Howard Kurtz on Sunday hypocritically supported the Huffington Post's decision to can Andrew Breitbart as one of its front page contributors.
The "Reliable Sources" host took issue with comments Breitbart made about former Obama green czar Van Jones, but ignored the immutable fact that numerous HuffPo bloggers have regularly made ad hominem attacks on prominent conservatives without being admonished or demoted (video follows with transcript and commentary):
HOWARD KURTZ: When "The Huffington Post" started putting conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart on its front page, I thought, well, now that Arianna has taken her operation to AOL, she's going to start featuring at least a few conservatives. Still, her old acquaintance, Breitbart, was responsible for that misleading Shirley Sherrod video and for giving a platform to James O'Keefe and those undercover ACORN videos in which he played a pimp.
But "The Huffington Post" has now bounced Breitbart right off the front page. This, after the liberal group Color of Change called him a liar and a race-baiter. Breitbart didn't exactly turn the other cheek. He told the conservative "Daily Caller" Web site that a founder of Color of Change, former Obama aide Van Jones, is "a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak. And a commie. And an eco-fraudster."
I'm all for people speaking their mind, but if you want to hang out in nicer neighborhoods, you can't shout quite as loud.
Hang out in nicer neighborhoods? The Huffington Post is a "nicer neighborhood" than the numerous websites Breitbart owns?
That's pretty insulting, especially as Breitbart assisted Huffington in putting her site together.
As for folks not shouting quite as loud, shouldn't that apply to all of HuffPo's front page contributors?
How about the regularly featured Bill Maher who has consistently been guilty of ad hominem attacks on folks like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann?
Other good examples of HuffPo contributors clearly in violation of the "tenets of debate and civil discourse" are Mike Malloy, Sean Penn, Bill Press, and Ed Schultz.
If Huffposters are no longer allowed to make ad hominem attacks even at other venues, shouldn't these "provocateurs" be given their walking papers as well?
The same is true for HuffPo reporter Jason Linkins who as the Right Sphere noted Thursday is regularly tweeting ad hominems. Shouldn't he be fired from his position effective immediately?
As for Kurtz, shouldn't he have asked such questions in his commentary about this matter and pointed out the hypocrisy in this decision by HuffPo rather than just supporting his friend Arianna?
Since the answer is clearly "Yes," it's preposterous for Howie to call this segment "Media Monitor" for that's clearly not what he did with this issue Sunday.
In fact, rather than exposing Huffington's hypocrisy regarding this matter, Kurtz clumsily made himself a part of it.
What a shame.
