Dems Defend Etheridge, Attack Breitbart

The next time someone asks you to explain “the politics of personal destruction,” use this example: Video surfaces of a United States Congressman attacking a college student, grabbing him by the wrist, neck, and body, and assaulting another student’s camera. The U.S. Representative refuses to immediately release the first student despite the student’s repeated pleas. You are an official of that Congressman’s political party. How do you respond? You attack the publisher of a website that released the video. Behold, from Politico’s Ben Smith:

A national Democratic Party official e-mailed around a set of talking points about an hour ago, under the subject heading, “Etheridge Gotcha Video Background.”

Democrats are seeking to raise questions about the video, which first appeared on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government, because of what’s widely viewed as the media’s mishandling of the ACORN story, which emerged without context from edited videos. In particular, party officials say the video was likely taken by a tracker for the Republican Party, which would explain the effort taken to conceal his identity.

From the talking points:

Push hard w/ blogs the lack of credibility inherent to anything Breitbart does/posts, given its role in the debunked ACORN videos:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21pubed.html?src=twrhttp://mediamatters.org/research/201006010001

http://gawker.com/5508190/okeefe-and-breitbart-acorn-videos-severely-edited

Considering Congressman Etheridge has already apologized and said there was no excuse for his behavior, it’s seems like this may have been a battle the Democrats should have sat out. Too late now.