The entire Breitbart-Sherrod-NAACP-Tea Party mess is a lesson in how the left tries to sabotage and undermine conversations that don't suit it. It's a real time event version of what the Daily Caller chronicles in the Jornolist archives show about the media strategizing against Palin.
The Democrats used their NAACP organization to try and brand the Tea Party as racist, thereby changing the conversation from criticisms of the Obama Administration, to an attack on the Tea Party itself, in order to delegitimize it, and discourage people from participating it. Breitbart's Sherrod attack was the equivalent of the "plate glass window" strategy that Jornolist members proposed to use by protecting Jeremiah Wright, by going on the offense against a Republican figure. The entire Sherrod soap opera served as a warning about the political uses of racism, and it changed the conversation from whether the Tea Party is racist, to whether the NAACP is racist. Breitbart understands this. Many of his critics at some conservative blogs don't.
These are ugly tactics, but they may be the only kind that work in an environment dominated by ruthless far left agendas in both the media and the political sphere.
Similarly the Daily Caller's Jornolist archives have made the invisible wizards behind the media coverage into the subjects, which is something they don't want to be, unless it's the occasional flattering profile. The Jornolist archives going public undermines the wall of silence surrounding the media club.
In the 2008 election, the media left kept changing the conversation over and over again. It won in part by being able to do that enough times, that the real issues were never heard. But now the left is having trouble doing it. They've tried to launch attacks on the opposition. They've tried glamor and photo ops. But it's still the economy, stupid. And they have found no real way to change the topic for very long.
So now it's come down to bare knuckles. And Breitbart has demonstrated that with a limited budget, and no official political backing, he can still change the conversation. And seriously impact what is going. Which is more than many of his conservative critics have been able to do.
And until they can do that, it might be time to get out of Breitbart's way.
