archive. We will protect that person’s privacy and identity forever. No one will ever know who became $100,000 richer – and did the right thing, morally and ethically — by shining the light of truth on this seamy underworld of the media.”

Like the initial Big Journalism reward dollars, it seems unlikely that anyone would step up and pocket the cash. Many of the people on Journolist, supposedly, were already big-name liberal journalists, people for whom $100,000 would be nowhere near enough of an incentive. Many of them, for many years, kept to the promise that the list was off-the-record. Then there are two people who seem the most likely to take the bait. One has already proven they have no problem leaking the emails, but if their intent was to silence Weigel because he was too conservative, as Breitbart argues, then it doesn’t make sense they would want to expose people like Ezra Klein to similar humiliation, or would trust Breitbart in any way.

The other person would have a motive to see the people on the list humiliated– that motive being a mixture of revenge and the age-old saying that misery loves company– and could do with the money. But Dave Weigel has already proven to have certain standards of ethics about what’s on and off the record in his body of work, so as delightful as watching that unfold would be, it’s not worth holding your breath. Have any idea on who may potentially take the bait? Leave speculation in the comments below!

[Photo via Dave Weigel, Washington Times]