As Exhibit A to Josh’s post yesterday on the cravenness of the legitimate press we have Politico’s loving treatment of Andrew Breitbart posted today. Breitbart makes their list of “Top 50 Politicos To Watch,” in the subcategory of “Scenemakers”:
The conservative writer and personality lives on the West Coast — a fact that gives him a certain mystique among Washingtonians accustomed to seeing the same faces again and again. …Still, it’s more than rarity that makes Breitbart a party get. He’s an ideal guest.
It’s goes to show that there is no bar to admission in official Washington society or in what passes for the national conversation so long as you come with enough “buzz.” The gatekeepers of the media have standards similar to the beefy guys manning the velvet rope line at an exclusive nightclub.
The fawning piece goes on to cast Breitbart as the right’s counterpart to Arianna Huffington, which happens to be the same comparison Politico’s executive editor Jim VandeiHei made earlier this week when speaking about the Sherrod story:
I think it speaks to a much broader problem in the media-activist industrial complex, if you will, and I think it’s a problem that’s going to get worse: There’s been this proliferation of partisan media — whether it’s MSNBC and Fox at night, or it’s Breitbart on the right or Huffington Post on the left — there’s just a huge incentive for people to engage in real tough combat, and to overreact.
Politico seems awfully eager to reduce its competitor Huffington Post — which has real reporters and real editors — to little more than a Big Government of the left while positioning itself as guardian of the velvet rope.
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.