Poor Sean Hannity and widdle Andy Breitbart. The liberal media is so mean to the poor, persecuted conservatives who must battle such overwhelming bias just to get their voices heard.
Once again, bullyboy Sean Hannity played the victim card as cover for blatant, unwarranted attacks on liberals for “crimes” he’d quickly condone from one of his own. This time, that “one of his own” was sitting right there next to him in the personhood of Andrew Breitbart. As Hannity and Breitbart whined that a White House appointment for “outreach, strategy and response” online was an effort to stifle free speech, Hannity and Fox News somehow ignored Breitbart’s demonstrated record in deceitfully trying to destroy people and organizations he opposes.
Hannity began the segment by announcing that the White House now has a “minister of propaganda.” Hannity reported on the new position of Jesse Lee who has moved “from the new media department into a role in the communications department as director of progressive media and online response.” But Hannity failed to note that Lee is not really doing anything new. Huffington Post reported – in the same post Hannity quoted from - that an internal White House memo said, “For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House's liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response."
In the interest of disclosure, I'm on Jesse's email distribution list. His "new" position is essentially what he has been doing since Obama won the election. As you hear Hannity bring up, Jesse is married to Nita Chaudhury, of MoveOn.org, which signals to the great braintrust that is Hannity and Bretibart that he's obviously compromised. I mean, you never seen that kind of advocacy on the conservative side.
Somehow, but not surprisingly, Breitbart turned Lee’s new job into a pity party for himself and other conservatives. He said, “Now (Obama) wants to go after Fox News, AM talk radio, Andrew Breitbart… to try and shut up dissent. This is exactly what they do in totalitarian leftist nations like Venezuela – try to shut people up.”
This, from the guy who boasted he’d take down the “institutional left” in three weeks (more than a year ago), the guy who threatened to use ACORN and other videos to blackmail the Obama administration and the guy who openly admitted Sherrod was essentially collateral damage in his scheme to take down the NAACP.
In Part 2, the pity party continued for those poor, disadvantaged conservatives always at the mercy of the vicious left wing. This time, Breitbart was posing as a leading champion of free speech. “It is the instinct of the left to try and shut people up on the right.” Then, in a classic Freudian slip, Breitbart added, “We want more voices, not left.”
Sadly, Democrat Steve Murphy did a great job of denouncing the “General Betray Us” ad and a poor to mediocre job of denouncing Breitbart. Oh, Murphy put up a fiery defense of Lee, his wife and the left but he could have and should have demolished Breitbart’s veneer of credibility (courtesy of Fox News) on the spot merely by exposing his history.
Murphy serves his purpose well as the ineffectual balance. There were mountains of comments that could have been made to prove the lie of how persecuted the right is and to completely undermine Breitbart's credibility. All opportunities untaken, challenges left unsaid.
