Andrew Breitbart’s war with progressive bloggers
Chez Pazienza woke up one morning earlier this month and found an email from Andrew Breitbart — Matt Drudge protege, founder of Breitbart.com and other right-wing news sites — waiting for him in his inbox. He was immediately suspicious of its authenticity; the email was riddled with typos, devoid of capitalization, and apparently mailed at 3:30 in the morning.
“I went and checked the email address to see if it was him, because my first thought was, ‘why the hell would he bother with me?’” he told me in a recent phone interview.
The email responded to a post Pazienza had written on his blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, referencing a Salon article that had accused James O’Keefe, the ACORN-punking “pimp” that Breitbart has invested serious time and money in promoting, of being a racist. The Deus Ex Malcontent post wasn’t particularly critical of Breitbart or O’Keefe — it simply opined that whether O’Keefe was a racist was irrelevant because both sides of the political divide had already made up their minds — but that didn’t stop Breitbart from treating it as if it was.
“you’re insinuation that james is a racist is equally egregious,” Breitbart wrote. “does it ever dawn on you that we conservatives can’t fathom how lefties can’t see how horrible their social policies have turned out to be for poor and minorities.”
The 3:30 a.m. email bizarrely ended with a reference to the movie Footloose.
“It was weird, it caught me off guard,” Pazienza told me. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what Breitbart would want with me.”
But this kind of Breitbart-launched offensive is nothing new or out-of-the-ordinary. While much attention has been given to the conservative’s attacks on traditional media outlets –through his Big Government site, interviews on MSNBC, and speeches at CPAC — he has been actively and aggressively going after bloggers and social media users who criticize him, a trend that has only intensified as more and more controversies surround James O’Keefe III in the wake of his arrest in Louisiana.
“There’s no question that when O’Keefe got busted trying to tamper with a US senator’s phone, it kind of freaked Breitbart out,” Brad Friedman, who owns the progressive Brad Blog, told me. Friedman has been on the forefront of reporting on issues and revelations surrounding O’Keefe, including the recent bombshell that the young conservative never actually dressed as a pimp when he went into ACORN offices, a fact that even Breitbart has been forced to acknowledge. He has also been a frequent recipient of the conservative’s scorn, especially via @ replies on his Twitter account. At one point he even jokingly suggested that Friedman should be subjected to capital punishment.
“We’re his only threat,” Friedman said, referring to progressive bloggers. He cited the New York Times’ reluctance to offer retractions for its erroneous reporting on O’Keefe’s pimp outfit as an example of the traditional media’s hesitation to go after Breitbart. “[The mainstream media's] scared to death of him, because they don’t know how to stand up to bullies. And Breitbart is a bully, make no mistake … Unfortunately, the progressive blogosphere and the readers who write letters to the [Times'] public editor, demanding a correction, we’re the only threat to Breitbart.”
Lately, Breitbart has been increasingly retweeting links from his detractors, links that often lead to blog posts and articles that are critical of him. Though he doesn’t offer commentary with the retweet, his followers often do so for him. Pazienza, for instance, was surprised one day when he received a flurry of angry @ replies from Breitbart’s followers after the conservative had tweeted a link to a Deus Ex Malcontent post critical of his Big Hollywood site.
“The thing about him beating up on little people on Twitter, that’s not new,” said Tommy Christopher, a correspondent for Mediaite. Chistopher was one of several bloggers who engaged in heated debates with Breitbart during CPAC. He recalled an incident several months ago in which Breitbart retaliated against a Twitter user who had bashed him by posting personal information about her and making vaguely threatening statements. “I spoke to him for like three hours that night, and he got really worked up about it. At the end he admitted that he stepped over the line a little bit, but this is something he does. When people attack him, he basically fights back just as hard.”
Christopher attributed much of Breitbart’s aggressiveness to “paranoia,” something that runs so deep that he’ll lash out at even the smallest criticism, even if it’s coming from someone who doesn’t have much of an audience.
“He’s definitely heaviliy invested in ACORN and O’Keefe and obviously in the outcome of whatever happens to O’Keefe in Louisiana. He has definitely racheted up the belligerence, because he stepped up with the intensity of the attacks. The encounter we had in the hotel [at CPAC] was quite a bit different than any time I’ve intereacted with him in the past.”
Of course, it hasn’t escaped me that this article I’m currently writing isn’t exactly flattering to Breitbart, so forgive me if I indulge in my own paranoia for a moment:
What will happen if and when he reads it?
No doubt you’ll find yourself subject to misspelled correspondence.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.
You beta males have had control of the conversation for too long. Breitbart is expressing the feelings of many that are fed up with “progressives” lying in print and getting away with it. The problem here isn’t your fascination with Breitbart but the sand of media control slipping through your fingers. Adios.
I find the accusation that Andrew Breitbart is bully rather amusing.
Andrew is merely fighting fire with fire. Left wing liberals such as Joe Conason and Max Blumenthal along with lefty bloggers such as Duncan Black (Atrios), Markos Moulitsas (Kos) and left wing sites like Media Matters have been engaging in the very tactics that Breitbart is now using for years.
The roots of such behavior was planted with older venues such as Bartcop and Mediawhoresonline where the status quo was to simply attack, attack, attack. It didn’t matter if such attacks were false. It was simply pounded into the ground and the recipients were forced to defend themselves. As such, the nonsense was believed because the people on the receiving end, instead of just saying, “Go f**k yourself” would attempt to defend themselves.
Look what they’re doing with the ACORN story. Apparently, it’s not important that ACORN employees were shown on camera offering to assist people in helping to set up child prostitution rings. No, what is suddenly important is whether or not O’Keefe actually dressed up like a pimp in the ACORN offices. It’s absurd. The amount of time that Media Matters has invested in this completely irrelevant factoid is hilarious.
Yet, how much time have they invested in going after Max Blumenthal for his slanderous piece that accused James O’Keefe of:
A. Attending a white supremacist convention (which it wasn’t)
B. Manning a table and handing out white supremacist materials (which he wasn’t)
Blumenthal was was merely engaging in the long worn tactic of left wing scoundrels which is to declare your ideological opponents to be racist which thereby voids any credibility one may have had. It’s a pathetic tactic, but it doesn’t surprise me to see a hack like Blumenthal run with it and for other left wind dunces to repeat it like good little parrots.
I’m glad somebody is fighting back against the left wing noise machine the way Breitbart is. They deserve it.
[...] in Daily life, Media at 10:52 am by LeisureGuy Simon Owens points out that Breitbart is going on the offensive against bloggers: Chez Pazienza woke up one morning [...]
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[...] Breitbart’s off his meds (if he was ever on them): [...]
[...] Breitbart’s off his meds (if he was ever on them): [...]
“left wind dunces”? Looks like spelling champ Breitbart is using the pseudonym “Jay” today.
Right wingers are simply amazing in that they are able to turn on a computer and punch the keys, despite having never read a book. Very few chimps are able to do that.
Let’s see….unbridled anger over insignificant things, sending bizarre poorly spelled e-mails at 3:30 AM, raging paranoia…..Me thinks Breitbart may have a wee bit of a drug problem. Advice? yes…Hey Andrew, back away from those lines, put down the pipe. Go hug your kids & get some sleep.
Well, whatever Breitbart is drinking/smoking/shooting up must have gotten into the public water supply. To the commenters above: Breitbart IS a bully; he is also categorically full of shit/out of his mind. Please stop posting your fevered dreams about a vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, the President and the progressive movement in this country. You are morally bankrupt and have no facts to back up your arguments. Go away. Bartcop, Daily Kos, etc. are no way worse than Faux Newz, RedState and all the rest of the wingnut community. In point of fact, Markos has never claimed to be running a “news” operation, it’s all opinion. You all really are too stupid to breathe.
Jay
If it’s just a “factoid”, why did the dynamic pimp/pro duo do everything to make it seem like it was true? Seems to me the racist part of it is “See how stupid these people are, they can’t even tell how phony the costumes are.”
Yeah, you “conservatives” are just brimming with integrity, aintcha?
This “factoid” also brings into question whether the edited and released films were doctored. Since it was chop edited, we don’t know what questions the ACORN people were answering. This technique was done to a Planned Parenthood clinic, where the worker was made to seem like she was pushing abortions, when she was in fact answering a leading question that was not in the edited film.
Spare us your outrage. Admit that the only thing you “conservatives” care about is gaining power, rewarding the haves and the lucky, and punishing the have-nots and the unlucky.
Oops. It looks like Breitbart’s Mini-Me’s are already here. And it only took them a day.
the thing about bullies like breitbart and the rest of the right wing fucktard drooler brigade is that at the end of the day, they are pussies of the highest order. the whole “swarm” tactic is the tactic of a coward who can’t stand up for himself, and needs his friends to make his attacks for him. and although they love to make dramatic statements like “you should be executed”, just try to invite one to settle shit one-on-one, with good old fashioned conservative fists, and they cry that you’re threatening them.
it’s the conservative way, or what i like to call “mental illness”.
There are a few pics from Andrew Breitbart getting into brawls during CPAC.
Just watch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mukulr/4377253918/in/photostream/
There are many more, all equally revealing.
As long as no blood is shed or laws are broken what’s the harm in Andrew reaching out to progressive bloggers.
He’s doing what he must to maintain interest in his theories.
It’s healthier and safer for him to send emails in the middle of the night.
Hey, I came back to check and I was absolutely right!
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