Topic: That Breitbart Guy Is Pretty Damn Clever...

[trapeze]

...just imagine: You hire a dyed in the wool liberal to work with you on a big story. The lib is forcibly joined at the hip with you and gets to witness firsthand the incredible crap that conservatives have to put up with from libs in general and the MFM in particular. The result is this mind boggling post at PuffHo. Here is one part of it:


[blockquote]I'm in an odd position. In the last few months, I've had one foot in the left wing news stream and one foot in the right. My media duality began when conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart hired me to work with him on the Pigford 'black farmers' settlement story. I'm a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights independent liberal with years of work in print and film backing those positions. Breitbart hired me to bring a different perspective to the non-partisan issue of corruption in Pigford.

Since then, I've written both here for the left-leaning Huffington Post and at Breitbart's right leaning BigGovernment.com. I've ended up reading a lot more conservative sites and dealing firsthand with a lot more conservatives than any time since I attended a high school dedicated to the principles of Ayn Rand about 30 years ago.

Unlike many on the left, I didn't view the Wisconsin battle as the end of days. I wasn't convinced that I had a dog in that hunt, in part because I think there's a strong case to be made those public employees shouldn't have the same collective bargaining rights as private sector workers -- a case made well by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said...

(I will skip the quote because most of us have already heard it. But it's there in the linked article.)

Roosevelt's statement makes sense to me; it does seem that public employees are different than private. I'm not at all anti-union. (I've publicly supported unionizing the visual effects industry, for example.) I'm open to a good rational argument against the case FDR made but in discussions on Twitter and elsewhere, all I got in response from people on the left was anger and insults. I saw little light and felt much heat.

That tone of extreme hostility I experienced brings me back to the death threats in Wisconsin. Frankly, the bile and invective in that threat reminded me of the tone I saw directed at me from many so-called liberals because I committed the heresy of taking a different position from them on the issue of collective bargaining for public sector employees... based on something FDR said.

Is this really what liberalism has come to in 2011?[/blockquote]

Sounds like a Paul on the road to Damascus experience.

If only some of the libs could see the light.

If only some libs could be this intellectually honest.

But one lib experiencing a revelation such as this is a start.

Good work, Andrew Breitbart.

[IronDioPriest]

I read that earlier this evening. Quite remarkable. It's along the same lines as the Juan Williams epiphany. Still liberal, but looking around at his friends and basically saying I want nothing to do with people like you - and they're returning the sentiment.

This Stranahan fella will be excoriated for daring to step off the farm. Eventually he'll either be shunned, or seek the warm embrace of the familiar and quiet his observations. He was both supported and pilloried in the comments. One commenter noted that his post was pushed off the bottom of the HuffPo front page list in record time.

It occurs to me that as the Left/Right; liberal/conservative war rages on, the battle-lines are being redrawn to reflect the true nature of the war, crystallizing around liberty vs. tyranny; good vs. evil. In that reorientation of ideologies, there are going to be people like Lee Stranahan who will "see the light" so to speak. Not that their core values will change, but that they will see the evil of the Left, and want no part of it. It would be to the benefit of the country for conservatives to figure out how we're going to deal with those people regarding electoral politics.

[Pandora]

How would you suggest dealing with the "I'm a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights" cohort re:  electoral politics?  Compromise seems to me to be out of the question, so, what does "dealing" look like?

[Libertas]

I concur with Pan.  Just because this guy had his eyes open when a bunch of ideological soulmates released their dark side doesn't mean he is about to renounce his left-leaning positions and enlist in the rebellion against the Evil Empire!  I would bet dollars to doughnuts all he is really angling for is for some softer NPR on-air like tone to be introduced into the debates between left and right.  So at best, all we can hope is that he shames the left for their tone...so how does that help us?  It's not like he's going to give people on the right a get-out-of-the-tone-jail-free card!  I think the worth of the article has already passed, the left will ignore it, we have a propaganda victory saying "aha!" and that's about it.

[Sectionhand]

 

If only some of the libs could see the light.

If only some libs could be this intellectually honest.

But one lib experiencing a revelation such as this is a start.

Good work, Andrew Breitbart.
[/quote]

If only some libs could be attacked by their left-wing bretheren for deviating , even slightly , from "Progressive Orthodoxy" .

[IronDioPriest]

How would you suggest dealing with the "I'm a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights" cohort re:  electoral politics?  Compromise seems to me to be out of the question, so, what does "dealing" look like?

I have no idea. But I see a realignment coming with people's revelations about the Left and its intentions. Many rank-n-file Democrat voters are decent people who have never imagined their support of liberal policies would lead them to be aligned with evil bent on total control. People like Williams and Stranahan are not stupid people, and they are not apolitical. They will be casting a vote every other November.

I think that as more people recognize the evil of the Left (as Williams and Stranahan do whether they acknowledge it or not), they will begin to see the political arena less in terms of Republican vs Democrat, Right vs Left, conservative vs liberal, and more in terms of good vs evil - and they will begin to cast votes on that basis if they see one party as evil while they self-identify with good. If they become disaffected with the Left in the form of the Democrat party, it would make sense to at least try to find a way to attract their votes without sacrificing core principles. They're gonna vote for someone. If they're on the fence, a nudge of some kind would be helpful. But again, I have no idea how to accomplish that. Perhaps the answer lies in the rebirth of federalism...

 

[AlanS]

I think that as more people recognize the evil of the Left (as Williams and Stranahan do whether they acknowledge it or not), they will begin to see the political arena less in terms of Republican vs Democrat, Right vs Left, conservative vs liberal, and more in terms of good vs evil - and they will begin to cast votes on that basis if they see one party as evil while they self-identify with good. If they become disaffected with the Left in the form of the Democrat party, it would make sense to at least try to find a way to attract their votes without sacrificing core principles. They're gonna vote for someone. If they're on the fence, a nudge of some kind would be helpful. But again, I have no idea how to accomplish that. Perhaps the answer lies in the rebirth of federalism...

 

True, but they're still socialists, they still believe in big government to help people, and STILL want to crucify Christians.

[IronDioPriest]

For an awful lot of people, voting comes down to who you identify with. If the question in people's minds becomes less "which party agrees with me on gay marriage and taxes", and more, "which party seems more like me in character", you're gonna have people needing to figure out for themselves how to justify a party switch.

You can almost tangibly see people like Williams and apparently this Stranahan fella thinking out-loud, "these people on the Left aren't like me, but I've been supporting them on the basis of X, Y, and Z," or, "these conservatives are not the monsters the Left makes them out to be." They're not jumping ship yet because their liberal beliefs are pretty entrenched. But it seems to me that the seeds are there.

[trapeze]

Patterico weighs in:

http://patterico.com/2011/03/17/the-greatest-blog-post-ever-written/

[charlesoakwood]

They let Alex Hamilton stay in the game. Until he crossed Aaron, that is.

[Damn_Lucky]

How would you suggest dealing with the "I'm a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights" cohort re:  electoral politics?  Compromise seems to me to be out of the question, so, what does "dealing" look like?

I have no idea. But I see a realignment coming with people's revelations about the Left and its intentions. Many rank-n-file Democrat voters are decent people who have never imagined their support of liberal policies would lead them to be aligned with evil bent on total control. People like Williams and Stranahan are not stupid people, and they are not apolitical. They will be casting a vote every other November.

I think that as more people recognize the evil of the Left (as Williams and Stranahan do whether they acknowledge it or not), they will begin to see the political arena less in terms of Republican vs Democrat, Right vs Left, conservative vs liberal, and more in terms of good vs evil - and they will begin to cast votes on that basis if they see one party as evil while they self-identify with good. If they become disaffected with the Left in the form of the Democrat party, it would make sense to at least try to find a way to attract their votes without sacrificing core principles. They're gonna vote for someone. If they're on the fence, a nudge of some kind would be helpful. But again, I have no idea how to accomplish that. Perhaps the answer lies in the rebirth of federalism...

 

Amen Brother

[Damn_Lucky]

How would you suggest dealing with the "I'm a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights" cohort re:  electoral politics?  Compromise seems to me to be out of the question, so, what does "dealing" look like?

I have no idea. But I see a realignment coming with people's revelations about the Left and its intentions. Many rank-n-file Democrat voters are decent people who have never imagined their support of liberal policies would lead them to be aligned with evil bent on total control. People like Williams and Stranahan are not stupid people, and they are not apolitical. They will be casting a vote every other November.

I think that as more people recognize the evil of the Left (as Williams and Stranahan do whether they acknowledge it or not), they will begin to see the political arena less in terms of Republican vs Democrat, Right vs Left, conservative vs liberal, and more in terms of good vs evil - and they will begin to cast votes on that basis if they see one party as evil while they self-identify with good. If they become disaffected with the Left in the form of the Democrat party, it would make sense to at least try to find a way to attract their votes without sacrificing core principles. They're gonna vote for someone. If they're on the fence, a nudge of some kind would be helpful. But again, I have no idea how to accomplish that. Perhaps the answer lies in the rebirth of federalism...

 

Amen Brother

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer...They just my learn something!

[LadyVirginia]

I don't see people like him making the big switch.  They might not vote for the lefty every time in the future but they will hold onto their core beliefs under the false assumption that the lefties today have corrupted those beliefs.  But they will refuse to believe that those beliefs in themselves lead to the evilness the lefties promote.

[IronDioPriest]

So sad, that the thread title was written when this shining light was still alive and fighting.

NYT: Breitbart was right about Pigford

It’s rare to get this kind of vindication, so let’s enjoy it in memory of Andrew Breitbart for as long as possible.  For more than two years, Andrew and Lee Stranahan have investigated the Pigford settlement and the fraudulent claims that not only have cost taxpayers billions, but have left the original black farmers who sued the USDA over discrimination.  Today the New York Times reports what Andrew and Lee have been saying all along — that the Pigford settlement was a political hack job by Tom Vilsack’s Department of Agriculture, and that it’s a magnet for fraud...

Story@ Link...

[Libertas]

Sad on so many levels, not the least of which is the Regime and collaborators in Congress still getting away with it...

[charlesoakwood]

[Glock32]

He had such an innate genius about when and where to strike. Having grown up as a typical well-off liberal in southern California, his transformation to the Right brought with it a unique and intimate understanding of what buttons to push with liberals.

I totally think he was murdered. The coroner who examined his body was himself dead about a week later. Of acute arsenic poisoning I believe it was?

[charlesoakwood]

He wasn't a thorn in their side he was an open wound they could not heal.

[IronDioPriest]

I totally think he was murdered. The coroner who examined his body was himself dead about a week later. Of acute arsenic poisoning I believe it was?

I do too. The very week before, he said he had video from Obama's college days that would prove clearly that he was an anti-American radical Leftist. The video that was eventually produced only hinted at such, and then he was dead. We'll never know if that was the extent of the video Breitbart claimed to have. We'll never know the context of what he believed he had. And as you say, the death of the coroner....

I am surprised, actually, that there is not a huge constituency of people who believe he was killed. I'm facebook "friends" with several of his personal friends. Even his friends seem to have accepted his death by natural causes without a hint of outcry over the circumstances. Maybe we're chasing ghosts, Idunno. We'll never know.

[Glock32]

They said either he himself had a history of heart issues, or it was common in his family. It's the other circumstances surrounding it that are so odd. Plus I just assume malevolence on the part of the Left in all scenarios anyway -- and I've yet to be proven wrong in that assumption.