Graphic via Steven Clark Bradley
Van Jones’ merry band of extortionists known as Color of Change have a track record of pressuring media outlets and sponsors to suppress speech they don’t like. They’ve had some degree of success with Glenn Beck’s sponsors, and succeeded in booting Andrew Breitbart from ABC’s election night coverage, last year. For a while, yesterday, it looked like they had hit a wall in their campaign to get Andrew Breitbart banned from The Huffington Post; a campaign I should add that was based on lies and smears.
Late yesterday, they succeeded in getting Breitbart booted off the front page. Huffpo claims that the action has nothing to do with the threats of a boycott from the deplorable Van Jones’ group, instead, they say it’s because something Breitbart wrote at another media outlet.
The Huffington Post is committed to fostering a lively and often provocative debate about the issues of the day and encourages a wide range of voices from all perspectives to participate. 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. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.
As Salon’s Alex Pareene noted, Breitbart got just what he wanted:
… getting banned from the Huffington Post proves his thesis about the repressive, anti-free speech liberal media. And he’ll never shut up about it.
Of course, while it’s obvious that Huffpo was just wanting an excuse to can Breitbart in order to placate Color of Change, they now, (by using the zero tolerance for ad homs defense,) have opened themselves up to close scrutiny from Breitbart’s army of contributors:
Early yesterday morning, the Daily Caller published an interview with Andrew Breitbart where the Big Journalism publisher had some choice words on Color of Change founder, former Green Jobs Czar, and HuffPo blogger Van Jones.
“Van Jones is a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak. And a commie. And an eco-fraudster,” Breitbart said. A few kind words were volunteered for Jones: praise for being “spectacularly well-dressed.”
Mario Ruiz, The Huffington Post’s senior vice president for media relations, told TheDC that Breitbart will not be censored in response to the campaign.
***
AOL/HuffPo has thousands of bloggers, many of whom have said and will say things much worse than what Breitbart said, so we here at Big Journalism are hereby pledging to help AOL/HuffPo enforce their “no ad hominem attacks by bloggers” rule. The work will be hard, the hours will be long, but in the name of equality and for the good of the site Andrew Breitbart developed, we will do our best to save AOL/HuffPo from itself.
More at the link where Big Gov’s Alexander Marlow starts with Van Jones, himself.
But-but-but——it’s not hate speech when we do it!
Fun times!
UPDATE:
Huffpo has already been shamed into removing one post…
Who knows how many more are to come. Perhaps there will be a long overdue purge.
UPDATE II:
Some rare intellectual honesty from the left:
Lee Stranahan: Why I’m Quitting Blogging At The Huffington Post:
Addendum: One very loathsome aspect of this story is something that Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff told me in a long phone call about Andrew Breitbart several months ago. Roy knows and worked with Andrew and when the issue of Andrew Breitbart being a racist came up, Roy told me “No, of course Andrew isn’t a racist.”
Roy went on to say that while both he and Arianna Huffington knew that the charges of racism being hurled at Andrew weren’t true based on their years of personal dealings with him that they were in a ‘bad position’ to say anything about it.
Politics is a contact sport, but not defending someone you know personally and know the truth about is pretty poor conduct. To stand by and watch their reputation ruined and do nothing when all you have to do is say ‘I know him and that’s not true” is shameful.
These people are morally bankrupt.
UPDATE III:
How cool is this? Big Journalism has already come up with it’s own Huffpo Ad Hominem Alert graphic:
And, oh dear…it looks like they’ve found yet another example of ad hom on Huff-po’s website.
UPDATE IV:
Via Patterico:
Mickey Kaus, from his new perch at the Daily Caller, observes:
First on the docket: Here’s what HuffPo writer Jason Linkins wrote in 2008 about right wing writer Jerome Corsi:
I want to end today by offering my thanks to Jerome Corsi, white-supremacist Swift Boat turd heel un-American wouldn’t-piss-on-ya-if-you-were-on-fire foamy chancre on the ass of subhumanity extraordinaire. You want to talk about voter enthusiasm? Well, Mr. Corsi, the thought of casting vote against everything you stand for doesn’t just make me feel enthusiastic, it makes me feel ten feet taller, and I get the coppery taste of the gladiator in my mouth. So thank you, pig. [E.A.]
Seems ad hominem to me! It’s almost hard to see how you could be more ad hominem…. Since Linkins clearly violated the tenets of debate and civil discourse HuffPo has strived for since the day they launched, he’s as good as gone from their front page. Open and shut. … Looks like the “nether regions” of HuffPo will be where you have to go to get the juicy stuff. … [Linkins on HuffPo front page right now–ed. That can’t be. Someone tell Arianna.]
Holy Jeez. Huffington publishes something like that, but Andrew Breitbart is considered too over the top for calling Van Jones a commie (he is, btw) on another website?
The stench of hypocrisy over there is just nauseating.
UPDATE V:
Linked by Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, thanks.
Nice Deb 