True North

The Columbia Journalism Review has an interesting take on Andrew Breitbart's interview with Sean Hannity:

Memo to Sean Hannity, who is calling for James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Andrew Breitbart to get a "journalism award" for their video sting of ACORN: Generally, when in possession of what one believes to be newsworthy information, the journalistic thing to do is get it out to the public -- not attempt to blackmail the attorney general.

In CJR's warped little world, BigGovernment's Andrew Breitbart blackmailed US A.G. Eric Holder when Breitbart said this:

Not only are there more tapes, it's not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it's not just ACORN, and we're going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don't give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.

First, if we didn't have a corrupt A.G., Mr. Breitbart could count on the A.G. prosecuting the crimes that've been committed. Mr. Breitbart wouldn't need to make these comments because the A.G. would be asking him for the tapes/evidence so that his prosecutors could start putting their investigations/prosecutions together.

Second, CJR's commentary about blackmailing the A.G. is, at minimum, incendiary. Don't think that that's unintentional. According to Dictionary.com, the definition for blackmail is "any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations." It's an extreme stretch to think that a citizen telling the A.G. to do his job is intimidation. It's true that Mr. Breitbart delievered an ultimatum. As a citizen talking to the administration, that's his right because the administration works for We The People.

If any administration didn't prosecute an organization that was a criminal enterprise and that's been caught on film agreeing to teach people how to commit tax fraud, I'd be critical of that administration much like Mr. Breitbart is with this administration.

If telling an administration on national TV to do its job in enforcing the law is blackmail, then I'll support those that 'commit' that type of crime.

Comments welcome at LFR.