I make it a policy to avoid The Politico for the same reason I avoid Fox News Channel. Both are filled with ridiculous right wing propaganda and live for nothing more than mention on Matt Drudge's braincell-killing site under the pathetic notion of Drudge's influence. An influence felt only inside the Beltway bubble.
However, many people I know in DC politics (including a dismaying number of liberals) go to Mike Allen's Playbook column for the daily round up of notable news of the day. It's a pithy, mostly right-wing focused (unsurprising from the son of conservative journalist and John Birch Society member Gary Allen) collection of quotes, links and heads up on stories.
Yesterday, one of the top stories of Allen's Playbook yesterday was a jocular and whimsical pimping of Andrew Breitbart's new book, complete with helpful Amazon.com link.
FIRST LOOK – “RIGHTeous IndigNATION: Excuse Me While I Save the World!” by Andrew Breitbart (out April 15 from Grand Central Publishing): “I live on the battlefield. … If the American media were run by biased but not evil Tim Russerts and David Brinkleys, I wouldn’t have joined the fight. …. The left made me do it! I swear! I am a reluctant cultural warrior. … If you met me in 1992, for some odd reason, I would have told you I was a libertarian, and I voted for Ross Perot. The only awkward memory that haunts me more is my roller-disco period. … [I]t was the Drudge Report that really grabbed me … To borrow a phrase: Drudge was hope and change. … He was not just a threat to the political order – he was also a threat to the business model of the mainstream media. …
“News flash to the media: It’s not your business model that sucks. It’s you that suck. … But the Democrat-Media Complex isn’t enormously powerful because they give up easily. … It’s a long war. I know. I’ve lost friends. I have the scars. My wife married an almost inappropriately always-lighthearted guy fourteen years ago. Now she wakes up next to a firebrand who is one of the most polarizing figures in the country. … These are the years that we will look back on and question whether we did enough for our country and for our children. That’s why I’m so determined, so pissed, so righteously indignant.” $14.73 on Amazon
Wow. Grandiose much? Hey, Breitbart, Charlie Sheen called and said you need to stop stealing his act.
Now I'm not begrudging Breitbart his right to find a publisher willing to publish his special brand of parenthetical stream of consciousness writing and self-aggrandizement. Bully for him, everyone has a talent and he's clearly using his to the fullest. But I have to ask at what point will Mike Allen not wanted to be tainted by association with the man who was caught selectively editing video of Shirley Sherrod to smear this decent and dedicated public servant and inspiring civil rights leader? The same man who brought punk hack James O'Keefe to the national forefront with his doctored videos that have taken down ACORN and the head of NPR? And don't get me started on his pussy attempt to cage Amato's notes in a panel discussion. He's lucky that Karoli was there instead of me, because you can be damned sure I'd have made sure everyone in the audience knew.
You'll note that these black marks go unmentioned in Allen's recap. Had Breitbart been a liberal or a Democrat with this kind of serious hits on his integrity and credibility, you know that Allen would not deign to mention him, or at best, do so in a sneering way. But proving once again that in the "librul media" IOKIYAR, Allen seems blissfully fine with the Breitbart taint on his pimping (pun intended). Allen is still going to act like Breitbart is relevant and worthy of attention. Which makes--as far as I'm concerned--everything else that Allen pimps equally suspect.
If the book sounds intriguing to you (or at least, good for a laugh or two), don't worry, folks. If you're a little patient, I'm sure you'll find it in the remainder bins for 99¢ soon enough.
