FLASHBACK: Aaron Sorkin’s Vicious Ad Hominem Attack on Sarah Palin Published on AOL/HuffPo
by John NolteImagine my surprise upon hearing that AOL/Huffpo’s editorial policy is the following:
Andrew Brietbart’s ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller — right down to calling him a “commie punk” and “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak” — violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page.
He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did — guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.
Good enough. As a website editor myself, I appreciate the idea of wanting to elevate the debate. Admittedly, I do find it more than a little creepy and totalitarian for AOL to include in that “ad hominem standard” what someone says or does elsewhere. But when you’ve been studying the Left for as long as I have, you come to expect the default setting of them wanting to control what people say. (See: Jon Stewart.) What I don’t understand, however, is what Arianna Huffington and AOL are going to do now. I can’t imagine AOL intends to take the actionable position of singling out Andrew Breitbart — discriminating against him because he’s Andrew Breitbart or conservative or something.
But herein lies AOL’s problem…







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