How a Lie Becomes the Accepted Narrative
Other blogs have covered several aspects of the following exchange between uberliberal Cenk Uygur and reluctant conservative Andrew Breitbart:
I want to focus on a very small portion of this video because it's a tactic that is used all too often by the left, and particularly by liberals in the media. Specifically, I have seen numerous instances where a liberal host casually drops a statement that is demonstrably false. When they are inevitably interrupted, they complain about being interrupted, shout down their opposition, and if necessary, change the subject or call for a break. Most importantly, they never address whether or not the initial claim was true. At 2:54, emotionlessly and without missing a beat, Uygur casually lies to his audience, "Now, there were people who spat on those congressmen." Not only is the claim unverified as Uygur later tries to claim, it is demonstrably false. When Breitbart tries to point out the claim is a lie, Uygur shouts him down with .. wait for it .. "we have to go one by one." When Uygur tries to move on without addressing the point, Breitbart repeats, "you just brought up the spitting." What was Uygur's response? If you guessed "Andrew, you've got to let me finish," you get the gold star. It's starting to seem like "we've got to go one by one" really means "sit back and shut up." Breitbart let's Uygur finish and responds to his comments. Waits as Uygur conflates the book Breitbart mentioned with the Huffington post website, followed by the absurd claim that a handful of news stories constitutes significant coverage by the mainstream national media. After all that, at 5:46, when Breitbart tries to return to address Uygur's blatant lie about the congressmen who claimed to have been spat on while protesters shouted epithets at them, he is immediately cut off. I'm not going to discuss how Uygur manages to convert the standard Breitbart refers to (holding the entire group accountable) into "you admitted they were both smears." It would take too much time and isn't the point I'm driving at. Besides, at 7:30 Breitbart again brings up the Uygur's "spitting" lie which Uygur still hasn't addressed. This time, Breitbart directly asks Uygur, "will you apologize for the false smear that has been resurrected by you again this evening." After repeatedly trying to interrupt Breitbart, Uygur doesn't even acknowledge the question. It's as if the preceding minute never happened. Finally, at 9:00, over 6:00 after Uygur initially brought up the spitting claim, he agrees to address the claim; except, he doesn't address it. Instead, he resurrects the claim that the ACORN tapes meant nothing because O'Keefe "didn't wear the pimp costume" when he went into the ACORN offices. He then brings up the Sherrod video, and after a little more discussion, promptly ends the segment. I won't hold my breath waiting for Uygur to retract the lie or provide the evidence a $100,000 bounty couldn't produce despite the fact that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was filming the whole parade. Read more in Democrats, Liberalism, Media.