A new form of failure laundering*

Many in the MSM are bashing Andrew Breitbart for his handling of the Shirley Sherrod video. Some of the criticism is probably deserved. Others, however, are trying to use this story to retrospectively justify their own mistakes and journalistic failures.

Patterico takes down one such effort here:

James Rainey: Breitbart Was Irresponsible for Doing What I Do All the Time

With this series of embarrassments as background, it’s little wonder that Rainey would seize upon the Sherrod episode as a way to suggest that Breitbart was the villain all along — and Rainey simply the truth-teller battling the wild-eyed partisan.

The fact that Rainey routinely slams his enemies without contacting them for comment (he also did it to Jill Stewart lends a rich layer of irony to this complaint about Breitbart:

[D]idn’t this self-styled truth-teller have an obligation to get the full speech or a response from Sherrod? He apparently did none of those things.

When Breitbart fails to contact someone for a response, that’s unforgivable sloppiness, according to Rainey. But when Rainey fails to contact Giles, or O’Keefe, or Breitbart, or Jill Stewart, that’s tip-top Big Newspaper Journalism.

Clarice Feldman takes a broader tour d'horizon on the meaning of the story.

Clarice's Pieces: Know When to Hold 'Em

Feldman actually read what Breitbart wrote when he posted the videos. That puts her ahead of about 90% of the fulminators on the issue.

It appears that the White House is hoping to run this story through the wash cycle a few times. They want Ag. Secretary Vilsack and Deputy Undersecretaty Cheryl Cook to shoulder all the blame for the quick firing of Sherrod. But as Jack Kelly notes, the WH praised the Ag department for their "decisive action" the day after Sherrod was ousted.


*Other examples of failure laundering can be found here, here, and here.