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Mickey Kaus Proves My Point About Breitbart

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Andrew Breitbart, who runs BigGovernment.com, speaks to members of the media before a press conference held by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), in which Weiner both admitted to having numerous sexual relationships online while married, and apologized to Breitbart. (Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

My obituary for Andrew Breitbart has occasioned a lot of comment. I don't think I will respond to very much of it. Readers can decide for themselves. But I'll make an exception for a line in Mickey Kaus' blog today. Mickey writes in defense of Andrew Breitbart's handling of the Shirley Sherrod video:

I guarantee you Breitbart posted it because he felt it truthfully made a legit point (and he wasn’t aware what the rest of it would show).Read more.

In other words: somebody handed Andrew Breitbart a piece of video that purported to depict a government official as a confessed anti-white racist. Breitbart so strongly felt that the video made a "legitimate point" that he posted and publicized it without checking whether it was true. The official was forced to resign. But it quickly emerged that the video had been doctored and distorted. The video Breitbart posted was a lie. And although Breitbart was not himself the author of the lie, his vision of politics as war had made him recklessly indifferent to was true and what was false.

Which is of course exactly what I said in my obituary.

The question for Mickey is this: When Al Sharpton dies, won't his friends offer almost exactly the same defense of his behavior in the Tawana Brawley hoax?

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About the Author

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David Frum

David Frum is a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast and a CNN contributor. He is the author of eight books, including most recently the e-book WHY ROMNEY LOST and his first novel Patriots, published in April 2012.

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