I noticed with no small amount of amusement and pity that Andrew Breitbart, after the Shirley Sherrod fiasco put a sizeable dent in what little credibility he enjoyed, changed the background on his Twitter profile to a photo of the 1974 bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, better known as The Rumble in the Jungle. The fight became famous for Ali's use of what he dubbed the “rope-a-dope” -- leaning back on the ropes and allowing the stronger, slower Foreman to throw punches at will, sapping his strength as Ali simply blocked and dodged. Once Foreman had tired himself out, Ali sent him to the canvas. The implication was not subtle: Breitbart may have appeared to be in trouble, absorbing blow after blow, but he's really in the middle of a devious strategy to prevail in the end.

Now that he's suffered yet another very public embarrassment -- that of the inimitable sex doctor/racist fraud Kevin Pezzi -- Breitbart is even more committed to the Ali fantasy. Responding to my colleague Eric Boehlert's many tweets regarding the added shame Dr. Pezzi brought to an already shameful BigGovernment.com, Breitbart tweeted: “For posterity sake: Do you think you are winning this round? To be revisited at appropriate time in future... Keep punching.”

There are several reasons why Breitbart's boxing metaphor is woefully misguided, and not least among them is that he's comparing himself to perhaps the greatest athlete the world has ever known. But more than anything else, in boxing, whatever injuries you sustain are usually the fault of the other fighter. All the damage that's been done to Breitbart, however, has been self-inflicted. He posted the edited video of Sherrod, and he signed on Pezzi as a contributor without doing a bare minimum of due diligence.

But if he's intent on sticking with the boxing theme, fine. Yes, Andrew, the round is over, and you lost. Right now you're sitting in your corner, dazed, with a rather sizeable cut over your right eye. And that's because you spent the entire three minutes standing alone in the middle of the ring punching yourself in the face.