We Were Wrong? Andrew Breitbart Blasts Our O'Keefe Coverage

The conservative Web editor contends the Wire mixed up the timeline

Last week, the Wire covered the media war between conservative Web editor Andrew Breitbart and liberal MSNBC host David Shuster. Breitbart and Shuster fought on Twitter, on blogs, and, for 8 very intense minutes, on television. The fight was over James O'Keefe, the young conservative who followed up his ACORN-busting pimp costume with a foiled attempt to tamper with the phones at Senator Mary Landrieu's Louisiana office.

The Wire recounted the events following Breitbart and Shuster's shout-filled MSNBC confrontation:

Andrew Breitbart, concerned that the incident may not have been a "win" for him, rushed to mount an online offensive. In a lengthy post, "How David Shuster Lied to Get Me to Appear on MSNBC," Breitbart published the four-sentence email in which Shuster had invited Breitbart on MSNBC. Writing on his Blackberry, Shuster apparently told Breitbart, "I don't have a horse in this race." Breitbart counters that Shuster did too have a horse in the race. "As you see, Shuster is attempting to lure me into this story based upon the false premise of his objective neutrality."

Breitbart, however, contends he wrote the blog post before ever going on MSNBC. He visited the Wire's comment section to register a correction:

Genius, look at the time stamp of my post: I wrote it BEFORE I went on the air, and it was posted before the interview was over by an online editor on my site. (I was at a remote studio, so I couldn't post it myself.) Thanks for wrongly divining my motivations, too. I got a shaken Shuster to retract something and he was forced into provably false Media Matters talking points about ACORN! (Watergate Jr. died right there. And Shuster just arrived in New Orleans for the long haul. It was so funny -- and you couldnt' take your partisan glasses off to see the spectacle that occurred.) Just when you think my basic thesis of near absolute media incompetence, partisan hackery and ideological conformity can't be better illuminated, a sweetheart like you from the Gawker school comes along with an amusing punctuation mark like this.

The Wire seems to have wrongly characterized Breitbart's post as a response to the MSNBC appearance. Upon seeing Breitbart's comment, the Wire tweeted, "Guy seems a little angry!" Breitbart's heartfelt response: "no, i'm sad."