If you can't say anything nice . . .

Bump & Update by The Sailor

Sherrod Announces She’ll Sue Breitbart

The ousted Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod said Thursday that she intended to sue Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Web site operator that publicized a misleading video about her last week.

INAL, but it seems she has a clear case for defamation:
Typically, the elements of a cause of action for defamation include:

1. A false and defamatory statement concerning another;
2. The unprivileged publication of the statement to a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement);
3. If the defamatory matter is of public concern, fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and
4. Damage to the plaintiff.

Since this is a civil suit the standards of proof are lower, so we'll see what happens. (BTW, pass the popcorn!)

To me the case is less about the trial than the discovery process. Breitbart & co can be compelled to answer a lot of questions. It's about time that somebody fought back against these bastards.

Original & most excellent post below:

I'm sure Andrew Breitbart is really just a lovable teddy bear of a guy. Thus, I'm sure the allegation that he maliciously edited a video to spread a story that a Dep't of Agriculture employee was making a racist speech was just more librul media criticizing a bold and brave conservative:

In July 2010, Breitbart posted two short sections of a taped speech delivered by Shirley Sherrod at the NAACP 20th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27, 2009. Sherrod, an official with the United States Department of Agriculture, held the position of Rural Development Director for the state of Georgia. In the snippets posted on Big Government.com (a Breitbart website) and YouTube.com, Sherrod (an African American) recounted an incident 24 years earlier when she worked for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. In the posted video, she described how she limited how much help she gave a white farmer in foreclosure. As a result of the posted video, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asked Sherrod to resign, which she did.^[38] Breitbart states "this tape is about the NAACP. It’s raison d’etre is about non-discrimination. And when Shirley Sherrod is talking there, in which she expresses a discriminatory attitude towards white people, the audience responds with applause and the NAACP agrees with me. And it rebuked her and the audience."^[39]

Soon afterwards, the NAACP posted the complete 40 minute video of the speech on their website showing that the point of her speech was to describe for the audience how her thinking had evolved over time to view people not as black or white but as poor. The NAACP audience is shown applauding Sherrod's change in attitude. John Spooner, the white farmer from Iron City, GA in question, praised Sherrod's efforts for him, called suggestions she was racist, "Hogwash," and suggested she get her job back. Breitbart later indicated that his purpose in posting the edited video snippet was not to get Sherrod fired but to show racism amongst the NAACP participants, claiming he was given the edited and misleading tapes by someone else.^[40] In the meantime, the White House apologized to Sherrod and the Vilsack offered her a new position in the department.^[41]

Clearly a misunderstanding. I mean, Andy (can I call you Andy, you fuck?) has never done anything like this before:

Authorities criticize selective editing of ACORN videos. According to the California attorney general's office the videotapes were "severely edited by O'Keefe." In a statement, Attorney General Brown said that "The evidence illustrates... that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." Likewise, a March 1 New York Daily News article reported that "a law enforcement source" said of O'Keefe and Giles: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda." A March 2 New York Post article, headlined "ACORN set up by vidiots: DA," reported of O'Keefe and Giles' ACORN tapes: "Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said."

Breitbart said his strategy for promoting ACORN videos was to "deprive" people of "information." The Washington Independent reported on September 24:

Within hours, Breitbart was doing interviews with reporters who wanted to know how, exactly, the story had come about, and why Big Government was releasing the videos and the identity of the muckrackers - 25-year-old James O'Keefe III and 20-year-old Hannah Giles - so slowly.

"It was strategized," Breitbart told TWI this week, so "that they would be deprived of the type of information that a defense attorney would try to gather in order to create a defense."

Who were "these people?" They were not just the leaders or members of ACORN itself. "They" were the Democratic Party, the White House, the progressive Center for American Progress and its president John Podesta. The "Democrat-media complex" is Breitbart's name for the whole apparatus. "We deprived them of information," Breitbart explained, "so that they couldn't come up with a vile, kill-the-messenger attack with the media doing the groundwork for them."

O'Keefe falsely claimed undercover video campaign was a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" implicating many ACORN employees. From a November 16, 2009, BigGovernment.com post by O'Keefe:

Although Mr. Felix D. Harris of Los Angeles ACORN told us he didn't care about our prostitution business in regards to a housing loan, he drew the line when we spoke about the underage girls.Although he did not kick us out, he was the only employee in our nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation who would not assist us.

The videos, however, don't support the allegation that many ACORN offices were willing to aid child prostitution. Giles and O'Keefe released heavily edited videos of their encounters at eight ACORN or ACORN Housing offices. In at least six of those instances, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit.

Seriously, if you want to know the evil that is Breitbart, Media Matters has the whole ugly story.

This guy makes Jack The Ripper seem like a speed-dater, and Ted Bundy seem like the boy next door.

He doesn't even believe the ideology he's pimping out, he's just in it for sport. In other words, he's a Republican.

Bastard!

By the way, Breitbart, in the original German, translates to "wide beard".