I’m pretty sure the entire GIN has turned off the radio when it comes to “nationally-syndicated host” Michael Smerconish. We’ve discussed him before- he played a conservative host on the radio and then began to reevaluate his views (or maybe evaluate for the first time) a few years ago. He did some good work on keeping Mumia in jail and does write some books for little personal profit (donating to causes). We had it figured out long before the 2008 election that he was going to dump the GOP candidate. And he did so for Obama, and then has gotten some access to administration officials and was nationally syndicated shortly after the ’08 election by a Capital group filled with lefties.
To take the “morning drive” segment out of play for the GOP in the Philly ‘burbs on the big AM talkradio channel was a huge thing. To tell “moderates” that Obama’s not such a bad guy, to minimize his associations, c’mon, it’s old Mikey here telling you how it is. How many listeners each day went to work after being told “he’s a good guy…” What if a Hannity was on the radio then? How many listeners would’ve gone into their offices and had that watercooler conversation about “can you believe what Obama’s minister said?” These things ripple, and someone knew that. I’d almost bet for every listener that hears it, ten more people hear of it.
Now I’m not one to say Smerconish “sold out”. But he’s definitely profited from sticking to his embargo on criticizing Obama. I don’t know if it’s written into his contract, but he knows who’s supporting his shows (and I’m guessing it’s not listenership).
I do read Smerconish’s columns on Philly.com (he’s kind of a token GOP guy that works for Democrats), mainly to see if he’ll ever criticize the President. Inevitably, his columns target new media (bloggers and talk radio), conservatives in the GOP, or talk about something completely inane (using the “Seinfeld”-esque “it’s about nothing at all” template).
Today Smerconish weighs in on Andrew Breitbart, bringing nothing new to the table but taking the opportunity to lambast his standard targets. Rather than just commenting online, I figured I’d put my comments parenthetically in with the column (link):
By Michael Smerconish – Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist
Last week, blogger Andrew Breitbart released a mischievously edited video. It showed a black Department of Agriculture official, Shirley Sherrod, recalling her seemingly racist reluctance to assist a white farmer more than two decades earlier. Some in the audience of NAACP members are heard engaging in a sort of call-and-response approval of Sherrod’s sentiments. Reacting to the edited video, Sherrod’s boss, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, demanded her resignation.
Now imagine if it had gone a little differently – if, before Sherrod could resign, the White House had intervened and saved her job. Imagine the reaction of those now trying to put President Obama at the center of this debacle by blaming him for Sherrod’s unnecessary resignation (like leftist Daily News Senior Writer and alleged-”Journolister” Will Bunch of Attytood, who called it “A Political Lynching- By the Obama Administration”). They would have been outraged if he had backed her up in the face of the initial information (Nope, they would’ve blindly supported him).
Should Vilsack have investigated further? Yes. (So sue him) Ditto for the NAACP. (The NAACP President was mentioned being in the audience of the f-ing video, unless he was used to sitting in for white-bashing sessions, don’t you think he would’ve said “no way I was there for that”?) But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs should not have been the first to offer Sherrod an apology. It should have been Breitbart, the man who started the controversy. What he did was tantamount to releasing the Zapruder film minus the moment of impact. (great analogy?)
Breitbart’s explanation – that he didn’t realize the video had been so maliciously manipulated – only amplifies his irresponsibility. Of the “source” who gave him the video, he told the Daily Beast: “I don’t know this person. I can’t divine what that person’s motivation was. I don’t know.”
A little less trust and a little more verify next time, Mr. Breitbart. (He contacted the NAACP for comment/verification, and they denounced her)
Even shallower was Breitbart’s description of his own motivation: “The video shows racism, and when the NAACP is going to charge the tea party with racism . . . I’m going to show you it happens on the other side.” (I agree. This attack on Shirley Sherrod is no different than Ben Jealous slandering TEA parties)
Even if you take that bogus explanation at face value, Breitbart at least should have highlighted the fact that the NAACP audience also expressed approval when Sherrod brought her story full circle and said poor people of every race need help. But he didn’t.
Such are the pitfalls of a media world in which everyone plays whisper-down-the-lane, but nobody fact-checks the message. (Whisper down the lane sounds a lot like a listserv of journalists and democrat operatives…)
The reality is that the audience’s reaction was not a tacit approval of Sherrod’s momentary reluctance to help a poor white farmer. Rather, it was the kind of response you might hear when any engaging story is told in an African American church (Smerconish has accepted Obama’s premise that Obama’s church was just any church). Any remotely honest observer who watches Sherrod’s full speech must acknowledge that the audience was rooting for her ultimate redemption – not applauding her outdated shortcomings.
Too bad everyone – including Breitbart, his loyal readers, the media, the NAACP, and the Department of Agriculture – was willing to accept the video at face value. To fully understand why they did, a little context is in order.
First, in the polarized media world we live in, Breitbart enjoys credibility he does not deserve. (If only he’d gone to Penn for law school) The only credential required to cast oneself as a media player today is a partisan one. (Again, the elephant in the room is Journolist) If you are willing to conform to the artificial extremes of left/right, liberal/conservative, and blue/red, you get a keyboard or a microphone and, voilà, you are in business!
Some of those bearing such credentials have conditioned their audiences to believe that Obama is a racist. (Conditioned is a little condescending tone for a guy who depends on the same demo’s of listeners for his own ratings. What are we, little Pavlovian bitches?) Glenn Beck has said the president has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” Rush Limbaugh called the commander in chief “the greatest living example of a reverse racist” after his Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, herself an alleged “reverse racist” and “hack.” Newt Gingrich, who also called Sotomayor the R-word before walking the comment back, charged that Sherrod showed a “viciously racist” attitude. ( “racist” might not be the best term, it’s more that he believes the leftist slams against “White” western civilization, of which the nation he leads has traditionally played a large role).
All the false charges (proven false how?) of racism condition these talking heads’ followers to readily accept that a minority woman speaking any ill of white farmers must be racist, without even pausing to wonder if there could be more to the story. (The words were pretty clear, and played in the context they were didn’t require any more thought to whether she had an axe to grind with white farmers)
Which is not to say there isn’t plenty of blame to go around. Vilsack and the NAACP should have reserved judgment, especially if Sherrod was telling them that Breitbart’s clip was part of a longer speech with a different message (which, presumably, she was). The news outlets that ran with the clip also should have done more to determine whether it was authentic.
The only mistake the White House made was in failing to tune out Breitbart, the same “journalist” who lent his heft to a guy later charged in a plot to tamper with phones in the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.). (Isn’t “guilt by association” a PC thought-crime? Didn’t Smerconish criticize Bill Ayers as an attempt to sink Obama by Guilt By Association? (link) What about smearing Breitbart with the “charge” of another person, not the conviction? James O’Keefe wasn’t trying to tamper with the phones, he was trying to prove that the Senators’ offices were ignoring the calls of their constituents, something that a “journalist” might want to report on.)
The administration would have been better off remembering the words then-Sen. Obama spoke in the midst of another racial kerfuffle: “The profound mistake of Rev. Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society,” Obama said at the National Constitution Center. “It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made. . . . But what we know – what we have seen – is that America can change. That is [the] true genius of this nation.”
We should have known right away that Shirley Sherrod was making the same point. For missing it, Tom Vilsack owed her the apology he offered. For obscuring it, Andrew Breitbart owes the rest of us one as well. (For accepting the role of public gadfly and doing nothing to stop what is happening to this nation, Smerconish owes us one too.)
We’re beginning to see the impacts of the insidiously horrendous legislation that’s been passed here on the ground, and with the passage of the “Financial Reform” bill we’ll see even more. Smerconish is building the case to take over as the “reasonable” guy when the Fairness Doctrine is unveiled, and advance himself by way of government intrusion. In the grand scheme of things, someone whowillfully joined with the destroyers, profited by them, and became a passive enabler is far worse than an Andrew Breitbart who (provided he didn’t know what he was doing) posted something without being sure it wasn’t edited.
Remember, Smerconish and the left are attacking Breitbart for posting the video (which generated the conversation leading to the truth). Breitbart sought confirmation from the NAACP, as it was an NAACP event, and they publicly condemned Sherrod. What are we to take away from that?