Hug Gate- The Anatomy of a Phony Conspiracy

Well, I think it's useful to spend some time on the tremendous "scandal" that Andrew Breitbart was about to release- a piece of film from Obama's college days that Breitbart said would destroy Obama.

Let's talk about the truth first.  In 1990, Derrick Bell, the first black tenured professor at Harvard University, held a protest.  He was angered that Harvard law school had denied tenure to a female black professor.  Unsurprisingly, the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, one Barack Obama, was selected to introduce Professor Bell.  This demonstration was covered by Boston PBS station WGBH.  Here is the entire surviving footage (from WGBH) of Obama's introduction.  It is important that you take the one minute and seventeen seconds to watch this, as it shows how absolutely inoffensive Obama's remarks were:



That's it!  And all in the service of a purported rabid black racist who is actually a Harvard law professor. 

Oh, wait a minute, there's more!  Obama actually HUGGED professor Bell after introducing him!  According to Breitbart's followers, evil liberals edited this shocking footage from the video.  Actually, it was never in the video, but here is a widely circulated photo of this abominable act:

Now, let us turn to a small sample of the right wing's reaction to this event, which Breitbart claimed would result in Obama's being crushed at the election next November:

Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit:  "BREITBART VIDEO Shows Obama Urging Peers to Embrace Radical Crackpot Racist Prof...Breitbart.com Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak and Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro appeared on The Sean Hannity Show tonight to discuss the Obama Harvard protest tape that was kept from the American public by the democrat-media complex back in 2008...The complete footage from 1991 shows Barack Obama leading a protest at Harvard Law School in support of Professor Derrick Bell, a radical academic tied to Obama’s racist pastor Jeremiah Wright. The unedited tape also shows Barack Obama embracing this radical professor. In the unedited video Obama encourages students to “open up your hearts and minds” to this radical race-baiting professor.

The democrat-media complex purposely hid this tape from the American public in 2008"

Well, no they didn't hide it.  It was broadcast in full during the 2008 campaign, but who cares about facts.  Now, may I point out to you how unlikely it is that "radical crackpots" are made tenured professors at Harvard?  Of course, Hoft is counting on his readers to know nothing about Derrick Bell, and to be ready and eager to believe any right wing smear about any black man.  And of course, the unedited video does not show Obama "leading" a protest, it only shows him introducing Bell.

Katie Pavlich, Town Hall:  "Barack Obama Palled Around With Radical Professor"

Pretty much the same as Jim Hoft, above, as well as numerous other wingnuts who insist that there is something "radical" about this Harvard professor, with the addition of the Sarah Palin phrase "palled around," which is a sort of cue to the anti-intellectual base of the Republican party that it is okay to believe any vile thing about Harvard people.

Frank Gaffney, Town Hall:  "Andrew Breitbart, Our Samuel Adams"

I guess he's talking about the beer, because Breitbart sure as hell didn't have a damned thing in common with the America patriot, whose career did not consist in being a lying prick.

Tony Katz, Town Hall:  "Vetting Obama: Leftists Take Steps To Prevent You From Learning Anything"
 
Except for the facts that A) they didn't; and B) there is nothing to learn from this pathetic piece of video, except that, contrary to the claims of many wingnuts, Obama actually did go to Harvard.

"This is a man so extreme that, as we’ve reported, he wrote a story in 1993 in which he posited that white Americans would sell black Americans into slavery to aliens to relieve the national debt"


How could anyone be so degenerate as to suggest that White Americans would sell Black Americans into slavery?

Ed Driscoll, Ed Driscoll.com:  "Obama’s Mentor: We Hid this Video Throughout the 2008 Campaign"

Obama's mentor?  Bill Ayers?  Jeremiah Wright?  Saul Alinsky?  Satan? No, some guy named Charles Ogletree.  Man, Obama had a lot of mentors.  And this story seems to be questionable too, because the tape in question was freely available during the 2008 campaign.  Well, surprise, surprise...this one has another big, Breitbart style lie in it.  The full tape of Ogletree's remarks has now been released, and it turns out that Ogletree was actually making a joke about how he and his fellow professors looked so much older than they did twenty years ago, and Breitbart, in his inevitable fashion cut out the context of Ogletree's remarks, to make it seem like they were trying to hide something about Obama.  They never change.

Joe Kovacs, World Net Daily:  "'Smoking gun' in Breitbart mystery video...Major cover-up alleged in 2008 presidential campaign"

What exactly it was they were covering up, I can't say.   It sure wasn't anything in this tape.

Thomas Lifson, American Thinker:  "The first of the posthumous Breitbart tapes debuted last night on Hannity, and today on Breitbart.com.  You can tell the left is concerned by the fact that:

1. Ben Smith, now running Buzzfeed, pre-empted the debut by licensing the same tape from WGBH TV in Boston, and running it, minus a couple of shots, and then rushed to dismiss its significance.

2. There has been a rush to conclude that this is much ado about nothing"

Much ado about nothing.  Those damned liberals, reverting to the worst refuge of scoundrels- telling the truth.  And to think that their rebuttal of Breitbart consisted of releasing the tape themselves.  What a strategy, if liberals really thought there was something bad here.

"Update: J. Christian Adams of PJ Media points to another tape showing black students occupying a Dean's office as part of the same effort to force tenure for a black professor who didn't earn it. One of the students seen occupying the office looks a lot like Michelle Obama."

Oh my God, there goes Obama's re-election.  His wife was in a protest twenty years ago- if it is even her.

Trust me, I could go on and on here.  If this incident proves anything, it is what a blameless life Obama has led, and what a pack of vicious liars Conservatives are.  Well, we've had that proven so many times, we really didn't need another lesson.


Extra Added Bonus:  If you are feeling particularly masochistic today, you could go here, where you will find a host of incredibly tedious videos about how Obama had Breitbart killed to prevent the release of this video.  Honestly, I couldn't force myself to wade through much of it.