Andrew Breitbart

Conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart issued a strong warning to the disgracefully biased cable "news" network MSNBC Friday.

Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Breitbart said, "We’re watching you to play the race card" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday told Andrew Breitbart that he's "notoriously evil about almost everybody."

The following morning, comedian and syndicated radio host Dennis Miller called Morgan out for this affront likening him to "Norah O'Donnell in an ascot" while advising him to check the Neilsen ratings "to see how long people are bumping into [his] show" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday displayed a remarkably horrid bedside manner toward his guest Andrew Breitbart saying "you are notoriously evil about almost everybody."

An obviously shocked Breitbart responded, "Well, I don't think you know me, Piers Morgan. I think we've maybe spent eight seconds together" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Bill Maher had an article published at the Huffington Post's front page Wednesday.

This appears to be an indication the website is going back on the ad hominem attack rule it used to ban conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart from its front page in March:

A 19-year-old student with a learning disability was allegedly raped at this weekend's Occupy Cleveland rally, an extension of the protests happening on Wall Street.

WKYC, the local NBC affiliate, reported at its website Tuesday (video also follows with commentary):

Conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart was on Saturday's "Fox & Friends" to discuss the double standard concerning how President Obama's gaffes are reported compared to the miscues of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

In Breitbart's view, "Life for [Palin and Bachmann] is a permanent game of Jeopardy where the George Stephanopouloses of the world, he of the Clinton war room, are there to try to make them look stupid on YouTube" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Despite slipping mostly under the radar, John Stossel disclosed something on his FBN program last Thursday that should have garnered a lot more attention.

As he chatted with guest Andrew Breitbart, Stossel admitted that the conservative publisher had offered him the James O'Keefe/Hannah Giles/ACORN scoop, but the former ABC Newser declined due to politics at the network he used to work for (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart has had his share of tussles with the media. He’s certainly known for that among liberal journalists who, in the words of the New York Times “hold their noses at the mere mention of his name.” That mistrust has been borne out in the media’s general lack of interest in the stories pushed out by such Breitbart franchises as Big Government or Big Hollywood and the completely absurd explanations Breitbart haters cooked up in their efforts to deny the story he most recently pushed, the exposure of the illicit online activities of New York Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner.

Lesser-known than his very public tussles with the media is Breitbart’s dissatisfaction with many within the conservative movement, many of whom he sees as unwilling to sufficiently stand up for their principles, largely because they’ve become infatuated with polling and trying to make nice with the media left—an effort that is as doomed to fail as it is craven.

The Andrew Breitbart-hating media certainly got its comeuppance Monday when Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) finally admitted that he had indeed been sending lewd pictures to young women via his Twitter account.

Sensing that he was seated with one such press member, CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" told a mopey Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, "You're just annoyed because Breitbart, who doesn't like the liberal media, has actually gotten some credit on this story" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

To a liberal media member, politics means never having to say you were wrong.

On Tuesday's "The Ed Show," Salon's Joan Walsh said she looked "kind of stupid" for defending Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) last week, then went right on defending him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The sounds of the slaps you hear are those of the DUers at the Democratic Underground and the Kossacks at the Daily Kos slapping themselves silly for ever believing Anthony Weiner's very obvious lies. The only thing that makes them angrier than their gullibility being publicly exposed is the fact that Weiner apologized to Andrew Breitbart. That really drove them over the edge and contributed greatly to their sudden disillusionment with the New York congressman.

To get a handle on the unbelievable extent of their gullibility, we need to take a short trip down memory lane to just over a week ago to May 29 when the DUers were completly buying into the assertion in the title of their thread, "Anthony Weiner: Hackers posted lewd photos on Twitter." A few choice tidbits of their outrage over the belief that it was Weiner who was hacked:

I knew those monsters would go after Weiner. They always attack the best of us. Psychopaths always attack your strengths. Grrrrr

They messed with the wrong person this time. Anthony Weiner is not going to be silent while they go after him. This could actually be a good thing.

On Tuesday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill pressed Andrew Breitbart over the Shirley Sherrod issue, highlighting how he "never apologized to her." Hill and reporter Joel Brown noted the "multi-million dollar defamation suit" Sherrod filed against Breitbart and turned to a journalist who touted how the blogger is "very defensive about his credibility and...realizes that he has these strikes against him."

Brown's report preceded the anchor's interview of the conservative at the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour. The correspondent trumpeted how "right-wing commentator Andrew Breitbart has six political websites, whose goal is to quote, 'hold the mainstream media's feet to the fire.' He certainly got their attention when he posted this now-infamous picture of Congressman Weiner on BigGovernment.com seven days ago."

New York Times media reporters Jeremy Peters and Jennifer Preston recognized conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart (pictured below) for breaking the Weiner-gate scandal that resulted in a dramatic press conference Monday afternoon where both Brietbart and Rep. Weiner spoke. "Conservative Blogger, a Go-To Source for Political Scandal, Looks for Legitimacy" was printed in Tuesday's Metro section (Rep. Weiner represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens).

When Meagan Broussard asked one of her friends what she should do about an intimate online relationship she had been having with Representative Anthony D. Weiner, the friend, a Republican, told her to go to Andrew Breitbart.

Mr. Breitbart, a conservative blogger, has established his Web site, BigGovernment.com, as the place to go with tidbits of a scandal in the making. On Monday, he claimed a moral victory after Mr. Weiner admitted that he had indeed sent the suggestive photos posted earlier on his site. "I’m here for some vindication," Mr. Breitbart said as he took to the lectern at Mr. Weiner’s own news conference.

As NewsBusters' Lachlan Markay pointed out, the Weinergate scandal showcased a variety of liberal media conspiracy theories. One of the most prevalent theories focused on besmirching conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who broke the story wide open Monday with a series of posts on BigGovernment.com featuring lewd photos of Rep. Anthony Weiner.

"Look, Breitbart is a proven liar, okay?" bellowed MSNBC anchor Cenk Uygur on June 1. "He doctored the Shirley Sherrod tapes. He's done this over and over again. Why would anybody take this fool seriously?"

[Video after page break]

UPDATE: Check out reaction from some of the chief Weiner-defenders below the break.

The so-called Weinergate scandal provided a true spectacle of media bias and conspiracy theorizing. While there was certainly plenty of good reporting throughout, many opted to take Rep. Anthony Weiner's claims at face value and search for other culprits or scapegoats.

Others devised more malicious theories about why a lewd picture had appeared on the congressman's Twitter feed. It was Andrew Breitbart's attempt to gin up another bogus story, or a coordinated effort by conservatives to provide cover for Clarence Thomas. These wild theories actually gained quite a bit of traction among liberals online, and even a few mainstream personalities.

We know now, by Weiner's own admission, that they were all nonsense. So with the facts readily available, it's worth reviewing some of the dominant narratives that pervaded media coverage of the scandal.

In an interview with Andrew Breitbart on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer suggested the conservative blogger should not have broken news of the scandal involving Congressman Anthony Weiner: "Did you worry that – you know, as a conservative, you don't want government in people's bedrooms. And so did you stop and have a debate with yourself about that?"

Moments earlier, Breitbart had noted feeling some sympathy for Weiner during Monday's press conference: "I felt so unbelievably sad for this guy." Lauer responded by wondering why that sympathy didn't keep the BigGovernment.com creator from re-posting Weiner's racy tweet on the web site last week: "But if you're sad for the guy then, did you not consider that at some point you might be sad for him when you first posted that photo ten days ago?"

Old and new media clashed on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday.

After CBS News Congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes blamed Andrew Breitbart for her network's slow response to the ongoing Weinergate scandal, Gawker staff writer Maureen O'Connor said, "I think even if that's the case, it was very quickly that you could have looked into this story and verified it for yourself" (video follows with trancript and commentary):

Both CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday's AC360 and CBS's Nancy Cordes on Thursday's Early Show highlighted conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's early part in spreading news of the lewd photo Tweeted from Rep. Andrew Weiner's Twitter account. Cooper played up Breitbart's supposedly "questionable credibility," while Cordes reported how "supporters of Weiner note that it was [the] right-wing blogger...who broke the story."

The CNN anchor raised Breitbart's involvement 15 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour as he introduced the second part of an interview of the New York Democrat conducted by his colleague Wolf Blitzer:

"Saturday Night Live's" Seth Meyers headlined Saturday's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, and somewhat surprisingly went after media outlets on both sides of the aisle.

Apart from jibes at Fox News, the New York Times, and NPR, Meyers said of MSNBC's event after party, "President Obama makes the Kool-Aid, and everyone there drinks it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If you're not familiar with GRITtv or Laura Flanders, you will be because her far-left, antagonistic, attack dog style is starting to become all the rage to liberal hosts especially on MSNBC.

On Friday, as part of the panel discussion on HBO's "Real Time," Flanders in her own aggressive style impolitely went after fellow guest conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart feeling the need to bring up last year's Shirley Sherrod affair after which she called him a con man (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Imagine if a Tea Party backer by some miracle got to teach on a college campus, and began describing ways to, oh, I don't know, keep opposing politicians from conducting business, hack into their computers and destroy data, and make their staffs feel threatened. How long would that class last, and how long would it be before it became a national news story?

Well, Publius at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com reports that " the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) sponsored two college courses: Introduction to Labor Studies and Labor Politics and Society, to be taught simultaneously through a video conference between to two campuses." Publius asserts, with video proof, that the courses really really are "How-to College Course(s) in Violent Union Tactics."

The two must-see BigGov posts are here and here. Direct links to the videos and brief descriptions follow the jump:

The outrage over Martin Bashir's absolutely pathetic interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday continues.

On Thursday's "O'Reilly Factor," the host and his guest Glenn Beck wondered how long MSNBC can stay in business with commentators behaving this way (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Following Martin Bashir's absolutely pathetic interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday, the conservative publisher has proposed a $10,000 bet with the perilously liberal MSNBC host.

"I’m willing to take a lie detector test next to him on anything," Breitbart told WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Thursday, "if he’s willing to take a lie detector test next to me talking about whether he read my book" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Martin Bashir did an extremely contentious interview with Andrew Breitbart Wednesday wherein it was clear from the get-go the goal was to paint the conservative publisher and the Tea Party he's affiliated with as racist.

This became obvious to Breitbart after Bashir asked his opinion of a truly offensive picture of Barack Obama leading Breitbart to fire back, "You're trying to insinuate that I'm a racist here, which is what MSNBC does to conservatives every single day" (video follows with commentary and full transcript at end of post):

Following its controversial decision to ban Andrew Breitbart from publishing articles at its front page, the Huffington Post has found itself in quite a pickle now that one of its regular contributors, comedian Bill Maher, made disgustingly vulgar references to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Breitbart made some comments about President Obama's former green czar Van Jones that precipitated the following hypocritical statement from HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz last Thursday (readers are warned of vulgar content in full article):

Conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart told NewsBusters Friday his less than two week stint as a Huffington Post front page contributor was abruptly terminated as part of an ongoing scheme by liberal media members to depict the Tea Party as racist.

After caving to pressure from the far-left to have Breitbart dumped, HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz issued the following statement Thursday:

Yes, Virginia, there is someone in media more unhinged than Ed Schultz -- left-wing radio host Mike Malloy.

If you've heard of Malloy, most likely it's because of his bizarre, on-air fantasies of violence toward Dana Perino, Matt Drudge, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, as described here with audio clips from Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer.

Malloy has decided to remind us again of his pathologies, this time issuing a veiled threat against new media impresario Andrew Breitbart (embedded audio clip, courtesy of Maloney, after page break) --

Perhaps AOL acquiring The Huffington Post isn't such a bad thing after all.

Liberal filmmaker, writer and photographer Lee Stranahan did something one doesn't often see at the left-wing news aggregator -- he broke from the pack to defend "the notorious Andrew Breitbart," publisher of Breitbart.com and a slew of similar sites where he basks in skewering liberals.

In his HuffPo article, Stranahan wrote how he "spent a slightly surreal weekend" hanging out with Breitbart at CPAC --

... and at the end of the conservative convention, he was served with a lawsuit from Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA official who was forced to resign by USDA Secretary  Tom Vilsack back in July, 2010 after Breitbart had published two videos of her as part of a long blog post. One of those videos showed  Mrs. Sherrod (ironically, it turns out) telling the NAACP audience that she suggested people get work with the government because "you can't get fired." The second, better known video showed Mrs. Sherrod telling her story of how she didn't give a white farmer 'the full of force' of her help for a period of time. After the USDA fired her, apparently without an investigation, the full tape was released.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Friday called internet giants Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart liars for supposedly cherry-picking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's "but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression" comment (video follows with transcript and commentary):