The conservative website Breitbart.com recently started running a controversial ad campaign featuring Nancy Pelosi’s head superimposed on the body of a twerking Miley Cyrus. Unsurprisingly, an April 8 piece by The Daily Beast’s Emily Shire complained that “Breitbart Twerks Pelosi With Credibility-Destroying Ad” without admitting her publication’s double-standard when publishing questionable images.
Shire began her piece by declaring that the online web campaign was “The ultimate proof that Breitbart doesn’t deserve to be considered a legitimate political news site, regardless of its political leanings” before laying into the conservative organization.
Shire continued to attack:
Like an immature teenager who gets an “edgy” tattoo to attract the ire and attention of his parents, Breitpart is clearly baiting Democrats and feminists with the Pelosi ad. And it’s working.
The article then goes on to detail liberal outrage over the ad, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL):
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, slammed the ads and Republicans for not being equally publicly offended. “The Breitbart News ad is foul, offensive, and disrespectful to all women. It is a disgusting new low,” she said in statement. “If GOP leaders are serious about their rebrand, then both their elected and Party leadership should condemn this outrageous behavior, call on Breitbart News to immediately remove the ad, and not continue to use this website as a forum for their views.”
For all of Shire’s outrage, The Daily Beast writer seems to forget that her own Daily Beast publication placed an extremely unflattering picture of Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) on its cover during her 2012 presidential campaign run with the headline "The Queen of Rage", yet Democrats never seemed to be concerned that such an image was sexist or disparaging.
Instead, Shire excused such sexism directed at conservatives, particularly Saturday Night Live’s video of Miley Cyrus spoofing Bachmann touching herself and writhing on the floor:
Breitbart is a news site, one that millions of Americans turn to every day. Saturday Night Live is a comedy show, and it can get away with sophomoric, salacious, and controversial content because it presents that content as satire. Breitbart purports to be a serious, trusted news source, one that works closely with politicians.
The Michelle Bachmann incident was not The Daily Beast’s only run-in with questionable imaging. In 2011, Tina Brown published a questionable cover in Newsweek during what would have been Princess Diana’s 50th birthday showing her digitally aged walking alongside Kate Middleton.
On a side note, for all of The Daily Beast’s selective outrage about the Pelosi-twerking image, they failed to mention that the former Speaker of the House once said that a controversial ad for a San Francisco festival depicting the Last Supper as a sadomasochism party didn’t “harm” Christianity.
The Daily Beastis in no position to condemn anti-Democratic ads when its own publication has repeatedly run tasteless images on the cover of Newsweek. Unsurprisingly, Shire didn’t see the blatant hypocrisy that exists within her organization yet apparently is qualified to condemn Breitbart for doing the very thing liberals do.
