Peter Kinder irresponsibly sides with Breitbart
Barb ShellyPeter Kinder has had a very bad week, what with his car getting stolen and torched, a federal judge throwing out his sloppy health care lawsuit, and the Missouri auditor’s office caving in to pressure to review his travel expenses.
Seeking solace, the star-crossed lieutenant governor has rushed into the consoling embrace of Missouri’s tea party contingent, which is bolstering his wounded ego by applauding his irresponsible statements regarding an Internet hit job on two University of Missouri instructors.
Perhaps hoping to distract the public from his own troubles, Kinder is on a tear about videos that appear to show Judy Ancel at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Don Giljam, a lecturer at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, advocating violence as part of the union movement. The videos were aired on a Web site published by Andrew Breitbart, who’s has made waves by airing other deceptively edited videos that make people appear to be saying something they’re not.
In fact, that’s the case with the University of Missouri videos. Discussing the history of violence in the labor movement is not the same as endorsing it. (See more about the videos and a response by Ancel and a UMKC official in this post.)
A wiser politician would look at Breitbart’s videos skeptically, but not Kinder. He has embraced them wholeheartedly, calling for investigations and hinting that the University of Missouri system’s state funding might be in jeopardy.
On a radio talk show today, Kinder blustered nonsensically that there could be nothing wrong with the edited videos, since 60 Minutes edits all its videos. He accuses the instructors of being from the “pro-Communist left,” and calls the union-based Jobs with Justice group a “pro-Communist, hard left, radical organization.”
In fact, Kinder leaves the impression that he equates the entire union movement with Communism.
The lieutenant governor’s car isn’t the only thing that’s turned out to be incendiary this week.
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