Dave Weigel - ‘Disappointed and Annoyed’ that HuffPo removed Breitbart’s posts from their front page
Yesterday over at Slate, Dave Weigel - a blogger I have enjoyed reading and have a lot of respect for - had a curious denunciation of Huffington Post’s decision to remove Andrew Breitbart’s posts from their front page. This was done in response to some deeply stupid comments Breitbart made about Van Jones. You’ll see them in the quote within the quote below:
I’m disappointed and annoyed to see the Huffington Post buckling under a pressure campaign and taking Andrew Breitbart’s blog posts off the front page. It’s their site; they can do what they want. But this response to the Color of Change’s effort to boot Breitbart? It’s pure wimpery. From HuffPospox Mario Ruiz:
Andrew Brietbart’s ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller — right down to calling him a “commie punk” and “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak” — violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page. He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did — guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks.
He didn’t write or say any of that at HuffPo, a site he helped develop in 2005. Is the Huffington Post’s standard that contributors can be to some modified limited hang-out if they use ad hominems in other forums? Boy, good thing Breitbart doesn’t have an army of contributors who can comb HuffPo authors’ published and spoken work to see if they’ve done that.
His argument here isn’t what is curious. In a sense, he is correct: Breitbart didn’t make those comments on HuffPo, and I know for a fact that in about 30 minutes time, a mountain of equally stupid comments made by lefty HuffPo bloggers and readers could be found.
What’s curious is that he’s defending Breitbart in the first place. So what if HuffPo is inconsistent? Who cares? Breitbart is a liar and a smear merchant and nothing else. Why the hell is Weigel defending him? He, and the rest of the responsibily minded journalist community - shrinking as it is - should realize that considering what Breitbart has done in the past, no one should shed a tear for him, even if has gotten the short end of the stick.
Like I said, I’ve enjoyed reading Weigel, and I still have a lot of respect for him. But I’ve lost some as a result of this.