L.A. Times’s Rainey Snarks About Breitbart.com — And Forgets to Tell Readers About How His Own Incompetence Was Revealed by Breitbart
James Rainey talks about Breitbart.com today, and it’s the type of hack job you’ve come to expect from that guy. Here’s a sample:
Breitbart made his name by sowing outrage. He promoted the hidden-camera videos that helped take down the liberal community activist group ACORN. He exposed the sex-charged online romp of the now ex-Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. He hyped a video that left the misleading impression that an Agriculture Department employee was giving a speech defending racism. In fact, she was condemning it.
That is certainly the popular conception of the Sherrod affair. In fact, the truth is far less black and white. The edited video contained evidence of her alleged epiphany about poverty vs. race . . . and the unedited video did not appear to me to be condemning racism at all. Also, people forget that Andrew was making a point about the NAACP and the way the NAACP audience applauded the “don’t help white people” type comments Sherrod made early in the speech.
But I’m not here to nitpick Rainey’s hackery. I’m here to remind you about something he wants you to forget.
Rainey neglects to tell readers that Breitbart (and I) exposed the way that Rainey fell for an ACORN worker’s claims that she hadn’t helped Giles and O’Keefe — only to have Andrew release video proof that she had. I explained Rainey’s pattern of incompetence two years ago:
Regular readers will recall how Rainey uncritically quoted an ACORN worker who suggested that she had ordered Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office. Rainey (who today lambasts Breitbart for failng to contact Sherrod) hadn’t bothered to contact Breitbart — or Giles or O’Keefe — to ask their side of the story. If Rainey had bothered to do his job, he might have learned that the ACORN worker in question turned out to be only too eager to help Giles and O’Keefe with their purported child prostitution ring.
Above: James Rainey Rainey then wrote an ass-covering column that minimized his error — and which included a purported quote from O’Keefe. After I investigated the source of the quote, it turned out to be largely fabricated.
This was easily one of the most embarrassing events of Rainey’s career. He swallowed a totally false narrative whole and used that narrative to undercut O’Keefe’s ACORN series, only to get whacked upside the head with video proof released by Breitbart. Now he wants to talk about Andrew Breitbart and not disclose this, and he figures he won’t get any pushback because Andrew’s dead.
Here’s your pushback, Rainey. The pushback isn’t going to end just because one guy isn’t around any more. Don’t forget that.
Rainey is a capital “J” journalist, right? I bet he hates it when this kind of thing happens.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/1/2012 @ 7:45 amKeep rainin’ on his parade. He deserves it, the two-faced skunk.
ropelight (3e9525) — 8/1/2012 @ 8:01 amIn no way shape or form did Ms Sherrod ever condemn her racist professional conduct she described in that speech. She instead said that her new focus was class based social justice.
And the audience applauded the racism she described… She did not describe it in a critical way, either. This organization that was applauding racism also condemned the Tea Party as racist, and the thesis of Breitbart’s story was that the NAACP was not consistent or fair on this topic.
Dustin (73fead) — 8/1/2012 @ 8:52 amIt would be embarrassing for Rainey to get into a debate with a dead guy and lose.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 8/1/2012 @ 9:09 amRainey has issues with honesty, thus a perfect JournoLister.
JD (cfef43) — 8/1/2012 @ 9:11 amRainey and “Sock Puppet” Michael Hiltzik. Two politically correct preachers to the progressive choir. As journalists? More like not all that and a bag of chips. Distinctly second rate in the professional competence department.
Comanche Voter (29e1a6) — 8/1/2012 @ 9:16 amI am never surprised by our little Leftie friends maligning people when it is very, very safe to do so. Attacking a dead fellow? It would seem perfect for ethical pygmies like this guy and that bit of toilet film Ehrenstein.
Simon Jester (dab08c) — 8/1/2012 @ 9:26 amBreitbart is here.
Beldar (8554bf) — 8/1/2012 @ 9:50 amIf ACORN was “taken down”, why are they still a major underwriter on KCET-TV here in L.A.?
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 8/1/2012 @ 10:07 amBreitbart is here … and it’s a powerful tribute to Andrew.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 8/1/2012 @ 11:47 amIs there anything more sad than liberals who are just so very sure that they have a monopoly on everything that is Good and True and Just? Just read the comments posted at the end of Rainey’s piece and wonder in awe at the self-delusion of today’s left. These people really don’t pause to consider the idea that there may be people outside their little cliques who don’t have the same worldview as they do. If the academic/media/government brand of progressivism is doomed, it will largely be because it was so insular and immune to self-reflection.
JVW (c64522) — 8/1/2012 @ 12:23 pmBreitbart swift-boated Sherrod!
BTW, I hate it when I come across Republicans complaining about Romney being “swift-boated”. Swift-boating means revealing a truth that the MSM refuse to cover and the pygmies of the Republican establishment refuse to make a fuss about. Huma Abedin is being swift-boated; Romney is being lied about. Calling it “swift-boating” betrays the brave SBVT who defied not only the MSM but the McCains and Boehners to tell us the truth we needed to know.
Milhouse (15b6fd) — 8/1/2012 @ 1:42 pmIt’s not nice to try to fool Patterico.
AZ Bob (7d2a2c) — 8/1/2012 @ 2:54 pmThe Left, Milhouse, is incapable of honest discourse.
“I’ll stop telling the truth about them, when they stop lying about me.”
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 8/1/2012 @ 2:59 pmIn other dog trainer news, sock-puppeteer extraordinaire Michael Hiltzik gives us another of his well reasoned business columns: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-vespa/2012/08/01/la-times-columnist-chick-fil-shut-and-fry
“Chick Fil-A Gets a LESSON…”
MikeHu (1a2353) — 8/1/2012 @ 3:40 pmYeah, d-b, they’re getting a “lesson” all right.
They are getting a lesson in how to make money hand over fist today.
JD (cfef43) — 8/1/2012 @ 3:49 pm