There’s been yet another troubling turn in the story of ABC News caving to left-wing Blacklisters since Andrew Breitbart published this article last night laying out the facts with respect to how the network offered him a gracious invitation to participate in tomorrow’s “online and network broadcast election night coverage” and then revoked at least part of that invitation after the left ginned up a coordinated Juan Williams-like astro-turf attack to silence him.
Via Yahoo!, this morning ABC News contradicted themselves further with this jaw-dropping accusation claiming that this is all Breitbart’s fault for exaggerating his role:
“Mr. Breitbart exaggerated the role he would play on his blog,” ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told The Upshot on Monday. “We immediately made it clear that was never the role he was supposed to play. He had been invited to be part of our digital town hall, and that is still the role.”Before we look at what “Mr. Breitbart” posted on “his blog,” let’s look at what ABC News told him. This is a direct quote from an an email to Breitbart from an ABC News producer…
This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network.And then there’s this from a statement by David Ford of ABC News…
He [Breitbart] will be one of many voices on our air[.]How exactly does Big Journalism’s October 29th announcement qualify as an exaggeration when compared to what ABC News has said both privately via email and publicly via that statement?:
Bigs founder and head of the Breitbart empire Andrew Breitbart will be bringing analysis live from Arizona.It doesn’t. There is no exaggeration. What would his role be if not real-time analysis? Reading the news? Doing interviews? And here’s the kicker, if ABC News was unhappy with the announcement why not ask for a clarification prior to launching these kinds of statements?
Furthermore, the same Jeffrey Schneider who at the top of that Yahoo! article accuses Breitbart of exaggerating is presumably the same Jeffrey Schneider at the bottom of the article who further contradicts himself by saying, in effect, that the idea always was to broadcast on ABC News “anything thoughtful or interesting” from the townhall Breitbart’s participating in:
Now, there’s technically a scenario in which Breitbart appears in some form on the network’s television broadcast but still isn’t called on as a political analyst for ABC’s election night coverage.
Here’s how: Schneider explained that portions of the digital town hall will be included in the ABC network broadcast. So, he said, “it’s entirely possible that anybody who says anything thoughtful or interesting during the streaming portion of it can be excerpted on the broadcast.”So, I guess… Cue the Left-Wing Indignation Blacklisting Machine, Breitbart’s ideas might still air on ABC News!
But as Breitbart himself said in his article last night, this isn’t about him.
During the 1950s, Blacklisters like the George Soros-funded Media Matters, Keith Olbermann, the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Talking Points Memo would’ve screamed Commie! to silence, marginalize and Alinsky those they disagree with. Today, the new Commie is Intolerance, Racist, and any and all variations of the same. But the insidious goal of this tactic hasn’t changed one bit — to silence, toxify and effectively blacklist political opponents by falsely accusing them of the worst sins of the day.
The fact that these accusations against Breitbart are completely unfounded is proven by ABC News. If any of these left-wing smears were true, would ABC have invited Breitbart to be a part of their “online and network broadcast election night coverage” in the first place?
Of course not. So why then is ABC News trying to embarrass Andrew with claims that he exaggerated his role tomorrow night and surrounding those false claims with a flurry of conflicting statements to appease the Left?
We all know why.
Breitbart is not the first to face this new breed of Blacklisters and anyone to the right of Keith Olbermann should take note that he certainly won’t be the last. We have seen the Left’s Blacklisters unsuccessfully attempt to blacklist Eric Erickson off of CNN and we have seen these same Blacklisters successfully remove Juan Williams from the very same NPR willing to tolerate Nina — “Gee, I hope Jesse Helms or his grandkids gets AIDS” — Totenberg.
ABC News and NPR now have hold of a tiger by the tail; because once you give in to the Blacklisters, once they taste the blood of victory, they are only emboldened — and like all predators, they prey first on the weak.
You would think that of all people George Stephanopoulos would understand just how wicked this all is after feeling the full force of Leftist rage and JournoLista piling on after he dared ask then-candidate Obama a couple of tough questions during a 2008 primary debate.
George learned a lesson all right. Unfortunately, it looks as though it was the wrong one.
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