‘Smoking Gun’ From Breitbart Site Is A Literal Joke Told By Harvard Professor

[SunsetDreams]

Earlier this week and after much hype, Big Government’s Editor at Large Ben Shapiro unveiled a video of a young Barack Obama praising and hugging late Harvard Law Professor Derrick Bell. Shapiro claimed the video was purposefully hidden by supporters of Obama in 2008, citing a few seconds of video they released from a lecture given by Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, in which he joked, “we hid this during the 2008 election.”

Shapiro and other conservative media figures like Fox News’ Sean Hannity took Ogletree’s obfuscation claims seriously, even though Ogletree laughed as he said it, as did the rest of the audience. This can be seen in the video posted on Breitbart TV, and even more so in the full lecture.

...

Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation reported a new potential bombshell in the saga today, which Breitbart and other conservative media outlets quickly seized on — Professor Bell visited President Obama twice in 2010. However, ABC News’ Jake Tapper looked into the claim, and found that it was a different Derrick A. Bell listed in the White House visitor logs, and that the visits were merely a White House tour.

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/03/09/441611/breitbart-olgetree-joke/


Breitbart’s ‘Bombshell’: The President Still Fights For Racial Equality

Breitbart.com and Fox News believe that President Obama’s affiliation with the late Harvard professor Derrick Bell, as evidenced from a hug they share in a video from 1990, is some kind of “smoking gun” for his perspectives on “racial division and class warfare.” Bell was the first tenured African-American law professor at Harvard University and helped establish the study of Critical Race Theory (CRT). This morning, Breitbart.com editor Joel Pollak appeared on CNN to repeat this claim, but Soledad O’Brien was quick to point out that he had absolutely no understanding of CRT and that the clip presented no “bombshell” for the President (text of interview at link)

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Critical race theory does not have an absolute set of principles, but later in the interview O’Brien accurately describes it as a theory that “looks into the intersection of race and politics and the law.” CRT emerged from a broader movement known as critical legal studies, which examines how factors such as race, gender and social class can often skew legal decisions in favor of privileged groups. Critical legal theory is, by definition, critical of how our law has developed and often calls for significant departures from existing law—but its central premise that judges are prone to decide cases in ways that advantage their own social group has certainly been vindicated by cases such as Citizens United.

CRT looks specifically at how race and racial privilege shapes the law. The purpose of CRT isn’t to wage war against white people, as Pollak and others of his anti-liberal ilk would have us believe. Indeed, its entire goal is to ensure that race not be forgotten as a significant factor in the operation of society. The value of this perspective is certainly demonstrated through voter ID laws, immigration policies, and drug enforcement penalties that disproportionately impact non-white populations. Policies that target racial majorities, by contrast, would never become law in the first place because the majority possesses the power to veto them.
The President should be applauded for standing with great minds who do not accept that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked an endpoint in the fight for racial equality. It is those who seek to disregard the experiences of all people of color — lest they confront the persisting effects of racial injustice — who should be ashamed.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/08/440585/breitbarts-bombshell-the-president-still-fights-for-racial-equality/

Hannity and Brietbart and Co...keep trying


Have you seen the twitter responses on this? Twitter exploded the night Hannity aired the tape...it was hillarious. It's still going but has slowed down some.

http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23BreitbartHasTape

Adam Bakker ‏ @TooFolkGR Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Obama once took family DOG cross country fastened securely in backseat in OVERSIZED CAT CARRIER! #BreitbartHasTape

You can call me Tim. ‏ @UnderdogLib Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
RT @Kisco75: Obama is really the one who threw that shoe at George W. Bush. #BreitbartHasTape


Highly scatological ‏ @RaisingOneBrow Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
What do I use to wrap a present if I have no adhesive? Oh, I forgot, #BreitbartHasTape.


Paula. ‏ @PaulaInTulsaOK Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Obama NEVER copies & reposts this status to prove he loves Jesus/supports our troops/wants to cure cancer! #BreitbartHasTape


M.S. Bellows, Jr. ‏ @msbellows Close
Obama likes big butts and he cannot lie. #BreitbartHasTape


Ignatz ‏ @ignatzz Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Obama leads student body in singing "Wastin' Away Again in Margaritaville." #breitbarthastape


All I Do Is Win! ‏ @ThisIsTooEasy Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Obama actually shot J.R. AND is the reason Susan Lucci never won.... #BreitbartHasTape


phive ‏ @phive0phor Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Billy Jean's kid was not Michael Jackson's son, he was Obama's. #BreitbartHasTape #BreitbartScandal


Dufus ‏ @dufus Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Obama wore a retainer that picked up Cuba's radio station

Some of them are so funny

[EFerrari]

1. Prof Ogletree is an amazing guy with a big sense of humor.

He's from Merced. He represented Skip Gates during the Cambridge flap and wrote a book "The Presumption of Guilt" about racial profiling.

[jsmirman]

4. He also represented John Gotti

at his 2nd Circ Court of Appeals hearing against the government.

I know... because I was there.

I don't think that was a great thing, just to add one thing to the story.

[EFerrari]

5. Interesting. I didn't know that. n/t

[jsmirman]

7. Yep

I figured you would find it interesting, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

He also ended up having to argue what was really a silly legal argument but the one Gotti insisted on as the focus of oral argument. A waste of the professor's considerable legal talents.

I don't think it's great to serve as a hired gun for a scumbag like Gotti. That was a very, very bad man and the arguments involved in the case were not exactly legal barnburners. It definitely seemed like the only upsides were money and profile - and although I wouldn't go near a guy like Gotti for any reason, I even more certainly wouldn't get in the game for either of those.

[EFerrari]

11. I guess a case like that can make a career.

I could never do that, either.

[jsmirman]

13. He was already a pretty big deal

but it enhanced his profile further

[ProSense]

2. This story

is proof of just how many fools are being propped up by the GOP.

[NYC Liberal]

6. Also proves how out of touch the GOP is.

How many Americans today will watch that clip and like PBO even more? Many.

Imo Obama should thank the right-wingers for finding it and then use it in a campaign ad.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Love this tweet

"Obama was a black kid living with a rich family in Belair #BreitbartHasTape"

[jsmirman]

8. Genius

[Lint Head]

9. What is wrong with the robot's chin?

Does he have cotton under his lower lip?

[csziggy]

10. So Republican White Houses can have male prostitutes visit without any comment in the M$M

But President Obama has professors visit and it's a scandal?

IOKIYAR is definitely in force.

[yellowcanine]

12. "it was a different Derrick A. Bell listed in the White House visitor logs..." (White House Tour!)

That has to be one of the best examples yet of ODS (Obama derangement syndrome).

"...it was a different Derrick A. Bell listed in the White House visitor logs, and that the visits were merely a White House tour."