Andrew Breitbart, Pillar of Hate and Distortion, Dead at 43

Shortly after the stroke of midnight, the last spasms of hate and homophobia flooded through a nasty man’s body. Or, to put it another way, Andrew Breitbart died of natural causes.

Breitbart was a malicious pontificator who liked to run websites which featured the word “big” — the three letter modifier existing in counterpoint to Breitbart’s small and shallow ideas. Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism, Big Peace. It was all bright and doddering fodder for Breitbart, who spent much of his career desperately seeking legitimacy from a mainstream media that enjoyed quietly pissing into his face. This was the only way to treat a man who was so subsumed with venom that, on the day Ted Kennedy died, Breitbart called him a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard,” and a “prick.” This Tourette’s-like bile was appealing to a certain type of aggrieved and angry white male seeking a myopic demagogue during a time of political and economic uncertainty. Andrew Breitbart wasn’t terribly special. Yet if Breitbart did not exist, it would be necessary for Grover Norquist to create him.

The most frightening facet about Breitbart is that so many people believed in him. Did Breitbart ever have a nice thing to say about anybody? Why, yes. To Matt Drudge, the very man he sought to emulate. He liked to refer to himself as “Matt Drudge’s bitch.”

“I thought what he was doing was by far the coolest thing on the Internet. And I still do,” said Breitbart in a 2005 CNET interview. Yet Breitbart seemed confused about what real journalism entailed. “I guess I do a lot of new media,” said Breitbart during a 2009 C-SPAN appearance. “I have a website. Breitbart.com. Which is a news aggregation source. In all the years I’ve been on the Internet, all I’ve heard about is newswires. I figured out that that’s where the action is. When you watch CNN and FOX News, and somebody breaks in with a story and they act like somebody in that building actually discovered that story and reported on that story.”

Through such painfully simplistic observations, Breitbart erected a one man media empire devoted to loud eructations. He savaged political careers with unmitigated deception and selective editing — most notably, Anthony Weiner and Shirley Sherrod. With Sherrod, you could almost hear the self-satisfied swish of Breitbart hoisting his own private Confederate flag up a proud pole. In 2010, Breitbart posted two video clips of Sherrod, who was then the Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture.

The videos suggested that Sherrod had deliberately discriminated against a white farmer. Breitbart seized upon this apparent smoking gun with a theatrical glee comparable to William Shatner’s performance in Roger Corman’s The Intruder as a speaker who moves from town to town stirring up bigotry through lies. “Sherrod’s racist tale,” wrote Breitbart, “is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.” The controversy forced Sherrod to resign. Yet the full video and the timeline reconstructed by Media Matters demonstrated that Sherrod was offering a far more complex take on race. The NAACP, White House officials, and the Secretary for Agriculture were forced to apologize with considerable embarrassment.

How could such a louche loudmouth, who enjoyed marinating his racism in the stew of libertarian entitlement, be taken so seriously? Because FOX News had him on all the time and because outfits funded in part by Richard Mellon Scaife were fond of giving Breitbart dubious honors such as the Accuracy in Media Award.

Yet when confronted with serious questions about what Breitbart’s “accuracy” entailed, Breitbert preferred fuming to reason. When James O’Keefe, the young man whose selective editing and faux undercover videos helped give one of Breitbart’s websites a big start, was revealed to be a racist and a white nationalist, Breitbart demonstrated that he wasn’t quite so courageous when it came to confronting the truth.

Journalist Max Blumenthal calmly asked Breitbart at the very same conference where he received the Accuracy in Media Award about all this. Breitbart fulminated back, “Accusing a person of racism is the worst thing that you can do in this country.”

Breitbart could not see the irony in his own remarks.

“Why are you so angry?” asked Blumenthal later in the video.

“Because you’re a punk!” sneered Breitbart. “You destroy people! Because you’re trying to destroy people’s lives through innuendo.”

Breitbart was so guided by deranged mania, so without reconsideration or nuance, that his unhinged homophobia would flow like an alcoholic’s stool sample from his Twitter account over the slightest emotion. When Dan Savage made a foolish remark on Real Time with Bill Maher and later apologized for it, Breitbart resorted again to his tired tactic of accusing the other side of the very thing he was practicing.

When he was dumped from ABC Election Night coverage in 2010, you almost wanted to send him a sympathetic fruit basket or a plate of fresh cookies. You figured that something would have to calm the man down — especially since the elephants couldn’t use the tranquilizer gun to put down one of their own. But then Breitbart would work himself into a lather and accuse the people who canned him of cowardice. And you realized he was beyond repair.

The American political kitchen is filled with pots that are fond of calling the kettles black. The American right is populated with leaders who not only refuse to compromise, but who refuse to understand that the beloved Republicans who came before them were forced to compromise to get things done. Andrew Breitbart represented the worst of them. Yet even as I write these words, this baleful pox is being lionized rather than lambasted, fondly remembered rather than coldly resented, even vaguely considered as a hero by the mainstream outlets. These lamentable results represent the nadir of present-day politics, but they also reveal why a gutless political fool placing bullying and spite before reason and might should be thoroughly denounced.

19 Comments

  1. Well that was a refreshing obit. Most of the comments I’ve read about AB called him “fearless”. To some it may seem fearless, to rational people he was just a frightened xenophobe. I guess we’re supposed to withhold judgement for the appropriate mourning period. Some of us only require a few seconds to collect ourselves from this news. Thanks for remembering him accurately and perhaps in the spirit of political-incorrectness that Breitbart embraced with such zeal. It’s a worthy tribute from the other America he so despised.

  2. I encourage the writer to actually do a little bit more research before posting a hate filled rant about another man supposedly involved with hate filled rants. I encourage anyone who took this article seriously to do their own research, whether or not you agree with Mr. Breitbart, or his political associations. This exemplifies what is so very wrong about the so called “progressive” point of view. Claim someone who disagrees with your point of view, a monster, villain, liar, pillar of hate, and homophobic racist. This was actually a man who dedicated his life to give more than one perspective of issues of a political nature. Whenever Anthony Weiner had his little incident with twitter, who actually stepped up to the plate to do some old-fashioned journalism? It was Andrew Breitbart. Whenever people claimed the tea party was nothing but a bunch of white racists screaming the N-word at democratic members of congress, this man offered a substantial bounty for anyone to prove such things happened. (This has still never been claimed) Like everyone alive today, he had his faults, but to claim this man and his family deserves little to no respect just because he happened to be on the wrong side of the aisle, is just pathetic. Again, I encourage people to actually research this man for themselves, because what I’ve read here is just another example of hate by association. Had this man been a liberal, he’d have been hailed as a hero. And just so we’re clear, my condolences go out to everyone who knew, and loved this man for what he was… a patriot.

  3. Hey Eddie, never heard of you, but I am mourning the loss of Andrew Breitbart. I doubt your passing will even be noticed. If you are mentioned at all, it will probably be in the context of “that guy whom was so disrespectful of, and wrote such a malicious obituary about Andrew Breitbart when he died, you could hear his jealousy of the popularity of Mr. Brietbart seething out of his pores.”

    This headline, followed by words penned by you aren’t quite ironic don’t you think?

  4. In life, he was a rabid, fanatical example of the “New Journalism”, which is just a rehash of the old “Yellow Journalism”. His sudden death was another indication of the random spite and venom ever coursing through his veins. It killed him just as surely as he would have liked to have killed anyone he disagreed with.

  5. Wow. Have no idea who you are Edward; found this site when I entered “hate” in Google. (no lie) Then I went to your other website and found out more. You do weddings? What a fun-fest… Do they hire you for the imminent divorce after your performance? I’ve never read such diatribe. You are a miserable human (and I use the term loosely).

  6. The first I had heard of this guy was this morning. It’s after lunch and I still don’t know why every one hates this guy so much. If the left hates him, it probably means he has something going for him.

  7. Cry some more, righties. Breitbart was a serial liar, racist, hatemonger, and scumbag. People are telling the truth about him and all you can do is spit a few pathetic insults and flounce off crying.

    Don’t think he ruined people’s lives for fun and profit? Shirley Sherrod. NPR. ACORN. People lost their livelihoods because he was an inhuman little nothing who hated the truth. He should have died long ago, and so shoudl the cowardly style of truth-killing he made his living in.

    To paraphrase The Soldier, “He’s dead, that’s good, amen!”

  8. I will “coldly resent” you, Mr. Edward ChampionYet even as I read your resultseveal why a gutless political fool placing bullying and spite before reason and might should be thoroughly denounced.

    Edward Champion represented the worst of them. This baleful pox will forever be lambasted, coldly resented The lamentable conclusion Champion makes in the above ‘article’ on the life of Andrew Breitbart represents the nadir of present-day politics, but also reveal why a gutless political fool like Edward Champion placing bullying and spite before reason and might should be thoroughly denounced.

  9. [Editor’s Note: Yet another dupe comment, as indicated by the “Eddie” nod.]

    “I encourage the writer to actually do a little bit more research before posting a hate filled rant about another man supposedly involved with hate filled rants.”

    Too much work, innit. Eddie would rather use that time to stick his finger up his rectum and give it a good sniff.

    Loved the Max Blumenthal smear piece you linked to, by the way. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re citing that discredited lunatic – he won’t be winning any media accuracy awards any time ever. 🙂

  10. [Editor’s Note: This comment comes from the same IP address as “Freak.”]

    Dear Eddie,

    You write hate. You write lies. Your conclusions reek of bias and your points are baseless. Go write about the dead people you like and leave the true biographical accounts of Mr. Breitbart to honest, objective individuals(from left to right) who respect and value human life, including the lives of people who work daily toward goals that reach to benefit something greater than themselves . I hope you have a moment of clarity someday, Eddie, in which it becomes evident that your childish rant and selective ‘reporting’ do nothing but harm to your credibility and nothing but harm to your readers. Don’t be foolish and unfair. Your “point of view” is a disservice to humanity and shows volumes about your own character.

  11. Whenever Anthony Weiner had his little incident with twitter, who actually stepped up to the plate to do some old-fashioned journalism?
    Someone at salon, actually. At the same time, bitefart kept twittering speculative twits. Only later did he turn out to have been lucky.

    … N-word at democratic members of congress, this man offered a substantial bounty for anyone to prove such things happened. (This has still never been claimed)
    I hereby offer a USD 2billion reward for a photo of the sky proving it is blue. Go ahead and try collecting your reward. In light of bitefart’s known ignorance of reality, nobody would bother to “claim” any reward he “offered”.

    I still don’t know why every one hates this guy so much. If the left hates him, it probably means he has something going for him.
    Well as the fools above recommended, go read a little on the web. In sum: bitefart was a wellpaid psychotic (by his own indirect admission) misanthrope (obviously, but also by his own direct admission).
    Evidently his “friends” weren’t much friends, else they’d have helped bitefart with his problems.

    Bitefart attacked people who did nothing against him. He deserves/deserved and earned defensive counter attack.

    PS. I am not “leftist” by any leftist’s definition.

  12. Given the amount of bile and hate that’s flowed from the left for the last decade, they have absolutely no moral authority to judge anyone, let alone Breitbart.

  13. In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy’s death, Breitbart called Kennedy a “villain”, a “duplicitous bastard”, a “prick,”and “a special pile of human excrement.” “I’m more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified,” Breitbart wrote. “Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it.”

    Don’t let the facts impede your opinions, Mr. Peschel. Breitbart in death is being treated exactly as he treated his political opposites in life.

  14. The No True Conservative Fallacy
    Given the amount of bile and hate that’s flowed from the left for the last decade, they have absolutely no moral authority to judge anyone, let alone Breitbart.
    Aha, so now, The Big Oxy and Gangwench are “the left”.
    But you think they “switched teams” only in the last decade?
    Or do you think their long careers of “flowing” bile, abuse, venom, and their demonizing since mid/late 1980s add up to only “the last decade”?

    _________
    The sleeping giant wakes slowly, but surely.

  15. Breitbart in death is being treated exactly as he treated his political opposites in life.
    Not quite. Nobody has damaged bitefart’s career by fraud.
    (Yet? Is posthumous career damage possible?)

    Anyway, recent hasty web bio’s indicate that bitefart enjoyed this kind of fracas. He’d enjoy people trashing him.

  16. Obviously you’re a lying pervert.

    Why do you never address the overwhelming hatred of which you and your ilk is guilty?

    I know why. You have no integrity.

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