Never Trust Andrew Breitbart
28 Jul 2010, 1:51 pm
Ok, Al Sharpton is a slimeball and the NAACP has problems of its own. I'll even go further and say that the Nation of Islam is even worse in its fanatic anti-semitism than most other religious groups in the US, including some other branches of muslims.
Neither of those statements change the fact that the tea party does indeed contain racist elements.
Jacoby
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29 Jul 2010, 2:32 pm
Sherrod is sueing him. Go check CNN.
I didn't think it happen but maybe it'll show that this kind of unethical slandering won't go without consequence.
Would link, but I'm on my mobile so copy paste doesn't work.
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29 Jul 2010, 2:50 pm
There really isn't much of a case. You have to prove malicious intent and Breitbart is already saying he didn't edit the tape personally and that his "anonymous source" gave him/his website the tape as is. Then you have to prove damages. The monetary damages are from the administrations irresponsible forced resignation not the tape and that has been undone anyways. Maybe they'll be able to pry an apology out of him but I doubt it. If she files a lawsuit it'll probably be more to drag his reputation through the mud than anything else but I think the media interest is waning
29 Jul 2010, 4:24 pm
You have to consider what you publish and anonymous source or not. Not to mention he could have checked the full video like anyone else could have. There are ways to confirm sources or if you can't confirm it then say that it isn't confirmed.
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29 Jul 2010, 5:16 pm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/29/ ... tml?hpt=T2
Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center, said Thursday Sherrod was the one who needed to apologize.
"Andrew Breitbart is going to be fine. He's done nothing wrong," Bozell said.
"I wonder if Ms. Sherrod, who is such a champion of transparency, will publicly disclose who is putting her up to this. And I also hope this champion of honesty will stop lying about Fox News," which has been accused of pushing the story before full details emerged, he said.
"I'm also waiting for Ms. Sherrod to publicly apologize for accusing anyone opposed to nationalized healthcare of being racist," Bozell said. "Last time I checked, that was more than half the country."
I can't believe this moron. Of course he did something wrong! He didn't check his sources, waged sloppy journalism, and was completely unethical in his handling of this.
And why the heck should Sherrod apologize? Who is putting her up to what? Again, stupid baseless conspiracy theories from conservatives who think liberals have a diabolical plot to take over the world. Ad homenin and red herring BS.
I just hope her lawsuit draws attention to this kind of unethical behavior and causes such blogger and pundits to act more responsibly about the messages they put out.
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Jacoby
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29 Jul 2010, 5:29 pm
Mrs. Sherrod really isn't that sympathetic of a person. She's a political hack just like the rest of them. Hardly the "Rosa Parks" figure the media has been trying to portray her as. The same media who were calling her a racist just the days before. Her going after FNC(who reported it just like everyone else did) was all I need to see she had an agenda.
30 Jul 2010, 5:03 pm
Even if all of this was taken at face value and not as overblown hyperbole, it doesn't prove any malice towards Shirley Sherrod personally, which would be needed to prove libel. Further complicating things is that "racism" as a concept is subject to significant personal interpretation, making proving that someone maliciously and intentionally misapplied the label difficult at best. Depending upon where this suit was filed, it may even be possible to summarily dismiss it under anti-SLAPP statutes that might even subject Ms. Sherrod to liability, regardless though I doubt she''l be successful.
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30 Jul 2010, 8:07 pm
Even if all of this was taken at face value and not as overblown hyperbole, it doesn't prove any malice towards Shirley Sherrod personally, which would be needed to prove libel. Further complicating things is that "racism" as a concept is subject to significant personal interpretation, making proving that someone maliciously and intentionally misapplied the label difficult at best. Depending upon where this suit was filed, it may even be possible to summarily dismiss it under anti-SLAPP statutes that might even subject Ms. Sherrod to liability, regardless though I doubt she''l be successful.
Bolded the important part for you.
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30 Jul 2010, 10:43 pm
Bolded the important part for you.
Irrelevant. All Breitbart has to do is testify that he truly believed she was a racist based on her statements; legally she's got nothing.
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31 Jul 2010, 12:20 am
Breitbart sought to damage Sherrod and the NAACP just as he did damage ACORN, and tried to damage the Gamaliel Foundation with the "deliver us Obama" video. In each case these organisations were shown as being strongly black in membership and the fake videos made insinuations about the supposed inferiority and primitivity of black people. In each case the videos were clearly fake and so he is a repeat offender. He certainly knew the ACORN videos were fake, why, he published the transcripts that prove it. Breitbart claiming that he really thought Sherrod is racist does not change this background which is damning to Breitbart. He deliberately released fake videos designed to bring down black people including Sherrod. he is guilty and must pay.
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31 Jul 2010, 1:10 am
Couldn't have said it better myself. This man is a vicious racist, and is justifying his hate under the guise of political activism.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
31 Jul 2010, 4:50 am
Here's the original posting:
http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/201 ... acism2010/
Anyone here who's so sure of themselves should have no problem highlighting and re-posting the libelous part of the entry, it's not long.
Before wasting your time however, here's a journalist's opinion on why any litigation is probably baseless:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 01284.html
Shirley Sherrod says she plans to sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports from San Diego: "Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context":
Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. "He had to know that he was targeting me," she said.
Does she have a winning case? Probably not.
For one thing, the alleged defamation (or, to be precise, the defamation that she would allege if she filed suit) took place while she was a public official and involved claims about the performance of her public duties. Thus she would have to meet the rigorous standard, set forth by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), of proving not only that Breitbart published a damaging falsehood about her but that he did so "with 'actual malice'--that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Even if she proves that Breitbart published false and defamatory statements about her, he wins the case if he did so only negligently.
To put it in layman's terms, she would have to demonstrate that the falsehood Breitbart published about her--the claim that the video showed "her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions"--was a lie, not just an error. But Breitbart issued a timely correction of this statement, creating a strong presumption against such an allegation. (As to the video itself, Breitbart could almost certainly defend it as truthful.)
Blogger William Jacobson notes some other pitfalls for Sherrod of suing Breitbart--the most notable is that if the case went ahead, he would be able to use the discovery process to uncover new information about her and about his other adversaries whose conduct is relevant to the case, namely the NAACP and the Obama administration.
Of course, she hasn't actually filed a lawsuit, and our guess is that a smart lawyer will advise her against it--and that if she does sue, she will end up settling in exchange for an apology or a more emphatic correction. Her threat to sue, in short, is largely an empty one, even if one can empathize with her feeling of having been wronged by Breitbart.
Mostly points I've already made, but it's nice to see them in a mainstream newspaper with more fact-checking resources than I have access to.
If I was feeling particularly spiteful, I might be inclined to dig up some equally if not more libelous articles originating on CounterPunch and posted here by our own Left-wing wannabe Andrew Breitbarts with similar if smaller scale goals, but that would just be pouring salt in the wounds...
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31 Jul 2010, 12:30 pm
So many assume that Sherrod was a "public figure" when the doctored video was released and so the standards to get Breitbart must be higher, his malice towards her personally must be proved. Just becasue she worked for the government doesn't make her a public figure. Just because she gave a talk to the NAACP that no one outside a small group of people saw, that doesn't make her a public figure. Some said, "No one can prove that Breitbart saw Sherrod and decided to get her personally". Oh, really? What was Sherrod to him. A black woman working for the Evil Big Government! The epitome of Evil in his opinion. Of course he wanted to destroy her!
Counterpunch has never brought down anyone... unlike Breitbart, friend of predatory lenders everywhere. I have never seen Counterpunch mischaracterise people for destructive purposes - if they say bad things about people it's because they're guilty as charged and not only that, those people are proud of their crimes and they know they'll get away with them. Not so with Sherrod, when Breitbart saw the effectively destructive fallout of his knowingly false videos.
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