Conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart admitted in a speech not too long ago that he "hearts" al Qaeda. Or so he does in a new video that was just put online. Okay, it's a video that seems spliced. Fine, it is spliced. And it was put online by MoveOn.org.
In a campaign to reform the standards of broadcast media, the progressive advocacy organization released a spoof clip on Monday demonstrating the dangers -- if not absurdity -- of running clips that appear to be taken out of context for malicious intent.
The foil, naturally, is Breitbart, whose BigGovernment website posted an edited video last week that led to the firing of Shirley Sherrod, the still-former Agriculture official, in the mistaken belief that she had made racist remarks. But the target of MoveOn's video is the media at large.
While Breitbart (at least this week) may be easy to mock, he is likely un-reformable. But the cable news and Internet outlets can still be shamed into treating his reports and similar inaccurate products with the necessary skepticism. Indeed, the short clip released on Monday is part of a broader media-reforming campaign.
"This video is just as truthful as any Breitbart has released, so we hope broadcast media will give it equally as much play as they have given his," said MoveOn spokesperson Ilyse Hogue. "The media has fallen down on their core mission of providing facts to the American people and watchdogging our democracy; if they are going to fail, they should fail in a nonpartisan fashion."