When CNN gave a contributor spot to Redstate.com doofus Erick Erickson, I was one of the few center-left who offered a lukewarm defense of it. Yeah, Erickson's a firebreather, but he traffics in opinion and as somebody who's offered up his share of offensive commentary in the past, it's not like I could say that he somehow has less right to be inflammatory simply because he's on the opposite side of the fence from what I believe. There was of course an argument to be made that anyone -- left or right -- whose contribution to the national discourse was that uncivilized didn't deserve a seat at the big kids table, but such is the state of the established media these days.
The news that Andrew Breitbart has been tapped to be part of ABC's election night coverage, however -- that's light years beyond a bridge too far.
It's one thing to have a very specific and extreme opinion on a subject and to demagogically slam it into someone's face with all the subtlety of a bar fight, but Brietbart isn't simply about that; the man is, as Bob Cesca put it perfectly, a serial liar and a scam artist. Sure he's colorful because he's a raging maniac with a short fuse and a decade-long therapy session's worth of anger issues, but in his self-proclaimed and self-serving war on the "liberal media" and the institutional left -- what his legion of Twitter critics mockingly refer to as the coming "Breitbartocalypse" -- he's ignored facts, knowingly created phony scandals, willfully aided, abetted and perpetuated hoaxes engineered by irresponsible con-men like himself, and given no thought at all to the consequences of his mendacity and his flagrant defamation. He's a pompous schoolyard bully who's not to be trusted even for a second because he's proven time and time again that he has no regard for the truth if it doesn't serve his end. So knowing this, how do the media he's supposedly out to destroy respond to his bullshit? They spread their legs for him, of course.
After the disgrace heaped on him in the wake of James O'Keefe, Shirley Sherrod, etc. ABC News is willing to lend this jackass the credibility of a night in the big league press box.
Jesus, every time I think I'm desensitized to the media's cynicism and stupidity to the point where nothing they do could shock me anymore, they pull a truly inspired fuck-you out of their hats.
By the way, ABC News says that Bill Adair from Politifact will be on hand to correct Breitbart should he start spewing his special brand of crap. Here's a tip, guys: You won't need a lion tamer if you don't have a lion. Or maybe the better way to put it is that you won't need a lying tamer if you don't have a liar.