As Digby pointed out, The Politico's Jim VandeHei went on the air and basically said that the NAACP provoked Breitbart into posting his doctored video because they were being mean to those non-racist tea baggers by pointing out the racist elements within the movement.

VandeHei did nothing but remind me of why I have an extreme amount of disdain for the Drudge hacks over there at their site that got themselves pushed into the main stream riding the Drudge gossip rag model of hyping whatever unsourced bull pucky our political class wants to push into the media without having their name attached to it, but that causes a buzz on the Internet and gives the hacks in what passes for journalism in the "mainstream" media an excuse to repeat their stories as though they are news and not spin and with of course no reporting on just who fed the story line to the hacks over at The Politico or Drudge to begin with and who wanted it to become a headline for the day.

Anyone who's willing to do interviews with Dick Cheney where he receives no push back and then just regurgitates his crap unquestioned into our political dialog as The Politico has done really doesn't deserve any time on our airways, but there on MSNBC are these hacks as part of their news coverage and on a ton of their shows, day after day as though they've got anything other to offer us than Republican Party line spin for the day when they're on.

For more on that there's the reporting from Media Matters on what we're seeing VandeHei participate in here. The Right-wing Media Spin Cycle: Lie, Terrify, Win, Repeat.

This interview was no exception. Digby was also kind enough to take the time to time to transcribe VandeHei's hackery and that's below the fold.

VandeHei: Let's not forget where this thing started. The NAACP came out and makes this charge against the Tea Party Movement. And we've probably done more stories about the Tea party movement than any other news organization. We've really tried to study this group and they are a very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist any more than you can say the Democratic party is racist or the Republican party is racist. So it creates this culture and it's a dangerous topic and it's a dangerous fire to light and so this is the outcome.

Ratigan: But, but ...

VandeHei: I'm not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged. They're saying listen, because I'm part of the tea party movement, you're saying I'm racist, and what Breitbart's saying is "well I want to push back."

I'm not saying what Breitbart said was right because clearly it wasn't right and the outcome was awful for this woman, but both sides I think come off looking very, very bad.

And that's why Joe Biden and Steny Hoyer said they didn't agree with the NAACP's charge.

As Digby pointed out following the segment above Capehart said this:

Capehart pointed out that the NAACPs statement was much more nuanced than that and actually was asking that the Tea Party disavow the "racist element" in the group not that the whole group was racist. VandeHei replied that they should have known that it was dangerous to even imply such a thing and they should have known it would cause a firestorm. He said, "it's a terrible issue to be talking about."

So the message is don't make trouble by pointing out the truth. The wingnuts will get upset and then all hell will break loose.

Heaven forbid we can't have that happening. There are a lot of things I'd like to say to Jim VandeHei after watching this, but none I could note here since we try to keep this place safe for work.