After flying Andrew Breitbart all the way out to Phoenix, Arizona yesterday to participate in an online Townhall election event, after taking him out of his home state, away from his business, and nearly making it impossible for him to vote in today’s crucial midterm election (though he’s on an airplane now in order to cast his ballot), at about as close to the last minute as you can get, Andrew Morse, chief of the ABC News digital division, sent the following email late this afternoon abruptly canceling Breitbart’s appearance:

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABC News.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News. We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

This is yet another obvious attempt to build a narrative that puts the blame on Breitbart when the truth is that this is nothing more than ABC News caving in to and attempting to appease the organized left’s outrage machine that went into full astroturf mode after Breitbart’s ABC News appearance was made public.

As a reminder as to who’s exaggerating, here is exactly how Breitbart’s election night townhall event was described by an ABC News producer to him in an email:

This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network, abcnews.com, ABC News Now, and ABC News Radio. …

The show will be live on the web and ABC News Now as well as on the network from 4:00pm till 11:00pm MST.

With this in mind and in writing, here is how Big Journalism announced Breitbart’s ABC News appearance:

ABC announced their election night coverage early on and Big Journalism Editor Dana Loesch will join the network in studio for 6 p.m. – 2 a.m. election night; Bigs founder and head of the Breitbart empire Andrew Breitbart will be bringing analysis live from Arizona.

Obviously that’s not an exaggeration, but after this announcement posted, the Left exploded in organized outrage and in order to mollify them, ABC News released an official statement walking back their original invitation. In response to this, on Sunday, here is how Breitbart himself went even further to describe his role in the very post Mr. Morse references as the reason for the abrupt cancellation:

I was promised no specific amount of airtime, nor payment for my analysis, but was told that I would be a part of the broadcast coverage in addition to participating in the online event[.]

That fits any possible definition of any possible role ABC News had in mind for Breitbart and yet in order to justify his abrupt cancellation, Mr. Morse refers to that sentence as continuing to “claim a bigger role.”

If that description is unacceptable, then no description is acceptable, and that’s the real point.

By continuing to release these provably false statements, ABC News is attempting to disguise and cover up for the fact that they are giving in to the PC, anti-free speech forces on thelLeft. Anyone concerned with diversity of opinion and the idea of open, healthy debate should take note of this and the recent firing of Juan Williams from NPR. Major news organizations are caving to those intolerant of the free expression.

This issue is far from over, we are considering any and all options.

More to come…