Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Breitbart and the clip

Breitbart says that he only received the edited clip. That seems a reasonable explanation but it only moves the misdeed back a step to whomever edited the clip to be obviously misleading.  Where are the demands that that person apologize and come forward. 

Breitbart's argument that was he was only trying to draw attention to the way the audience reacted.  Again, this is an interesting and reasonable point. I think the reaction of the crowd was a little disturbing. But the characterization the edited clip gave of Sherwood's thinking is just just unforgivable.  If it had been made clear at the outset that the story about discriminating against a white man was part of a larger story of how she learned that such behavior is wrong then the point about the audience's reaction to her statements before she had revealed that her views had changed might be defensible, but having the truth come out only after a person's reputation has been doesn't quite cut it.  After all this progress we have made we now have to fight the perception that every piece of video we release is part of a set up. The possible fact that Breitbart was not in on the set-up hardly undoes the damage.

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