J-List…

I’ve started reading up on the whole J-List controversy.   Self Righteous Douchebage Andrew Breitbart has offered a substantial sum of money for the archives.  The stuff that has leaked out has been pretty cherry picked for the “worst offenses”.    I confess, my big fear is that the J-Listers are right.  See, Journolist was one of those listservs that have a variety of members.  Some can post some pretty nasty crap.  I have left listservs for that very thing.  But I bet if Breitbart took selected quotes from selected threads, he could make any listserv look bad.   I suspect that:

I’m on many listservs, and journolist was much the usual fare — a lot of arguments between people who disagreed with each other, gossip on journalism and sports, a fair amount of political speculation (which may have influenced people indirectly — but no more than any other conversation would), and a fair amount of exchange between journalists and academics and wonks on topics of their expertise.
–Henry Farrell

I also suspect that Jesse Taylor is correct in the reasoning as to why the (mostly) conservative rage surrounding this (now closed down) listserv:

JournoList is far less interesting and far less influential than any conservative critic thinks.  But because it involves those they despise doing things they can’t see, it is prima facie evidence of every terrible thing they’ve ever thought about liberals and journalists.  This isn’t to even mention the irony of Breitbart using unseen (and, let’s be honest, nonexistent) evidence for an assertion he desperately wants to believe about liberal media collusion after spending months bitching about not being able to find video of black Representatives being called niggers.

I don’t have a problem with the archives being released.  I am pretty confident it is much ado about nothing.  I do oppose Breitbart getting them.  There is no reason to trust he would do anything but release cherry-picked quotes, free of context but looking very incendiary.  I believe we saw Breitbart’s true purpose in trying to get the Journolist archive in this weeks attempt to prove the anti-white racism of the Obama Administration (Side Note-Sharrod was not an Obama official at the time of the story she was telling in that video happened 25 years ago…and she was part of a non-profit, not an administration).  He has given zero evidence that his goals are finding “the truth.”  He wants to bring people down, get people fired (and certainly, maybe some of those people on J-list should lose their jobs).  What a noble guy.