Andrew Breitbart vs. David Shuster
The Drudge protege and MSNBC had an on-air shouting match over conservative journo-spy James O'Keefe. Did anyone win?
There's clearly no love lost between conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart and MSNBC's David Shuster. Breitbart appeared on MSNBC to demand a retraction from Shuster over Shuster's Tweet that Breitbart protege and independent filmmaker James O'Keefe "intended to tap phones" at Sen. Mary Landrieu's office. In fact, a federal indictment against O'Keefe accuses him only of phone "tampering," and MSNBC chided Shuster for his "inappropriate" tweet. The interview devolved into a shouting match over journalistic ethics and O'Keefe's controversial expose about ACORN. (Watch video below) Did the on-air fight help either side?
Shuster shows his true colors: It's pure "comedy gold" to watch a man "reprimanded by his own network" mere hours earlier try to grill Breitbart on journalistic ethics, says Allahpundit in Hot Air. As Breitbart points out, he has a stated political point of view. Shuster, meanwhile, dishonestly tries to pretend that he has "no horse in the race." Exposing hypocrisy on live TV "is the stuff cable news dreams are made of."
"Comedy gold: Breitbart and Shuster yell at each other over James O’Keefe"
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Breibart jumped the shark: It's Breitbart's delightfully "unhinged performance" that "was definitely in shark-jumping territory," says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. His "new angle" seems to be "that he's the only truly objective and disinterested commentator on his own employee's criminal conduct." As for his insistence on turning every topic into an attack on ACORN? "At some level I admire Breitbart's insistence."
So what's the truth? Breitbart and the rest of the right-wing "noise machine is now in nonstop whining mode" over the initial reports that O'Keefe tried to wiretap the office, says Steve M in No More Mister Nice Blog. It's amusing to watch them pretend that that that — not O'Keefe's alleged felony — is the real issue here.
"Is it me, or does the ACORN pimp's story not make sense?"
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
July 6 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include paying for school lunch by enlisting, and the banality of evil
-
5 biting editorial cartoons about 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Cartoons Artists take on dangerous green things, historical precedent, and more
-
A journey into the deep past on beautiful Arran
The Week Recommends New Unesco Global Geopark played a 'key role' in the birth of modern geological science