The Breitbart/Sherrod saga feels like so much political drama. It is a kind of spectacle custom-made for Politico reporters and political junkies — mildly entertaining, for a little while, but signifying virtually nothing in the end.
Witness, for instance, some of the ridiculous accusations that have been thrown around in the past two weeks.
In the last fortnight: 1) The NAACP called the tea party racist; 2) Andrew Breitbart called the NAACP racist; 3) Shirley Sherrod called Republican opponents of Obamacare racists; 4) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod racist; 5) many in mainstream media called Andrew Breitbart racist; 6) Howard Dean called Fox racist; and, 7) it was revealed that liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman proposed calling Fred Barnes and Karl Rove racist.
Thus, through a confluence of bizarrely unlikely events, the vicious act of falsely accusing people of racism became a laughingstock. It went from being a career killer to a punch line; from villainy to vaudeville; from knife in the back to pie in the fact.
Breitbart and Sherrod, the central figures, have both been unfairly demonized. This is obvious in the case of Sherrod, whose name has been cleared (and even enhanced) in the wake of the false charges.
But the accusations against Breitbart — that he is a racist, a craven liar, or a “dirty trickster” of some sort — have if anything only intensified. And while he clearly should not have posted the edited video, in hindsight, his critics are all too willing to assume that he knew the video was doctored and published it with malicious intent.
I met Breitbart in person for an interview about the Tea Party in May. My guess, based on his obvious frustration with charges of “Tea Party racism,” is that the cut of Sherrod he got was almost “too good to check.” In that case he should have been more careful. But it is one thing to criticize someone’s lack of prudence as a publisher and quite another to impugn that person’s character. (Maybe next time the media will be more careful when dealing with an activist news source, whether Breitbart or HuffPo.)
No matter — I’m willing to bet that this episode will be forgotten by next week, when we go back to 24/7 coverage of midterm election predictions and the next installment of the Charlie Rangel Show.
