Alec Baldwin is Still Hating Breitbart

Alec Baldwin, the daughter-traumatizing, flight-disrupting, photographer-assaulting, Capital One Pitchman has taken to Twitter again to express his hatred for all things Breitbart and his love of French.

This whole IRS thing has a whiff of Breitbart to it, peut être?

For starters, what does this even mean?  Given that Mr. Baldwin has referred to Andrew Breitbart in the past as “a boil on the anus of public discourse,” it’s reasonably safe to assume that he’s not a Breitbart fan, that he’s one of those folks who believed, all evidence notwithstanding, that Breitbart was a yellow journalist, a deceptive editor, a fabricator of controversy.  And so I suppose the tweet means that Alec Baldwin just doesn’t believe there’s anything genuinely scandalous going on with the IRS these days.  He’s also referred to the scandal as a “Rovian pushback” on regulations – an evil Republican conspiracy to get the federal government to stop using the tax code to regulate political activity.

Hmm.  So what does Baldwin think is going on?  Does he imagine Karl Rove summoning the spirit of Andrew Breitbart with a Ouija board and then somehow forcing Lois Lerner to take the fifth?  Does Alec Baldwin know what taking the fifth means?  Hint:  It means maintaining silence so as not to incriminate oneself.  Does Baldwin suppose that Rove and Breitbart are supernaturally working together to cause this recent (and alarming) wave of massive amnesia at the IRS?

Does Alec Baldwin know that the IRS scandal, for once, isn’t a James O’Keefe exposé?  Does he realize that the IRS has already admitted wrongdoing?  Did he get that memo?

I think it’s more likely that Baldwin, astutely sensing that Team Obama is in deep and increasingly hot water, thought he could distract some of his fans by tweeting “Karl Rove!” and “Breitbart!”  – you know, by engaging in public discourse.

Come on, man.  Alec, you’re 55 years old; it’s time to man-up.  If you want a seat at the grown-up table, you need to learn how to have grown-up conversations.  It’s fine that you have disagreements with Conservatives – this is America and you are entitled to your position.  If you want people to take you seriously, however, you’re going to have to learn how to articulate an actual, defendable position.  Invoking the name of someone you disagree with does not magically erase reality – like, for example, the reality that some Conservative groups had their tax-exempt status held up for years while some Progressive groups had their tax-exempt status fast-tracked.  Oh, yeah – and during an election cycle.

And so, if by “whiff of Breitbart,” you mean the same whiff that followed former Congressman Anthony Weiner into the disgraced-resignation chamber, then yes, this “IRS thing has a whiff of Breitbart.”  And if by “whiff of Breitbart,” you mean the same whiff that followed ACORN’s public funding down the sewer, then yes, this “IRS thing has a whiff of Breitbart.”  And if by “whiff of Breitbart,” you mean the same whiff that followed the Pigford scandal all the way into the New York Times newsroom (better late than never), then yes, this “IRS thing has a whiff of Breitbart.”

And is this a reason for the IRS to be very, very concerned?  Bien sûr!