When Andrew Breitbart died last week, conspiracy theorists took to Twitter almost instantly to allege that he was killed by Obama. This stemmed from Andrew Breitbart's speech during CPAC in which he promised that he had videos that would expose the President. The underlying conservative theory is that Obama is some kind of charlatan who swept America off it's feet in 2008, and thus wasn't subjected to the same kind of media scrutiny other candidates are. Breitbart would remedy this he claimed, he would "vet" the President; to wit: “I have videos, this election we’re going to vet him,” Breitbart exclaimed to raucous applause. “We are going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008.”
After Breitbart's death, the videos were left in a state of flux. Had the Obama administration silenced Breitbart the old fashioned way? Well, this week brought about the first two pieces of Breitbarts theoretically damaging cache. After seeing them, I can pretty unequivocally say that the Obama administration didn't have Breitbart killed.
The first piece of evidence was a poster for a play "The Love Song of Saul Alinksy." On the poster it stated that Obama, then a state senator, would speak as part of a panel discussion after the show. The Republicans love to make hay about Obama's ties to Saul Alinsky, the author of "Rules for Radicals," but this is something that was brought up almost ad nauseam during the 2008 campaign. Alinksy is a boogeyman for the right, but the fact that Obama appeared on a panel discussion about him just isn't damning. This was merely the first piece of evidence, the folks at Breitbart said.
Yesterday, came the second piece. First, Drudge announced on his banner that a video would be released at 9pm on the Hannity show. Conservatives were hyping the heck out of the video, so surely it had to be good. Well, 9pm came and the video was released. It showed Obama, then the President of Harvard Law, speaking kindly about Prof. Derrick Bell at a rally for faculty diversity. Derrick Bell is a well respected professor, and one of the pioneers of "critical race theory."As an academic Bell was critical about the lack of radicalness in the civil rights movement, and here was Obama openly praising him. Clearly, this is a shocking development and one that illustrates Obama's radical roots, right? Well actually, the video had already been released and the only new piece of information it shared was that Obama and Bell hugged while Obama was giving his speech. Obama is celebrating Harvard Law's first black professor at a rally for diversity. The video is interesting, but not for conservative reasons. It shows Obama as a young man, speaking with almost the exact same rhetorical style.
In my opinion, the issue is a nonstarter. College is a place where the status quo ought to be challenged and new ideas should be embraced and considered. This is part of what Rick Santorum is raging against when he calls college elitist. What makes Breitbart's, and conservatives', thesis about Obama not being vetted so loony, is that Obama has governed as a moderate. I'm not a psychotherapist, though my father is, and he would likely say that they are experiencing paranoid delusions. In the face of all the evidence that Obama is a loyal American, a moderate with mainstream views, they still see him as an outsider and dangerous. Regardless of what Breitbart's people continue to reveal, you can't argue with the evidence from Obama's presidency that he is not a dangerous radical.
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