Wait, I Thought The Huffington Post Was Trying To Silence Andrew Breitbart

Remember the great "blacklist" non-scandal of late March, when the Huffington Post decided it wasn't worth the trouble to publish professional name-caller Andrew Breitbart on its front page?

Here's the tale, as summarized at the time by New York magazine:

After the Daily Caller published an interview in which Breitbart called former White House adviser Van Jones a “commie punk,” a “cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak,” a “cockroach,” and a “human toxin,” Huffington agreed to take his works off the HuffPo homepage.

But guess what? Ever since Huffington Post rescinded Breitbart's front-page privileges, Breitbart has packed up his marbles and gone home. According to his blogger index at the Huffington Post, Breitbart has not contributed to the site since March 22, just days before the controversy erupted. Breitbart's total number of contributions to date? Two.

At the time of the public demotion, Huffington Post executives were quite clear that Breitbart was still welcome to blog at the site, which in and of itself is a privilege of sorts. It was just that the bombastic writer would no longer be featured on the front page, and therefore not be seen by as many Huffington Post readers.

Turns out if Breitbart couldn't see his name and photo on the Huffington Post front page, he didn't want to contribute at all.

It's possible that Breitbart felt snubbed and decided to walk away from the popular site. But that kind of petulant behavior certainly runs counter to the popular conservative whine (not to mention Breitbart's own caterwauling) about how nasty liberals had silenced Breitbart's right to blog at the Huffington Post. ("Bullying tactics"! "Hatred of free speech"!)

In reality, nobody did any such thing. Instead, it's been Breitbart who has voluntarily silenced himself by refusing to write for the Huffington Post.

Andrew Bretibart is many things, but a free speech martyr is not one of them.