Does anyone watch Cutthroat Kitchen? I love that show, and the dry humor of the host Alton Brown. If you missed last night’s episode, it had this in the 2nd judging phase
It's what #CutthroatKitchen's about. pic.twitter.com/Kbb2Ji1OAY
— Food Network (@FoodNetwork) March 14, 2016
That’s what so many at Breitbart have attempted to do, kill Andrew Breitbart’s dream. I’ve noted on a few occasions on Twitter that I believe Andrew Breitbart would be appalled at the direction the conservative news site he founded has taken. It has become more of an advocacy site for Donald Trump, in much the same way Glenn Beck has become a bit unhinged over Trump, and an attack platform against those running against and/or say something negative about Trump. The comments are a cesspool of rabid Trump support, and you will be personally insulted if you dare take a stand against Trump. And, it appears that Michelle Fields and Ben Shapiro have had enough
(Buzzfeed) Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields and editor-at-large Ben Shapiro are resigning from the company over the site’s handling of Donald Trump’s campaign manager’salleged assault on Fields, BuzzFeed News has learned.
Fields and Shapiro informed Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon of their decision Sunday night.
“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,†Fields said in a statement sent to BuzzFeed News. “I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.â€
And, they didn’t. They didn’t in the articles and they didn’t in the comments. Shapiro wrote in his resignation
Andrew built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News’ Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump’s bully campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle. I spoke with Michelle the night after the incident. She told me her story. That story was backed by audiotape, eyewitness testimony from The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, physical bruises, and video tape.
Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion. Meanwhile, Breitbart News not only stood by and did nothing outside of tepidly asking for an apology, they then attempted to abandon Michelle by silencing staff from tweeting or talking about the issue. Finally, in the ultimate indignity, they undermined Michelle completely by running a poorly-evidenced conspiracy theory as their lead story in which Michelle and Terris had somehow misidentified Lewandowski.
This is disgusting. Andrew never would have stood for it. No news outlet would stand for it.
What should have been a small affair became a huge one. Lewandowski should have simply apologized to Fields, and they could have moved on. But, the story became huge, and so many at Breitbart, in their rabid Trump support, took a stance against Fields, including wild conspiracy theories. She’s been trashed in the comments. So, how does Breitbart respond?
Ben Shapiro Betrays Loyal Breitbart Readers in Pursuit of Fox News Contributorship
Former Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro announced Sunday evening via left-wing Buzzfeed that he is abandoning Andrew Breitbart’s lifelong best friend, widow, hand-picked management team and friends in pursuit of an elusive contributorship at the Fox News Channel.
Friends of Hamas could not be found for comment.
It goes down from there, a nice little hitjob that rather proved Shapiro’s point, and writer William Bigelow ends it thusly
Alleged Fox News contributor Michelle Fields also resigned.
So, a shot at the person who was assaulted and wanted her organization to stand with her. It’s no wonder many other employees of Breitbart are looking to get out. And the comments on that article? They remind me more of the fever swamps of the Democratic Underground and Daily Kos during their heyday of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Breitbart’s dream has been killed.
Update: Breitbart has attempted to memory hole the article. You’ll get a 404 if you click the link, however, if you search “ben shapiro” it still shows in the search results
More: the article has been replaced, though you can see in the tab it still has the same title about betrayal, with this
The article was written by me as part of an effort to make light of a significant company event, and was published as a result of a misunderstanding without going through the normal editorial channels.
I apologize to Michelle Fields, my friend Ben Shapiro, and to everyone concerned.
If Pollack had an respect, any integrity, and balls, he’d put the entire article back up (sadly, I can’t pull it from the cache, it was overwritten) and append the mea culpa to the end.
Twitchy has coverage, with more screenshots, and, look, a cached version. Oh, and the name William Bigelow was used by Ben Shapiro’s dad to avoid all the death threats he gets.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Apparently, there’s video vindicating Lewandowski.
So who should be apologizing to whom?
BTW, kudos for taking a civilized approach to this. There’s way too much over the top (most of it against the Trump campaign IMHO).
Thanks for trying to be fair, at least as you see it.
I don’t want to get too far down in the weeds here, but at first the Trump campaign said that if something happened, there would be video of it. When videos came out, the Trump people claimed they were being persecuted. Lewandowski at first apologized for the incident claiming he didn’t know Fields so he pushed / pulled her away and then then he changed his story to say “nothing happened. Multiple videos and the audio of the incident have surfaced showing the incident happened as Fields says. You also have independent witnesses verifying it.
The video which you may be referencing is after the incident. When matched up with other videos, Trump is farther away from Fields when the video starts.
There is much of this discussion that is over the top, but the Trump campaign has not exactly behaved in the best manner either as they have changed their stories as the days have gone by.
The Trump campaign is a lot like the Obama campaigns and the Ron Paul campaign. Those who disagree or say something against Trump are attacked by his supporters which is what we saw with Obama and Paul campaigns (and still see it from liberals who frequent this site when it comes to Obama and Hillary.)
All three campaigns (Trump, Obama and Paul) rely on the “cult of personality.”
Not too far off. But honestly, with real politicians voters have a good idea what to expect policy-wise. Obama is, and always was a slightly left of center Dem. He’s going to support the right to choose, same-sex marriage, less foreign intervention, the welfare state, yada yada yada. Ron Paul was a libertarian. Do you honestly not know how the pragmatist Secretary Clinton will lead once in the White House?
What are the policies that Trump supporters are most concerned about? And what are Mr. Trump’s policy proposals that will solve those problems? Build a wall and ban Muslims and beat the Chinese at negotiating.
Finally, part of leadership is obviously “personality”. The effectiveness (real or apparent) of JFK, Reagan and Clinton was tied to their personalities and “leadership”. Hillary has an uphill fight compared to Obama, Bill, Reagan or Trump, natural politicians all.
I think Trump would likely be a disaster. Cruz would not be able to get any of his extremist plans through Congress. 10% Flat Tax! LOL. Plus Cruz is less likeable than Hillary, if you can imagine.
It’s reasonable to conclude that Trump is a Dem plant engaged to destroy the far-right faction of the GOP for good.
Anyway, America needs to return to liberal/progressive/moderate economic policies to begin to fix what ails us. Hillary/Kasich 2016! Wins Ohio and reassures non-crazy Republicans. Unfortunately the House will continue to be infected with Tea Party Crazies for a while. Statehouses and state legislatures too.
Shapiro improves any organization by leaving. Regardless of his reasons.
[…] After Shapiro resigned the senior editor at Breitbart wrote an article slamming Shapiro for a “betrayal” of the loyal readers before taking it down. The Pirate’s Cove captured part of it before it was overwritten. […]
If anything this shows the warped world in which you live. You want to take a criminal over a person who stands for the Constitution and freedoms.
I would sit down for dinner with Cruz any day. With Hillary, you can’t eat because both hands have to be on your wallet.
The liberal policies of higher taxes, less freedoms and more government is what ails us.
Why would we want to go further down the path of ruination caused by the left?
Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right Tim?
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/14/video-clinton-promises-to-put-a-lot-of-coal-miners-out-of-business/
Pragmatic indeed!
Taxes were highest in the 50s. So, fail.
You’re getting dumber and more desperate. We assume you meant either less freedom or fewer freedoms, but anyway, what measure do you use for “freedoms”? Fail.
Do you have any evidence about “more government”? Or at least a definition. By total government spending as a % of GDP or total government employees the evidence doesn’t support your claim. What did you mean? Fail.
The truth is that we’ve had 35 years of conservative policy.
And we lowered them because of controlled spending after paying off the war debt.
The fact of the matter is that people are paying more in taxes these days because of policies supported by liberals.
Actually Jeffery,. “less” is correct as we have seen the erosion of freedoms. While the trajectory is the elimination of some freedoms by the left, the degree to which people enjoy or exercise certain freedoms has been going down.
For example, free speech on college campuses is definitely under attack these days. Land owner rights is under attack. Civil forfeiture without hearings or due process continues. The second Amendment us under attack. The preservation of legal voting rights is under attack. Freedom of association is under attack. Government intrusion into contracts between two private parties is under attack.
I am sorry that you are so ignorant, or at least feign ignorance, to see what is going on around you.
Good grief Jeffery. This is just another case of you either being stupid or wanting to waste my time.
We have been down this path before and for awhile I was willing to indulge your questions. After awhile, people see them for what they are – a waste of people’s time and effort. Over the weekend we had a thread on increased government regulation and intrusion into businesses. If you can’t remember those points, then there is nothing anyone can do for you.
Clinton and Obama were liberals?
Who would have guessed that.
As you so eloquently put it, your whole “rebuttal” was a complete,massive and total “fail.”