My former “boss” Andrew Breitbart went head-to-head with MSNBC’s David Shuster yesterday over the James O’Keefe affair. The clip (see below) is about seven minutes long and is an interesting, yet turbulent, piece of television. To see two hyper-partisan’s go head to head, without the normal network-niceties, delivers a good poli-tainment dollar.
James O’Keefe, an independent filmmaker employed by Andrew Breitbart, was arrested along with three others for allegedly attempting to tamper with the phone lines at Senator Mary Landrieu’s Baton Rouge offices. The narrative of this story seems to be turning toward Mr. O’Keefe and his cohorts attempting to embarrass Ms. Landrieu over the “Louisiana Purchase.” Ms. Landrieu is widely seen as selling her health care bill Senate vote for a $300 million carve-out for her state. Mr. O’Keefe has released a statement today about the incident over at BigGovernment.com.
The O'Keefe Four
Mr. Breitbart went on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”, Shuster was a fill-in, to discuss the affair. The meeting between the two men quickly devolved into a shouting match.
Both Mr. Shuster and Breitbart levied some good blows at one another. Mr. Shuster pointed out that Mr. Breitbart didn’t seem nearly as outraged with Mr. O’Keefe’s arrest as he was with the ACORN scandal, which has not led to an arrest. Mr. Breitbart countered with the fact that MSNBC, and others, largely ignored the ACORN scandal, and when they did discuss it, it was usually in an attempt to downplay or tar Mr. Breitbart and Mr. O’Keefe.
Mr. Shuster also attempted to link O’Keefe’s arrest with his journalistic activities for Breitbart.com. Breitbart denied all knowledge of the Louisiana caper and likened the relationship between he and Mr. O’Keefe to that of book publisher to author.
The amazing thing about the encounter is that even though they are yelling and talking over one another the entire time the segment did make for compelling television as Mr. Shuster said it would (in an email to Breitbart, Shuster promised that the clash between the two would “make for good tv” ). Neither won a decisive knockout and both looked exasperated toward the end.
Both men represent an interesting and diametric view of American life. If someone at NBC had the brains to think past the Leno/Conan affair they’d get these two to do a weekly show pronto. I’d love to hear them yell at each other about health care and Cap and Trade. I’d give the edge to Shuster on health care but Andrew would wipe the floor clean with Shuster on Cap and Trade.
The key is though, they’d have to do the show from different locations and never meet. Both have a reputation for being decent guys off the air and if they were to shoot the show in the same building would probably end up with a congenial Hannity and Colmes style affair. No one wants to relive that!
Shuster and Breitbart, the essence of America’s partisan left and right. The question is how do you bottle and package it without spoiling it. I’m not sure it can be done, people get nicer to one another when they are making a lot of dough together. If it could, it would be a great forum for our national debate.
Enough of the softball Sunday shows, let’s start the yelling.
Andrew Breitbart and David Shuster on MSNBC:
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
