I'm so disappointed.

Over the weekend one of Andrew Breitbart's over-excited sites posted a breathless account about how a California Tea Party activist had been "assaulted" by a union thug and how the poor man was “forced” to go to the hospital for “x-rays and treatment for the injuries sustained.” It's all part of the right-wing's dubious union = thugs campaign.

In fact, here's how the activist described the frightening encounter to a local reporter [emphasis added]:

“He bum rushed across the street, came right at us, swung his bullhorn at me, hit me in the hand and then put his hand around my throat and started choking me,” Rodney Stanhope of Placerville said.

Oh my.

And the Breitbart blogger who originally posted on the incident excitedly promised additional reporting at the time, declaring, “Stay tuned for an in-depth write up from an eyewitness on the scene.” Personally, I was very interested to see the follow-up reporting if only because much of the retelling of the “assault” appeared to have been concocted by the Tea Party activist.

Here's the clip of the encounter.

If Breitbart or his deputy Dana Loesch can please post in comments below and explain exactly at what point the Tea Party activist in the white shirt was hit with the bullhorn and then choked by the union member that would be helpful because I'm just not seeing it. And that's why I was so looking forward to the follow-up reporting that Breitbart's intrepid blogger had promised.

But for some reason it hasn't materialized.

For some reason after I highlighted how the Tea Party activist clearly exaggerated reports of his hospital “injuries” from the very brief rally encounter, and after I highighted how he seemed to have lied to the local media about being choked by a union member and hit by a bullhorn, Breitbart's site suddenly stopped hysterically hyping the tale of woe and declined to post an “in-depth write up from an eyewitness.”

Instead, Breitbart's team has flushed the embarrassing story down the memory hole. Too bad Breitbart's blogger didn't flush it before the nonsense was posted.