Matthew Sheffield's blog

Andrew Breitbart, the 43-year-old conservative media entrepreneur who was laid to rest this week after experiencing a sudden heart attack, rose from an unknown to one of the leaders of the conservative movement in just a few short years. I am proud to have called him a friend.

The swiftness of his rise and his popularity among conservatives, provide a lesson for anyone wishing to understand how to win in the game of politics and media in the 21st Century.

At the top of his Monday radio show, Rush Limbaugh expanded on his apology to left-wing activist Sandra Fluke saying that he had used "inappropriate words" and in so doing had made a distraction from his point which was to focus on the Obama Administration's unconstitutional attempt to force religious organizations to pay for things they believe to be morally repugnant. In so doing, Limbaugh asserted that he had used overly personal and insulting language, something that has been a hallmark of the left as extensively documented here at NewsBusters.

"You never descend to the level of your opponent or they win, that was my error last week," Limbaugh said. "But the apology was heart-felt. The apology was sincere."

Full text of Limbaugh's statement is below the break.

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and publisher who died suddenly yesterday was going to really shake up the self-described mainstream media according to a report that he was in talks with CNN to co-host a television show with Anthony Weiner, the disgraced liberal Democratic congressman who famously sent pictures of his underwear-clad genitals to women on the internet.

The idea certainly would not have been out of the realm of possibility for either CNN or Breitbart; the cable network famously invited another disgraced Democratic politician, former New York governor Elliott Spitzer, to co-host a program with moderate conservative columnist Kathleen Parker. Bringing in a real conservative who could hold his own and coherently state conservative beliefs would certainly have been an improvement. The Parker-Spitzer show was a short-lived affair which died soon after it was launched.

As someone who was one of the best fighters against the left-wing media hegemony, Andrew Breitbart was also frequently victimized by lazy reporters who didn't bother to report correct information about him. This was a particular problem for Andrew because he was such a target for liberals making up lies which got repeated so often, they've become widely accepted as truth.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the media haven't stopped repeating lies about Breitbart even after his untimely passing. Contrary to much of the reporting about him today, Breitbart did not falsely represent Shirley Sherrod, former U.S. Department of Agriculture director of Rural Development in Georgia in relaying a video of her discrimination against white applicants for a farm subsidy program in 2010.

This morning the unexpected news came that conservative internet publisher Andrew Breitbart has passed away. His business manager Larry Solov has posted the following announcement on websites affiliated with Breitbart. [This is a developing story, see below for statements from his former boss Matt Drudge, Brent Bozell, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Michelle Malkin.]

In an apparent fit of rage against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow took to Twitter to tell him to "stick that in your magic underwear" for supporting the idea that society ought to concern itself with the large numbers of children born outside of wedlock.

That sentiment apparently set off Blow who tweeted the following at 8:56pm ET on the 22nd: "Let me just tell you this Mitt 'Muddle Mouth': I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear." [Be sure to read updates below including Blow's apology for tweet]

Following Wednesday night's presidential debate on CNN, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took on the deliberate campaign on the part of Democrats and their media enablers to stigmatize him as purely a "social issues" candidate with limited appeal to Americans not as concerned about those topics.

Chatting with CNN analyst Gloria Borger following the GOP candidate contest, Santorum responded to Borger's question that he is "spending way too much time talking about divisive cultural issues" with a full-on rebuttal. "I understand the game," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "I do get these questions [...] and then the next question from the reporter is 'Why are you talking so much about social issues?' Full transcript of the exchange follows.

Less than a year from its inception, the far-left Occupy Wall Street movement is already sputtering. Many liberal big-city mayors have ejected protestors from their campsites and their donations have dried up. To top it off, a big event touted to "Occupy Congress" fizzled big-time Tuesday in Washington, D.C. That didn't stop the Associated Press from trying to spin away the march's failure.

Instead of headlining its report from the event with the big news that a march expected to bring in up to 10,000 protestors ended up drawing in far less than that, the wire service headlined it with the matter-of-fact headline "Several hundred Occupy protestors rally at Capitol." While reporter Ben Nuckols did mention the failure to meet expectations, his story didn't mention the other big news that OWS is almost out of money:

As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it seemed inevitable that moonbat cable news personality Keith Olbermann would soon do something to sour his relationship with his current employer, obscure cable channel Current TV. After all, he still remains the same man who famously spent days in the bathroom in fits of rage rather than report for work.

We don't know what that something was, but it appears that the former ESPN-MSNBC-Fox Sports-MSNBC anchor has managed to commit it for, as noted by New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter, Olbermann does not appear to be part of the channel's lineup to cover the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary election. Instead, viewers will be treated to performances by Current's usual stable of failed politicians and MSNBC rejects:

Proving that not all famous musicians are in the thrall of Barack Obama and his brand of punitive liberalism, Jonathan Davis, lead singer of the heavy metal band Korn made headlines today criticizing the president.

In an interview with the music trade publication Billboard, Davis said that he believed Obama had "basically dragged this country down into the worst it's ever been." Davis made those remarks in reference to a song on the group's new CD "Path of Totality" entitled "Illuminati." His full comments are below the break:

Moments ago:

Republican candidate Herman Cain is suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination to avoid continued news coverage of allegations of sexual misconduct that is hurtful to his family.

“I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family,” Cain told several hundred supporters gathered at what was to have been the opening of his national campaign headquarters.

Cain’s announcement came five days after an Atlanta-area woman claimed she and Cain had an affair for more than a decade, a claim that followed several allegations of sexual harassment against the Georgia businessman.

“But because of these false and unproved accusations, it has paid and had a tremendous painful price on my family,” Cain said, with his wife, Gloria, standing behind him on the stage.

The liberal press, which covered up and defended for Bill Clinton and John Edwards, has taken another Republican scalp. What are your thoughts?

Are you watching the GOP presidential debate tonight? If so, consider joining us live here at NB as we watch the event. It airs at 8pm tonight on CNN as well as on the CNN website. We'll be posting videos and fact-checks throughout the night but if you want to add your own analysis or snark, this is the place to do it.

As with all NB live events, you are expected to abide by the NewsBusters terms of service. Vulgarity and general obnoxiousness will get you kicked from the chat room.

Five Republican presidential candidates are boycotting a proposed debate sponsored by Univision for allegedly trying to "extort" Florida GOP senator Marco Rubio into doing an interview with the Spanish-language network.

Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney have all issued statements saying that Univision must respond directly to charges that it promised to spike a story about a decades-old drug bust involving a relative of Rubio if the senator would appear on its program "Al Punto," a show known for its advocacy for extreme pro-illegal immigration positions.

You may not be aware of this but NewsBusters is unique in the blogosphere. Not only do we provide the most in-depth media analysis and have the deepest media archive out there, we also are owned by a non-profit organization.

That provides us with the ability to accept tax-deductible gifts but it also means that we are dependent on them.

Singer Tony Bennett has sold over 50 million album copies but that success doesn't seem to have required much common sense or decency. In a recent interview, the veteran crooner sounded appallingly similar to controversial left-wing minister Jeremiah Wright, stating, among other things that America "caused" 9/11 to happen.

In what was supposed to be an interview about his latest music collection, Bennett took a turn far afield when he began lashing out at U.S. foreign policy, creating a grotesque moral equivalence between Al Qaeda terrorists who deliberately inflict mass civilian casualties and America:  “Who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.

On this solemn commemorative day, we at NewsBusters have made a point of holding our rhetorical fire against liberals as a gesture of respect to those who lost their lives that day and subsequently. There is much we could say and, starting tomorrow, will say.

An exception has to be made for one Paul Krugman, who seems, earlier life, to have been a decent and civilized person. Since he began writing a column for the New York Times, however, Krugman has experienced a veritable descent into madness, principally due to Bush Derangement Syndrome. Today, Krugman decided to proudly expose his neurosis for the entire world to see in an execrable rant on his Times blog. His post is preserved in full below:

Ten years ago today, an event happened that impacted not just America, but also each one of us who lived through that moment.

As we recall that day as a nation, I wanted to provide a thread here on NB for all reading who so choose to share your experiences of that day. You can also use this post to comment on other public commemorations of the day or tributes to America and/or those who serve it.

In keeping with the solemnity of today, we here at NB will not be critiquing any of our usual targets today. Please keep your comments in the same spirit and refrain from negative remarks about anyone unaffiliated with al Qaeda.

It's not often that you see a member of the liberal media elite concede an important point to conservatives. It's even rarer when the person doing it is Obama cheerleader Chris Matthews. But that's just what happened  during last night’s “Hardball” when the former Tip O’Neill aide dared to state the obvious fact that Social Security is remarkably similar to a Ponzi scheme—a truth that has become not just inconvenient to the left, but almost verboten.

Matthews’s admission occurred in a discussion about Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry who has come under a huge amount of fire from the left and even from fellow candidates for repeatedly stating that the pay-as-you-go nature of Social Security has many similarities to a classic Ponzi pyramid scheme.

Following an extended vacation and a scheduling controversy, the formerly ballyhooed jobs speech from President Obama is scheduled for tonight at 7pm Eastern time. If you're watching, consider joining fellow NBers on this post for a live chat as it happens to comment on the speech itself and on the media's coverage of the speech.

No official Republican response speech is scheduled, however GOP presidential candidate and House member Michele Bachmann has announced that she will be doing a response of her own following the speech. It's not clear at present what television channels will be carrying her remarks. All the cable news channels are carrying the speech. You can also watch it live online.

In next year's presidential election, the toughest opponent the eventual Republican nominee will face will be the liberal press. As a political neophyte who had not even completed a single term in the U.S. Senate prior to his election, Barack Obama was and is a creature of the media. Without the iron-clad grip that liberals hold on public discourse at the national level, there's simply no way that he ever would have been elected in 2008. His numerous subsequent failures have made it all the more necessary that liberal journalists come forward to obfuscate his failures and shift attention to attacks on Republicans. Fear and loathing is the new hope-a-dope.

There's a growing sense of this reality on the right which is why the focus in the primary season has increasingly turned to the self-proclaimed objective press, particularly during last night's debate hosted by NBC News and the Politico.

I blogged earlier about Newt Gingrich's attack on co-moderator John F. Harris but another moment of note last night was when Harris's colleague, NBC anchor Brian Williams, haughtily attacked the audience after it sarcastically cheered against his question to Texas governor Rick Perry about capital punishment.

For reasons that are still inexplicable, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library agreed to partner up with NBC News, parent organization of the uber-left-wing network MSNBC to televise tonight's Republican presidential debate. While NBC representative Brian Williams had more than his share of sneering biased questions, it was Williams's co-moderator, Politico editor John Harris, who laid on the snark in his attempts to bait and attack the candidates.

Such unbalanced questioning is par-for-the-course for Republicans competing at the national level. More often than not, they take it in stride. Tonight, though, Newt Gingrich was having none of it as he went full-on after Harris's attempts to insert Gingrich into a non-existent debate about an individual mandate to purchase insurance at the national level that Republicans simply are not having. Video and transcript follow.

Are you watching the GOP presidential debate tonight? If so, consider joining us live here at NB as we watch the event. It airs at 8pm tonight on MSNBC and on the web.

As with all NB live events, you are expected to abide by the NewsBusters terms of service. Vulgarity and general obnoxiousness will get you kicked from the chat room.

Rapper Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, has a long record of being a supporter of Democratic and liberal causes. In fact, he was one of many celebrity left-wingers who were invited to President Obama's lavish $40,000 birthday celebration.

When it comes to his own affairs, Carter is like many Hollywood liberals in being unwilling to put his money where his mouth is. Right now, he's engaged in a prolonged confrontation with a carpenter's union for using non-union workers to perform renovations on a New York City club he owns. The union thugs are playing to type as well, parading around giant inflatable rats and calling Carter's employees racist terms. 

Arizona governor Jan Brewer says she was "censored" by Facebook after a posting she made on the social network was removed by the site's staff. In her post, Brewer had criticized the Obama administration's recent decision to halt prosecutions of many illegal immigrants.

"Facebook censored the post and removed it because the photo apparently violated their 'Facebook Community Standards.' Before it was removed, it had received over 10,000 likes and comments," Brewer said in a subsequent post.