Huffpo Opens Huge Can Of Worms By Banning Andrew Breitbart From Front Page Citing 'Ad Hominem' Attacks

The Huffington Post, run by Arianna Huffington, banned Andrew Breitbart from their front page content citing "ad hominem" attacks that Breitbart made in another publication, The Daily Caller, against Huffington friend Van Jones.

Here is Huffington's statement:

Andrew Breitbart’s ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller -- right down to calling him a "commie punk" and "a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak" -- violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page.

He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did -- guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.

Headline reaction to this pretty much shows exactly the rancid can of worms this has opened for Huffington Post with other liberals.

Lee Stranahan, because of this move on the part of Huffington Post, has announced he will no longer write for them- "Why I’m Quitting Blogging At The Huffington Post"

I’ll keep this short. As I wrote this morning, writing for the Huffington Post has been one of the great joys of my life for the past few years and I’ve been proud to be associated with them.

But as a writer, this latest move by The Huffington Post of banning Andrew Breitbart from their front page (because of comments he made to a different website) is both unprecedented, arbitrary and deeply offensive to the intellectual openness that Arianna Huffington has purported to believe in.

Although I’ve had a number of pieces featured there, I’m certainly not a huge presence at HuffPost so in that sense, I don’t expect this move on my part to make much of a ripple but I can’t in good conscience support this awful, short sighted move by the site that I loved.

Alex Pareene over at Salon, no fan of Breitbart either, lays into Huffington with "The stupid saga of Andrew Breitbart and the Huffington Post."

A strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks! ("Against Arianna's friends," is the bit of that sentence that spokesman Marco Ruiz left out.) (Also there is apparently no prohibition on constant, practically obsessive race-baiting, but whatever.) (And obviously there is no prohibition whatsoever on spreading toxic bullshit about autism and other assorted crimes against science.)

Andrew has now gotten exactly what he wanted. He doesn't need to publish his idiocies at the Huffington Post. But getting banned from the Huffington Post proves his thesis about the repressive, anti-free speech liberal media. And he'll never shut up about it.

David Weigel is disappointed as he titles his piece with "Huffington Post Wimps Out on Breitbart."

He didn't write or say any of that at HuffPo, a site he helped develop in 2005. Is the Huffington Post's standard that contributors can be to some modified limited hang-out if they use ad hominems in other forums? Boy, good thing Breitbart doesn't have an army of contributors who can comb HuffPo authors' published and spoken work to see if they've done that.

Moving right along to reactions from right leaning sites and people, we see that Weigel was spot on in his snark as well as Breitbart's "big" contributors being more than willing to sift through the leftist drivel over at Huffington Post to show the extreme hypocrisy of their actions against Breitbart.

Blaring headline by Alexander Marlow on Breitbart's Big Journalism site, states "ANNOUNCEMENT: Big Journalism Pledges to Help AOL/HuffPo Enforce No ‘Ad Hominem Attacks’ Rule."

We’ve never seen the Huffington Post make an effort like this to suppress the speech of any of their other (mostly left-wing) personalities. The hypocrisy is laughably obvious, and it was left-of-center bloggers Mickey Kaus of the Daily Caller, Alex Pareene of Salon, and Dave Weigel of Slate who were quickest to point it out. Pareene sums it up this way:

Andrew has now gotten exactly what he wanted. He doesn’t need to publish his idiocies at the Huffington Post. But getting banned from the Huffington Post proves his thesis about the repressive, anti-free speech liberal media. And he’ll never shut up about it.

True, we don’t plan to shut up about it any time soon, but we also don’t plan to shut up about the fact that HuffPo doesn’t just speak for HuffPo any more. They speak for AOL too. And the message they have sent is crystal: radical-left “truther” Van Jones and the anti-free speech race-baiting organization Color of Change he founded have editorial control at the new AOL/HuffPo, and they’re out to silence the Americans with whom they disagree.

AOL/HuffPo has thousands of bloggers, many of whom have said and will say things much worse than what Breitbart said, so we here at Big Journalism are hereby pledging to help AOL/HuffPo enforce their “no ad hominem attacks by bloggers” rule. The work will be hard, the hours will be long, but in the name of equality and for the good of the site Andrew Breitbart developed, we will do our best to save AOL/HuffPo from itself.

Head on over as they provide their first set of examples with video proof of their assertions.

Big Journalism isn't the only ones being "helpful" in pointing out examples of ad hominem attacks published on the Huffington Post site itself (just not against one of Arianna's friends) and are highlighting them.

The Daily Caller with "Breitbart banned from front page of Huffington Post for ‘ad hominem’ attacks despite HuffPo history of printing ad hominem attacks."

Breitbart is far from the first prominently featured contributor to The Huffington Post that has made ad hominem attacks (though unlike others who had their ad hominem attacks published in posts on The Huffington Post, Breitbart’s comments were not made in posts on the site).

The Huffington Post published an article by actor John Cusack in November 2005 that called Republicans “a league of bastards” and said that Iraq war supporters “are human scum.”

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote an article appearing on The Huffington Post a day after the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in September 2005. Dershowitz wrote that Rehnquist “started out his political career as a Republican thug” and that “Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian.”

Rehnquist was a “friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots,” Dershowitz wrote.

“Cheney is a terrorist. He terrorizes our enemies abroad and innocent citizens here at home indiscriminately,” wrote actor Alec Baldwin in February 2006.

Baldwin wrote in a subsequent post, “I want to apologize to all of the readers of this blog for referring to Vice President Cheney as a terrorist… How about something more measured, then? How about… a lying, thieving Oil Whore. Or, a murderer of the US Constitution?”

That was just examples from page one, they provide a few more on page two.

This is just day one folks, imagine all the wonderful things still left to find in the years Arianna has allowed her leftist writers free reign to write absolutely anything their heart desires without restraint, as long as it wasn't against one of her friends.

Mickey Kaus calls it "Huffpocrisy"

I would have to agree.

Andrew Brietbart gets the last word or to rephrase, the last laugh. (Via his Twitter feed)

Check my Twitter feed: Toldja the organized left are totalitarian anti-free speech freaks. Van*glorious & van*quished Jones leading charge!

Point made Andrew.

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AOL Buys Huffington Post For $315 Million, Loyal HP Readers Not Happy

On Superbowl Sunday a deal was made between Arianna Huffington from Huffington Post and AOL, who just bought the Huffington Post blog, lock, stock and Arianna who will will control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group.

The blogosphere is talking about the deal but the most important opinions shouldn't be what other media outlets or bloggers think about the deal, it should be the loyal readership that has made Huffington Post one of the largest blogs around that has a left leaning slant.

With that in mind the first thing I started going through were the comments on the Huffington Post pieces written about AOL's acquisition of Huffington Post and while some do wish Arianna the best, the majority of the commenters do not seem to be happy with the deal.

Arianna's piece detailing the acquisition has garnered 1863 comments with 627 pending at this moment (61 pages of comments).

sharpedge who has 25 fans writes "Not good. So now we are part of the corporate game? I'm afraid HP will be losing a lot of its players then..."

JackRusselTerrier who has 2112 fans writes "HP, You are not listening to your most loyal fans."

Huffpost super User, CalvinistHobbesian, who has 116 fans writes "I can't help but think this will turn out like GM buying Saab. Subtle changes at first, but after a few years a Saab was just a rebadged Saturn. And now, it's gone. Bye, bye, HuffPo. It was fun while it lasted. "

HuffPost Community Moderator, dutchman with 2184 fans, pretty much describes the tone of the majority of commenters on that piece when he says "I know a few things about mergers.

They are usually good for two groups of people:

1) The owner of the selling firm, who can monetize his/her "sweat equity". I'm sure Arianna's payday will be a big one.

2) The investment bank reaping fat fees from arranging the transactio­n.

But mergers are more often than not bad for the following:

1) The shareholde­rs of the new, combined organizati­on.

2) The employees of the new, combined organizati­on.

3) The customers of the new, combined organizati­on.

At the end of the day, the deal will require that the many posters who take the time to click and comment here stay put. I'm already dubious about whether or not I will. AOL is best known for restrictin­g content to its users, to say nothing of its legendary, bad customer service.

It may be a great match for those making money off the deal, but I don't see how it's good for anyone else. "

There are few willing to defend what Arianna has done, but it is a business decision and Arianna seems to have made out well in the deal.

GeoToronto with 119 fans writes "I don't understand all the doom and gloom.
I've survived 4 mergers and a bankrupcy, its the HP employees who have watch their backs. We're just site visitors/u­sers, this is just business. By the time the AOL execs figure out what HP is all about it will be 2015. "

That was just the first page shown of comments.

Moving along to the post over at Huffington Post which provides the press release from AOL and The Huffington Post. Commenters there are even more critical with 1050 comments and 374 pending, at this moment.

whalerpilot with 62 fans writes "You've got nailed."

Huffpost Super User, Michael Shanahan with 43 fans writes "From the guys who are credited with the worst merger in American History. AOL wants to buy up the liberals. Liberals will likely go along with it. "

Str8upNya with 245 fans writes "All the libs got sold down the river by HP lmao "

Those are representative of the majority of comments and the more pages I read the more critical they seem to be with very few stepping up to defend Arianna's decision.

Howard Fineman (Huffpo writer) posts his take on the acquisition and again the comment section shows loyal readers not pleased. No doubt this will go on throughout the week as more writers over at Huffington give their take on the merger and commenters will respond.

According to one commenter, they are losing fans and their best guess is because people are canceling their accounts.

Liberal Blogosphere Reactions

Liberal reactions on the blogosphere seem to be running along the same lines as the Huffpo readers and commenters with Brilliant at Breakfast headlining with "Mrs. Arianna Huffington, YOU'VE SOLD OUT!! "

"Now which would you rather do, hit this Jew over the head with a bag o'sugar, or beat out that rhythm on the drum?"

If you're an old Firesign Theatre fan like I am, you remember that line from Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. And you also remember that when Mrs. Carolyn Pressky took the bag, she found out that it's just a bag of shit.

Well, Arianna Huffington has taken the bag, and now what started out as a progressive news vehicle with actual money behind it (unlike, say, Air America, which was built on Madoff-like illusions and never really recovered), gets to become linked with Great Journalistic Endeavors like Moviefone, PopEater, and the moribund MapQuest. Because Arianna Huffington has sold her media "empire" to the struggling AOL.

Feministing wonders if Arianna will start paying her writers now:

This also includes its other blogs like EnGadget, Popeater and TechCrunch. My first thought: wow. My second? Meh. The whole reason blogs started in the first place was in response to big mainstream media with a critical eye; now blogs like HuffPo are literally becoming mainstream media. Not saying that no good things will come out of this partnership, but it creates an even a bigger hierarchy that exists between smaller blogs and the massive ones like HuffPo.

The third thought I had is exactly what other bloggers have been asking on Twitter: Maybe they’ll pay their writers now with their new 315 mill? And then we laugh and laugh.

Actually I got a chuckle out of that one too.

Balloon Juice doesn't think the math makes sense:

AOL is going to pay $300 million in cash, and $15 million in stock, for the Huffington Post, and Arianna Huffington will become the head of AOL’s media division. The Huffington Post had $31 million in revenue last year and barely made a profit...

Then they wonder "I wonder who will quit first: the unpaid Post writers who aren’t making a dime from this deal, Arianna’s Hollywood buddies, or Arianna herself."

Good question.

Cannonfire headlines with "I TOLD you not to trust Arianna!"

Again, as with the comments on the Huffpo pieces, there are some liberal bloggers actually wishing Arianna well but the general feeling and tone seems to be they think she has somehow sold out.

Blah blah blah blah blah... envy is not a pretty emotion folks, so put on your big girl/boy panties and smile and wish her luck. The only people that have legitimate complaints are her readers because they are the ones directly affected by this decision and they are the basis of what make Huffington Post so large.

I might not agree with Arianna's liberalism, which wasn't always her political leaning, but I wish her well and congratulate her on her success.

Whether Huffington Post's loyal readership and community sticks around or not, well that is her problem and for AOL's sake, hopefully she has a plan to bring the sheep back into the fold before too many of them bolt.

Otherwise AOL just three $315 million dollars down the hole after a loss of $782.5 million in 2010. (H/T Ace of Spades)

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