SALON

Saturday, Feb 20, 2010 9:21 PM UTC

Breitbart yells, defends ACORN investigation

The conservative media honcho says -- loudly -- it doesn't matter whether ACORN aided any real prostitutes

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Topics: Andrew Breitbart, War Room, CPAC,

Earlier Saturday, I had tried to ask conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart a few questions about the exposé his BigGovernment.com site published last year about ACORN, in which James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute seeking help setting up a non-profit. Breitbart keeps insisting the investigation showed ACORN was aiding prostitution rings, so I figured I’d ask whether there were any actual prostitutes involved in the whole affair (surprise: there weren’t).

But as soon as I introduced myself, Breitbart went on a harangue about Salon, then turned away. Later in the afternoon, he was hanging out in an adoring throng of fans at CPAC, talking about ACORN again, so I finally managed to get the question in.

That didn’t go so well this time, either:

Apparently Breitbart spent a decent amount of time Saturday yelling at people; his site reports that he also confronted Max Blumenthal, an occasional Salon contributor who he’s had a long feud with. And Daryle Jenkins of the One People’s Project seems to have chased Breitbart down, with predictable consequences, too.

(UPDATE: After watching this video again, I belatedly realized that it’s worth pointing out that, when the Marriott security guard tried to move this whole scene away from the door, I was walking backwards, and the camera drifted away from Breitbart’s face. So he grabbed my hand and pointed the lens back at himself, after assuring me he wasn’t going to trip me. Which might help explain how eager Breitbart was to get into shouting matches while a film crew was trailing him around Saturday — any publicity is good publicity. You can see the whole thing very clearly about one minute into this clip of the exchange, posted by conservative blog Midnight Blue Says.)

Mike Madden is Salon's Washington correspondent. A complete listing of his articles is here. Follow him on Twitter here. More Mike Madden.

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