Discussing why Mitt Romney appears so frequently on the Fox News program Fox and Friends—the subject of a New York Times story yesterday—on MSNBC's Martin Bashir, Mr. Williams said that Governor Romney is comfortable with people who are like him.

"They're like him," he said. "They're white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company."

A former deputy chief of the Boston Globe's D.C. bureau, Mr. Williams's Politico bio states that he is a "telegenic, quick-witted analyst" who examines the "intersection of race and politics."

The video was first flagged by conservative websites the Washington Free Beacon and the late Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism, which also called attention to liberal leaning jokes Mr. Williams made on Twitter about Governor Romney's wealth.

"This is our MSM. This is Politico. This is why God created Andrew Breitbart," wrote Breitbart.com writer John Nolte.

"POLITICO journalists have a clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias," Politico editors Jim VandeHei and John Harris wrote in a memo to staff last night. "Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility."

Video below:

http://youtu.be/RhWo3-yJXsI

Sekoff and Huffington. (Image via Getty)

Democratic advisors Peter Daou and James Boyce are carrying on with their bitter lawsuit claiming that Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer stole their idea for a liberal Drudge Report and cut them out of control and ownership of The Huffington Post.

Though many of the pair's claims were dismissed in October, a judge allowed them to go into discovery on a theft of idea claim, according to paidContent. An amended complaint filed yesterday alleges that emails and meeting minutes between Ms. Huffington, HuffPost editor Roy Sekoff and the late Andrew Breitbart reveal a plan to cover up Mr. Daou and Mr. Boyce's involvement, which we've excerpted below:

Because Defendants knew that they had stolen the idea for The Huffington Post,they also knew that they needed to develop a false account of the website’s origins that cut Boyce and Daou out of the picture. Huffington and Lerer discussed this problem during a meeting with Sekoff and Breitbart on March 29, 2005, where the four of them discussed possible responses to press inquiries on the subject of how and when the idea for the website originated.The minutes of that meeting reflect the deliberate creation of a false and fraudulent “narrative” to explain the origin of the idea for The Huffington Post. As reflected in the minutes, the participants at this meeting asked: “How did the project get started? What’s the narrative? …How did the idea for the Huffington Report originate?” In response, Breitbart proposed this answer: “I knew what was missing in the blogosphere, I just needed the rolodex to be able to putit all together, and Arianna provided that. … Arianna called Andrew to talk about an alternative to the Drudge Report. Andrew called Arianna about the group blog - there’s nobody he knows besides Arianna who could make this work.”

The minutes reflect a follow-up question: “So how did Kenny come into the picture? How did he and Arianna come together to work on this project?” This time, the answer was proffered by Sekoff and Breitbart: “It doesn’t matter.” Breitbart then added: “He met you and is retired and excited to leave retirement to join you in this project.” After briefly discussingthe function of the website, the minutes record a return to a discussion of the “narrative.”Breitbart states, “It’s all about coming up with the group blog."

The moral here is never found anything. It only leads to pettiness, embarrassment and unspeakable wealth.

Andrew Breitbart (via Wizbang Blog)

Though arch-conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart may have passed away suddenly this week at 43, some enterprising spammer has ensured his Twitter feed has an afterlife. At 3:32 on Saturday, those who follow the late pundit were surprised to find the following pop up in their Twitter timelines:

Fastest and most efficient way to remove toxins & lose weightworldnews20.com

— AndrewBreitbart (@AndrewBreitbart) March 3, 2012

The tweet was definitely posted on the real Breitbart Twitter account, complete with his Twitter-issued "verified" button.

Reactions ran the gamut, from perplexed to outraged:

Umm @AndrewBreitbart just tweeted? Hacked! Disturbing!!!!

— Gina (@gxmolin) March 3, 2012

RT @SissyWillis RT @jtLOL: Please be advised that a rotten spammer has broken into @AndrewBreitbart's Twitter account.

— Love Of Freedom (@Love0fFreedom) March 3, 2012

There were reports on social media that Breitbart's Facebook page was also hacked but if so it was quickly taken care of. The offending tweet was removed within a half-hour of posting Saturday afternoon.

Spammers have always been an issue on Twitter in particular, but this may mark the first time a spammer/hacker unwittingly drew so much attention to his or her product.

A check of domain registration information on the spam link tweeted via Breitbart's account revealed it was registered to a Russian address. This will likely not curb the appetite some have shown in the days since Breitbart's passing for imagining there is some kind of conspiracy surrounding his death.

Toby Harnden writes for The Daily Mail, in a just-published report:

Last weekend, Breitbart told friends he was in early talks with CNN about a Crossfire-style show in which he would argue from the Right alongside former US House representative Anthony Weiner taking him on from the Left.

Breitbart was, of course, responsible for breaking open the scandal that took Rep. Weiner down. He appeared at the press conference to hijack it (one Observer reporter noted at the time: "This is like when The Joker takes over Gotham").

A spokeswoman for CNN told Harnden that the network had no comment. So: Not a denial. UPDATE: Dylan Byers at Politico gets the denial from CNN that Harnden couldn't (or didn't):

"It's totallly false," CNN's Edie Emery said. "CNN was not in discussions."

For context, networks have talks all the time about potential projects, and CNN—which hasn't exactly performed well as a network over the last few years compared to its cable news rivals—probably talked about quite a few possibilities, some of them as extreme (and insane) as this.

Then again, they did put a once-scandalized New York governor on their network, and one of his first guests turned out to be Henry Blodget, someone Spitzer had taken down during his time as New York's A.G. Another guest on Spitzer's first show?

Andrew Breitbart, of course.

Also, West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, who—in an incredibly bizarre coincidence—Toby Harnden also spoke to about Breitbart:

Sorkin told me via email: "I e-mailed Andrew last Friday because the episode of The Newsroom I'm currently writing takes place during the week the Anthony Weiner photos were in the news.

"Andrew and I had struck up a friendly e-mail relationship and so I reached out to ask him if he could give me a timeline of the events from his point of view. I got a quick response -'I'm in' - and we were supposed to meet for coffee at the end of the day today [Thursday]."

Sorkin said that the coffee would have been "about Andrew shedding any new light on the Anthony Weiner incident" and "we'll likely see shards of Andrew during his various appearances that week" in news footage from that time.

The entire thing is odd, and—if true—demonstrates at least two of the three entities in question's potential desperation to get back into the spotlight.

Which is to say: Andrew Breitbart's involvement in the potential for this show is undoubtedly the most unsurprising element of it.

CNN: Breitbart-Weiner show 'totally false' [Dylan Byers/Politico]
Andrew Breitbart was 'in talks with CNN' over new show with Anthony Weiner [Daily Mail]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Andrew Breitbart (Photo: Facebook)

Online publisher and conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart died shortly after midnight at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed. He passed "unexpectedly from natural causes," according to one of his websites, BigJournalism.com. He was 43.

Breitbart was born and raised in the upscale West side of Los Angeles. He often described his upbringing in the liberal enclave as having defined his desire to become a conservative media crusader. A Matt Drudge protege, Breitbart's websites--Breitbart.com, BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com--were a home for sting videos and other materials that embarrassed government employees or officials, including the deceptively edited video of a Department of Agriculture official being racist, James O'Keefe's ACORN video and the sexually explicit photographs obtained from former Representative Anthony Weiner's Twitter account.

Minutes before the June press conference where Mr. Weiner rescinded his earlier claim that his Twitter account had been hacked and tearfully admitted to sending the photographs, Breitbart surprised the press corps by taking the podium for fifteen minutes.

"If he's going to come up here and take some form of culpability here, he was party to a campaign for 72 hours that weekend to allow the liberal blogosphere, including the Daily Kos, to accuse me of being the hacker," Breitbart told reporters. "Are there any reprecussions for journalism on the Left, when they falsely claim that I'm the hacker?"

He went on, "Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos will not apologize.  In fact he admitted that he named the girls the underage girls because they had the wrong politics. At what point does Meet the Press say 'We're no longer going to allow Markos Moulitsas on the air'? Why is there no accountability for an entire weekend of false reporting that was based upon what I believe was Congressman Weiner's strategy to blame the messenger?"

Breitbart was currently working on a film about the Occupy Wall Street movement. He saw the protests as a "circus" populated by unsanitary activists and sponsored by unions and other left wing groups eager to create the impression of a grassroots movement. Breitbart, who was always eager to stir up controversy and provoke progressives, had a memorable confrontation where he shouted at occupiers and admonished them to "Stop raping people!" outside the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Ever the media provocateur, Breitbart  excitedly talked of his plan to butt heads with the CPAC occupiers for days leading up to their exchange and ensured there were cameras on hand to witness the scene.

The author of Righteous Indignation is survived by his wife, Susannah Bean, and their four children.

Sarah Palin at this year's CPAC (Getty Images)

Sarah Palin has evidently been wigging out over Julianne Moore's portrayal of her in the upcoming Game Change film on HBO. The TV movie shifts the focus of the campaign book from a panorama of the 2008 election to the aftermath of candidate John McCain picking Ms. Palin as his running mate. Ms. Palin published a series of photos intended to rebut the film in a Flickr album entitled "Game Change We Can Believe In." Let it never be said that Ms. Palin wouldn't destroy the Jeopardy! "Before and After" category.

The former Governor of Alaska will have a further chance to make her voice heard, as the little-seen documentary The Undefeated is to air on ReelzChannel (the network that broadcast The Kennedys miniseries, as well as reruns of Cheers, Becker, and Third Rock From the Sun) on March 11, the night after Game Change premieres on HBO.

The Undefeated features the commentary of Andrew Breitbart, played in 14 theaters last summer, and made $100,000.

Colby Hall-- the managing editor of Dan Abrams' (Dan Abrams!) media site that is so un-navel-gazey that it put "Media" in its name and created a baffling metric ranking for "powerful" people in New York to judge their own placement in the incestuous workplace strata-- is leaving for greener pastures at Clear Channel. But before he goes, he wants you to know one thing about Mediaite's success. Well, actually there's several things he wants you to know, and he's put them all in a post titled "Lessons From Nearly Three Years In the Belly Of the Mediaite Beast."

Why did Mediaite do so well? Well, partly because of the site's fast placement of video content. (True!) But also this:

"We have sometimes eschewed long-form analysis in order to get our story up fast, in large part because the world of media criticism in the last few years is often banal or masturbatory."

Wait...what?

Several paragraphs later, Mr. Hall ends on an anecdote that "illustrate this bizarre and, at times, hilarious world" of his Mediaite experience, about how he once got into a Twitter fight with Andrew Breitbart while watching Pirates of the Caribbean with his children. Masturbation, it may be noted, had nothing to do with it.

So, Monday was fun. Not only did we learn that embattled amateur underwear model and unwavering mayoral aspirant Anthony Weiner really did tweet that infamous crotch shot to Gennette Cordova, in addition to numerous other indiscretions conducted over social media (we couldn't resist imagining how a certain member of--well, Mr. Weiner’s person--may have felt about the whole affair), but we also learned that Andrew Breitbart has no qualms about creating new photo ops for himself.

In a bizarre turn, the conservative blogger stepped out of the press gallery and up to the podium, where he proceeded to speak for 13 minutes, announcing at the outset, “I’m here for some vindication.” (While he was undoubtedly referring to the yfrog-friendly Mr. Weiner’s public denials of crotch shot distribution, we can¹t help but wonder if the man who once self-identified as “Matt Drudge’s bitch” was also eager to atone for other things--like calling Michelle Obama fat.) Mr. Breitbart went on to announce that he possessed an “X-rated” image of Mr. Weiner, presumably not for personal use.

But despite Mr. Breitbart’s best efforts, Ms. Weiner’s most helpful (if belated) counsel may have come from the actress Reese Witherspoon, who, while accepting a “Generations Award” at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night, told the audience--which included recent smartphone self-portraitist Blake Lively--that, when she came up in show business, “if you took naked pictures of yourself ... you hide your face, people! Hide your face!”

Escaping pictorial evidence of his crimes‹but not the wrath of his victims‹this week was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment Monday morning after weeks of hiding his face in $14 million Tribeca townhouse. As the former I.M.F. chief entered the courthouse, a row of chambermaids chanted, “Shame on you!” After the hearing, D.S.K. was placed under house arrest (which, if we've learned anything from Martha Stewart and Gossip Girl, means lots of scone-baking and ambivalent Gilt Groupe shopping).

Another photo finish--albeit somewhat less risqué--may be the 2012 presidential race, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll numbers, released Tuesday. If Mitt Romney is the G.O.P. nominee, the poll indicates that he will defeat President Obama by a 3% margin, while if Romney and his Aquafresh campaign logo fail to woo the Republican base, the incumbent has an edge over possible opponents Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and Jon Huntsman. (And former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who announced his candidacy Monday despite being voted out of office by his constituents in 2006, entered the race too late to be considered, but we're betting his odds of winning the nomination are about as good as those that the unsavory definition of “santorum” coined by his detractors will fall from the top spot on Google.)

And how ‘bout those Yankees? New York's dominant baseball franchise began a series with the Boston Red Sox Tuesday night, the outcome of which will determine who's number one in the A.L. East. We haven't been this excited since--well, since every other year this happens.

At least there are a few goings-on to distract us from sext scandals, sports and premature political projections. It’s Internet Week, for starters--like Secretary’s Day, but for your Tumblr!--a city-wide event that’s attracted such illustrious keynote speakers as Chuck Schumer and Nicholas Kristof (no word on whether notorious web maven and future former Times editor Bill Keller was offered a spot). In celebration--or by coincidence--The Observer relaunched its website early this morning, just as the copy of the paper you’re holding was dropped onto your doorstep with a few modifications of its own. We’re sleeker! We’re wordier! We’re ever so slightly more fanciful!

But we’re not trying to steal anybody’s spotlight. And we’re not looking for vindication. We’re just not afraid to show our (ever so slightly improved) face.

"Think about it," groused a magazine veteran not connected with the deal. "Anyone who's been at HuffPo that long probably has zero creative fire, talent or editorial ambition. Now these people are cashing seven-figure checks?"

The big winners are "the most boring, non-personality people," according to a former Huffington Post employee who turned down a big job early on.

"There's always regret when you see money being handed out in giant chunks," admitted Rachel Sklar, who worked at the Huffington Post from 2006 to 2008 but says she "never inquired" about equity.

If anything, the deal should "light a fire under people's asses" to build their own media companies, said Melissa Lafsky, another former HuffPo editor who worked for a straight salary. While crediting the site with launching her career, Ms. Lafsky, who now edits the blog Infrastructurist.com, had a warning for young scribes who sign on to new media ventures: "Demand equity."

An original Huffington Post employee who followed that advice and is now sitting on a large payout as a result said the equity incentives helped compensate for a lack of job security during the lean years, when it was far from clear that Ms. Huffington's pet project would survive. People who got equity got it through hard work, the source added.

For her part, Ms. Sklar, now a start-up consultant and editor at large for Mediaite, said she harbored no ill will toward Ms. Huffington and felt working for her had been the right decision. "It was the start of my whole career," she said. Besides, she added, "Arianna started me going on TV."

Andrew Breitbart, who helped create the Huffington Post, did not benefit from the sale, having already cashed in his marbles to fund his own Web site, Breitbart.com. Still, he had no regrets. "Money's not everything," he said. 

Clarification: Ms. Sklar's words, "never inquired," were in reference to equity packages in general at the Huffington Post, not any prospective equity packages for herself. Ms. Sklar declined to discuss her personal financial dealings with the company.

(via Playbook)