Will Emily Crockett Repeat Her Lie About Andrew Breitbart Being ‘Drunk’ at CPAC?
In her Monday article about Andrew Breitbart’s “epic rant to CPAC Occupiers” last week, Campus Progress reporter Emily Crockett claimed that Breitbart had been drunk. Initially, she claimed that his speech had been “slurred”–an accusation that she had to walk back after it was shown to be bogus. Crockett has changed the text of her article somewhat, but it still contains the following false insinuations: A lot of commenters wondered if Breitbart was drunk, and this video from WND strongly suggests that he was. In the video, as Breitbart is preparing to go confront the crowd, somebody off-camera says that it would look bad to do so with a glass of wine in his hand. “So what? We’re allowed to drink wine in America!” Breitbart says * . Soon after, there’s a sound of breaking glass. [Breitbart maintains that he was not drunk. You decide.] New and previously unseen video, provided to Big Journalism by someone who was standing next to him at the protest, shows that the “breaking glass” incident had nothing to do with Breitbart. At the start of the video, which is one continuous shot, it is clear that Breitbart’s hands are empty. At 0:55, the sound of breaking glass is heard, but Breitbart neither throws nor drops a glass; he does not appear to move at all, or even flinch. (The person who provided the video suggested that someone in the Occupy crowd had likely thrown a bottle, but that is impossible to tell from the camera angle.) The video suggests that the admonition that it would look bad to respond to Occupy protestors while holding a glass of wine is not even directed specifically at Breitbart. Regardless, it is clear that Breitbart is in full possession of his faculties; he is not speaking in a “slurred” way, nor is he showing any other sign of intoxication. Yet Crockett continues to invite her readers to conclude that he is drunk, without a shred of proof beyond the fevered hate-tweets of Breitbart’s Occupy-loving detractors. This evening, at 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST, Crockett is scheduled to appear on Cenk Uygur’s program on Current TV. Uygur, fresh from sandbagging Breitbart with a shameful and indefensible lie , is evidently committed to smearing Breitbart with any falsehood he can. Will Crockett play along–or will she finally retract and apologize? Uygur hasn’t apologized yet; will Crockett set the example, or sink to his level?
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Will Emily Crockett Repeat Her Lie About Andrew Breitbart Being ‘Drunk’ at CPAC?