Last Report on the Breitbartocalypse

Here it is, our last report on the disaster that is the Breitbartocalypse. We've got more from our in-the-field reporter, as well as an exclusive interview with the Policy Director of the Institutional Left™...

continued with videos at http://sumofchange.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-final-breitbartocalypse-report.html

dude stop it

what is happening

colombians be on some bullshit

I don't understand the sudden Breitbart thing. The dude's a completely empty noise machine, arguing with him would be like arguing with a toilet.

By "thing" I mean a fawning article in Wired about how he "hacks" political discourse or some blah blah, also ridiculously lengthy, uninteresting Slate piece.

he ba$ically talk$ in inflammatory pull quote$ that al$o make attention grabbing headline$ and generate lot$ of click$ for blogger$

search engine optimization, the right wing noise machine, what's the difference?

that slate piece was appalling

It's hacking because he does all that while rolling and listening to Orbital.

colombians be on some bullshit

^^^otm lolz

RIP.

Died "of natural causes" at the age of 43.

Guess this is already being discussed on two other threads...

BUMP

like a crack rock

OH

2/12/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4od4QQVK1o

Wish I was capable of this kind of charity, but I'm not.

Whoa. At age 43, Andrew Breitbart reportedly died of natural causes last night. My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

For obvious reasons, namely our polar-opposite politics and wildly divergent set of professional ethics, I was not a fan of Breitbart, and I cannot say that I felt his contributions to the national dialogue were constructive or positive in any way. He hurt people, shamelessly and wantonly, for political gain.

I didn't know the man personally, and what I knew of him I did not like.

But I am not glad he's dead. I would have preferred instead that he'd lived long enough to change his mind.

it's not really a change-mind thing though is it? it's not just his politics that were distasteful, it was his entire presence and manner of discourse.

i mean it would make about as much sense to say that you wish andrew dice clay would change his mind or something.

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1 Mar 2012 11:17 AM
The Sickness On The Left

There were few taboos or grudges or feuds or pointless partisan fooferaws that Andrew Breitbart didn't leap into; and so one can imagine his own glee/fury at the following Breitbartian headline:

Liberals Celebrate Death Of Andrew Breitbart

Nonetheless, the content of some of those tweets reveal something quite rotten. A man has died at a painfully early age. He has family and friends and colleagues. They are in grief. Yes, he was a public figure, who doled it out relentlessly. But his family is human. We can too easily forget they exist.

i mean it would make about as much sense to say that you wish andrew dice clay would change his mind or something.

except of course for the Diceman persona being a comedic persona

Is that K-Lo or Goldberg? xp

lol http://gawker.com/5889618/breitbarts-death-the-conspiracy-insta+theories

Sully

xp

pulling out tweets/blog comments by randoms is such an entry level ploy

unless its to serve lolz like the gawker link I posted of course

Ok, I read Tom Clancy. Breitbart was definitely assassinated.

'the sickness of the left' as evidenced by some guy on twitter

you would be hard pressed to find similar celebration if a liberal died

Yes, he was a public figure, who did exactly the things I'm accusing the left of being sick for doing. But his family is human. We can too easily forget they exist.

his family is most likely assholes fwiw

^quote that righteous scolds

put it on yr bloggggggg!

I assume Clancy guy is joking.

His father-in-law is Orson Bean! That tripped me out.

"Dad I want to marry this jerkface."

"...okay."

Poe's Law in action.

I assume Clancy guy is joking

Hardcore Clancy fans are very special people.

Anthony Jeselnik ‏ @anthonyjeselnik

So sad to find out who Andrew Breitbart was this morning.

haha damn

lol

xpost Am I wrong in recalling that Breitbart is one of those dudes that did change their mind, from left to right? Like Michael Savage or (sort of) PJ O'Rourke?

can't change what you never had. Breitbart was all spleen.

lol

― lag∞n, Thursday, March 1, 2012 11:07 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xpost

I don't believe that speaking ill of the recently dead is a great practice mostly for your own state of mind but, with that in mind, in case anyone might be feeling guilty about doing this:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/08/26/57997/breitbart-kennedy-twitter/

http://www.tobytoons.com/td/files/toons/2012/20120301_breitbart.jpg

"...and we mean EVERYTHING."

how did hitchens get up there

I am so very sorry... and in shock... to hear of Andrew's passing. We have lost a shining star, and a vital voice in the conservative movement. Rest in peace, Andrew.

Note to trolls: Please have the decency to keep your slimy comments to yourselves for the time being. Thank you.

MancowMuller ‏ @MancowMuller

My friend Andrew Brietbart MURDERED?!?? Or rumor?

MancowMuller ‏ @MancowMuller

Me with my friend @AndrewBreitbart #Breitbart He said he had something that was going to bring down Obama...Just sayin' pic.twitter.com/6PUsCNAL

MancowMuller ‏ @MancowMuller

Still don't know what killed Whitney. IMMEDIATELY it's Brietbart dead @ 43 of Natural causes?

Oh, good, Obama can have his very own Clinton Death Conspiracy Freakshow. Impeachment, here we come!

Wait, Mancow's still on the air?

Or does he just do Morning Zoo tweets?

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/580x250/29949.jpg

jus a couple down to earth normal guys

http://i.imgur.com/MLu1E.jpg

So sad to find out who Andrew Breitbart was this morning.

lol this was me 1 hr ago

Republican presidential candidates quickly responded to news of Breitbart's death. Former Sen. Rick Santorum called him a "powerful force" who was "constantly out there driving and pushing."

"What a huge loss, in my opinion, to our country and certainly to the conservative movement," Santorum said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted: "Andrew Breitbart was the most innovative pioneer in conservative activist social media in America. He had great courage and creativity."

And former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called Breitbart a "brilliant entrepreneur, fearless conservative, loving husband and father."

what horrible people

Hardcore Clancy fans are very special people.

Yeah, some of them run for President

He had great courage and creativity.

yes, "creativity." he deserved a best editing oscar for the acorn tapes.

I'm glad this guy's rotting in hell, and I hope these three GOP candidates join him soon.

Breitbart's kind of worse than at least two of the candidates (Gingrich eh, it's a draw)

ILX is like family, Bill, you don't have to hold back with us.

xpost

breitbart was worse than santorum imo

I do have to hold back.

obit by p4reene:

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/01/what_andrew_breitbart_made_and_what_made_him/

Orson Bean's conservatism is amusing cuz in college, we saw an off-Bway production of I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road, an autobio-revue starring and created by Jon Cryer's mom, which was classic end-of-'70s showbiz feminist entertainment. O.B. was the male lead.

xp
I don't know, it's the difference between being a horrible person and mean to people, or being a schlub who acts nice but wants to make everything you do illegal because he disagrees

Rush gettin' conspiratorial

He was walking outside his home in his neighborhood in Brentwood just after midnight, keeled over. People had talked to him two hours prior, he sounded perfectly fine. They're shocked. Family's stunned. I mean there were some reports of health problems, but there was no indication of this.

if there's an afterlife i hope that breitbart is currently feeling intense shame for the horrific things he was responsible for in his life

both incredibly horrible obv

the most innovative pioneer in conservative activist social media in America

something so sad about this phrase

He was walking outside his home in his neighborhood in Brentwood just after midnight, keeled over. People had talked to him two hours prior, he sounded perfectly fine.

Right. I think John Hughes died in a similar manner. I suppose a rival director had him murdered.

Alex's obit is good.

He was by all accounts a loving father and husband, and he leaves behind four children.

lol @ ending with this

he was walking around keeled over? dude sounds pretty athletic

just the "here's 10 paragraphs of horrible shit. oh and a sentence about something nice he may have done"

xp

obit by p4reene:

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/01/what_andrew_breitbart_made_and_what_made_him/

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, March 1, 2012 1:57 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pfft wtf does this appletini partyboy know

he was walking around keeled over? dude sounds pretty athletic

http://www.tagbanger.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/contortionist.jpg

i've never heard of him! :)

I never had til the "appletini" crack

Breitbart claimed to have been radicalized by the Clarence Thomas affair, but it was really his favorite radio station KROQ’s transition from late-1980s-style post-punk (Breitbart adored The The and Echo and the Bunnymen) to early-1990s grunge that drove Breitbart to Rush Limbaugh, and conservatism.

The idea of college radio escaped this man, I guess.

David Burge ‏ @iowahawkblog
A generous, kind, patriotic goofball who had excellent taste in the people he chose to drive insane. #Breitbart

"Goofball"

gotta be coke, right?

he had a former studio gofer’s obsession with making celebrity connections. Dwight Schultz from “The A-Team” wrote him a nice note. The acknowledgments to his book thanked Victoria Jackson, Dennis Miller and Jon Voight. He was star-struck upon meeting his future father-in-law, actor Orson Bean: “This guy had appeared on the Tonight Show couch seventhmost of any guest. His opinion mattered to me.”

he was fat and looked pretty out of shape, his heart might've just given out on him

"He ruined a number of people’s lives for no real reason, and he was generally a toxic influence on the national debate."

one for the headstone

Iow, the only ppl who would acknowledge the little starfucker were mediocre right-wing nutjobs so he decided to throw his lot in with theirs. Lovely...

Man, Ned, imagine the pain this nation might have been spared if he'd found KCRW or whatever.

Jonah Goldberg ‏ @JonahNRO
I don't care that you hated Breitbart. But the fact you think it's funny to play this game proves he was right about you.

*shrugs*

http://gawker.com/5889618/breitbarts-death-the-conspiracy-insta+theories

Man, Ned, imagine the pain this nation might have been spared if he'd found KCRW or whatever.

Great, he would have one of those guys in the late nineties all "Man I heard this great song on Chris Douridas's show!"

Trying to figure out who I'd mourn less

man you guys really hate this guy i've never heard of. :(

if i had a twitter i'd say "Andrew Breitbart, PBUH"

okay two things i've never heard of today.

Punk Bitch U Hated?

re: sullivan, i don't think ppl have to crude about it, but there's also no need to be sanctimonious. breitbart was obviously a destructive man who hurt others, himself, and while i won't celebrate his death, i certainly won't mourn it either. the world is probably better off without him.

http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/01/lists-whats-your-source-for-th

Andrew Breitbart describes his job function as “Matt Drudge’s bitch,” but he’s being modest: He’s the man behind the curtain at The Drudge Report, stirring up the site’s signature mix of scandal, box office returns, wire stories, and political tidbits.

celebrating his death is def way more morally defensible than celebrating his life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_be_upon_him_%28Islam%29

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1833078298/breittoast_reasonably_small.jpg

Is this the guy that dressed up like a pimp?

what a very shitty little man he was ... i say this knowing that none of his family would hang with such a bunch of commie elitists like the average ILXor.

Is this the guy that dressed up like a pimp?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, March 1, 2012 2:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was the employer of that guy

wasn't there one single hardcore republican who used to post here?

rip

his "mentor" if you will

xp

Following the news of conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart's unexpected death last night, Republican members of Congress eulogized him on the House floor today.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas spoke in front of a huge photo of Breitbart and teared up during his speech, calling Breitbart "an American hero of mine."

"He figured out how to shine sunlight inside offices of what was happening and gave a good dose of chemotherapy to the cancer," Gohmert said, referring to ACORN.

Gohmert compared Breitbart to both John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln.

He yielded the floor to Steve King of Iowa, who described Breitbart as "dynamic, brilliant, fearless, visionary, altruistic, passionate, unconventional, trailblazer, patriot, and lost friend."

King took an acorn out of his pocket and held it up, calling it a tribute to Breitbart's controversial ACORN videos (with James O'Keefe).

"I've been carrying this acorn around in my pocket for two years," King said. "I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for Andrew Breitbart."

King said that Breitbart's "influence will cascade across this civilization and this culture I believe in perpetuity just like the influence of John Quincy Adams."

Republican presidential candidates also mourned Breitbart today, with Rick Santorum telling reporters that the death was "a huge loss for the conservative movement." Both the official accounts for Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney also tweeted condolences.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web05/2012/3/1/12/enhanced-buzz-24124-1330624615-20.jpg

fn a man

"I've been carrying this acorn around in my pocket for two years," King said. "I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for Andrew Breitbart."

what is wrong with these ppl

King took an acorn out of his pocket and held it up, calling it a tribute to Breitbart's controversial ACORN videos (with James O'Keefe).

"I've been carrying this acorn around in my pocket for two years,"

shades of Gingrich's empty ice bucket

they're just so awful

pathetic...can u imagine if a democrat did that for a pundit? i mean i can't imagine a dem would tbh, for some reason.

Interesting comment by Ann Coulter that Breitbart was the only person who enjoyed "annoying liberals" as much as she does. That's what I can't stand about that crew. If you're passionate about conservative ideology then you should fight for it, but if on top of that you're willing to poison the discourse to a dangerous degree for kicks then fuck you - you reap what you sow.

when Dan Savage dies, how many Democrats will reveal that they've been carrying around bags of Santorum in their pockets every day as a tribute

"He figured out how to shine sunlight inside offices of what was happening and gave a good dose of chemotherapy to the cancer."

RIP beetbort, sunlighting that chemo to the cancerous offices of what was happening

punchline to pareene's obit was great, A+

louie gohmert and steve king, i'm shocked

xp lol elmo

did the demz do it for tim russert? they liked that guy.

plz see p4reene obit: these ppl are not really political. it's a game.

dunno why I'm lol'ing at beetbort

chemo is actually a reasonable analogy to some extent in that it's vv destructive as well

no, my son is also named beetbort

coulter bros down with liberals a lot, there's a lot of high society pundits of both parties enjoying cocktails together and then siccing everyone else on each other for the lols and the good material.

Frum has a few remarks.

ights, pornography, prayer in schools, and women in combat as the outstanding issues.
Those were not the issues that much interested Andrew Breitbart. On gay rights, he held almost the polar opposite view of Buchanan’s in 1992.
In fact, it’s hard even to use the word “issues” in connection with Andrew Breitbart. He may have used the words “left” and “right,” but it’s hard to imagine what he ever meant by those words. He waged a culture war minus the “culture,” as a pure struggle between personalities. Hence his intense focus on President Obama: only by hating a particular political man could Breitbart bring any order to his fundamentally apolitical emotions.

Because President Obama was black, and because Breitbart believed in using every and any weapon at hand, Breitbart’s politics did inevitably become racially coded. Breitbart’s memory will always be linked to his defamation of Shirley Sherrod and his attempt to make a national scandal out of back payments to black farmers: the story he always called “Pigford” with self-conscious resonance.

Whoops. First part: Yet perhaps Breitbart’s most consequential innovation was his invention of a new kind of culture war. Until recently, the phrase “culture war” mainly described the political struggle over religion and sexuality. When Pat Buchanan declared a “culture war” from the rostrum of the Republican convention in 1992, he specifically cited abortion, gay

Great piece.

We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century. Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions—by manipulating fears and prejudices—by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.

coulter bros down with liberals a lot, there's a lot of high society pundits of both parties enjoying cocktails together and then siccing everyone else on each other for the lols and the good material.

This is the essence, right ? The only answer I can think of when I wonder why your typical Indiana conservative doesn't understand he's being played by the same Beltway circle jerk having Bloody Marys at Cokie's is that he knows it's a game too.

We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century

Nope.

There's a reasonable chance Steve King will be out of a job after the next election.

Crossing my fingers

its always been pretty brutal out there.

x-post

surprised that Frum's reverence for the Framers doesn't extend to the political and media demagoguery of the 1790s.

another thing: ppl who mourn him bc he, by all accounts, loved his kids? that fact can only possibly impress you if you don't have kids. it is not a great feat of humanity to love your children. many terrible human beings have loved their children.

M. Drudge, above his banner:

"I don't think there was a single day during that time when we did not flash each other [...]. I still see him in my mind's eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20's. It was all there."

Erm.

many terrible human beings have loved their children.

Stalin-little-girl.gif

turns out 'flashing' was their lil nickname for instant messaging, sry to ruin this everyone

bummer

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/138/328574440_d06e3e5012.jpg

it's probably connected in some way tho to the same christian impulses that lead to ppl hand-wringing over whether you were allowed to be happy when bin laden was killed. i wonder to what extent it's about feeling like any death of anyone is sad, and to what extent it's that you're just never supposed to be happy about anything ever.

very touching tribute by the band Fishbone on their facebook page.

http://i.imgur.com/Hpg2M.jpg

ha

This is the essence, right ? The only answer I can think of when I wonder why your typical Indiana conservative doesn't understand he's being played by the same Beltway circle jerk having Bloody Marys at Cokie's is that he knows it's a game too.

Pareene or somebody else wrote about this last year, talking about how one of the many, many problems of our overmediated age is that we have plenty of assholes who get airtime throwing out garbage to underinformed audiences who can't see how loud they're winking at the camera.

Another aspect of how stupid and clueless punditry can be is when all politics is discussed only as politics, with no cognizance that there's plenty of psychology going on that ultimately overrides any political plank. E.g. Newt is an petulant asshole and being a petulant asshole is far more important than any political success.

still gigglin at 'beetbort' btw

this is kinda funny. frum:

“Of the dead, speak nothing but what is good.”

It’s an ancient rule and a wise one, but one that does not do justice to the life and career of Andrew Breitbart, dead today aged 43.

matthew yglesias, in two tweets:

Conventions around dead people are ridiculous. The world outlook is slightly improved with @AndrewBrietbart dead.

If you think @AndrewBrietbart's opponents shouldn't be glad he's dead, you're not taking his life's work seriously.

^^ i mean, that's the exact same sentiment right there

Taibbi

heh...

That's awesome

people who are being coy out of some sort of "every life is sacred and unique, even andrew breitbart" kind of way ... don't worry, the teabags and wingnuts will unleash a new and improved version of his ilk at some point in the future. they always manage to outdo themselves.

Just wondering: has Breitbart ever spoken ill of the dead? For extra credit: What's the most outrageous example?

Early this morning, news broke that Sen. Ted Kennedy had passed away after serving in the U.S. Senate for nearly 50 years. Soon after, conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart began a sustained assault on Kennedy’s memory, tweeting “Rest in Chappaquiddick.”

Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbart unapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a “villain,” “a big ass motherf@#$er,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.” “I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,” wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

took 3 seconds to google:

In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy's death, Breitbart called Kennedy a "villain", a "duplicitous bastard", a "prick"[15] and "a special pile of human excrement."[16][17]

When a fellow conservative tweeted to Breitbart asking him not to treat Kennedy like they believe some on the left treated the passing of Tony Snow and Ronald Reagan, Breitbart responded “How dare you compare Snow & Reagan to Kennedy! Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death? This isnt lib v con.” Despite his claim that his attacks weren’t about “lib v. con,” Breitbart repeatedly justified them in ideological terms.

“Look, this man was granted absolution for nothing. Class, life station played a part but PARTY was everything. GOP couldnt get away with it,” complained Breitbart in one tweet. “IF a GOP possesses 1/100 of human failings of T. Kennedy he/she is TOAST,” he claimed in another. “In this moment I cant but recognize absolute backwardness of media & society. Bush=EVIL. Ted Kennedy=SAINT. Im gonna keep fighin’, folks,” Breitbart said in another tweet.

Tabibi bit is lol

just getting around to fully reading the frum piece. this is a little ridiculous:

In time, Andrew Breitbart might have aged into greater self-control and a higher concept of public service. Premature death deprived him of the chance at redemption often sought and sometimes found by people who have done wrong in their lives and work.

the man was 43 years old

given another 43 perhaps...

yeah 43 punches in the face

dude looked 55

Andrew Breitbart spent his final hours much like he lived most of his life: passionately talking politics.

Breibart, the 43-year-old conservative pundit and provocateur who died suddenly early Thursday while walking near his Los Angeles home, had stopped into The Brentwood, a nearby bar and restaurant. There, he struck up a conversation with Arthur Sando, a marketing executive who didn't know Breitbart but likely was the last person to talk extensively with him before he died.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sando says he arrived at the bar in the tony Brentwood section of L.A. around 10 p.m. and soon the empty seat next to his was filled by a man with a familiar face.

"I tried to figure out how I knew him," says Sando, a veteran publicity and marketing executive who works for dietary supplement company MonaVie and has worked at CBS, King World Prods and Turner Broadcasting. "He was on his BlackBerry. And I said 'Andrew?' I told him I had seen his work."

Sando says the duo quickly struck up a conversation that would last a little less than two hours.

"He was friendly and engaging," Sando recalls. "I said, 'You can't be very happy with the slate of Republican candidates' and he said, 'Why would you say that?' I said, 'Well, they're talking about contraception,' and he said, 'The conversation is being framed by the liberal media.' I said, 'Well, the media isn't writing Rick Santorum’s speeches for him.' We had a back-and-forth for awhile until we said we weren’t going to agree on some things."

The friendly debate continued in the bar as Breitbart sipped red wine, says Sando. "We just hit it off, he was delightful. There were other people who sat down and joined the conversation."

Sando also mentioned that he hadn't seen Breitbart as a guest on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher recently; Breitbart told Sando he enjoyed going on Maher's show because it taught him how to deal with a hostile audience and how to react when getting booed.

Breitbart had stopped in for a drink but wasn't there to meet anyone in particular, Sando says. Nor were there any signs of health or other problems.

"He wasn’t drinking excessively," Sando recalls. "He was on his BlackBerry a lot."

After the two hours, Breitbart said he was leaving. "We exchanged contact information," Sando says. "We were going to get together."

Sando says he was "shocked" to read Thursday morning that Breitbart, who had a history of heart problems, had collapsed while on a walk near his home in the same neighborhood as the bar. Breitbart was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead at 12:19 a.m., according to Reuters, less than an hour after leaving The Brentwood.

The exact cause of death has not been revealed but initial reports said it was natural causes.

"There were no signs that anything was wrong," says Sando. "It's very sad."

"He kept going to the bathroom for a couple of minutes at a time and sniffling. I thought his allergies were acting up."

I blame the Blackberry.

In Skyrim when a troll dies all that is left is a small steaming bowl of troll fat

"Remembering Breitbart" bit on Hannity pretty amazing. Some contributor "All the great people find new technologies to go around the left wing media to talk directly to the people, like Roosevelt with the radio..."

it's probably connected in some way tho to the same christian impulses that lead to ppl hand-wringing over whether you were allowed to be happy when bin laden was killed.
― Mordy, Thursday, March 1, 2012 8:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty sure these aren't "christian impulses" but rather "trying not to be an amoral monster" impulses. but it would be pretty rad if there were people throwing spontaneous Breitbart death block parties like they did for OBL .

pretty sure that being happy when a terrible person dies is not being an "amoral monster"

being super gleeful about an assassination raid is pretty iffy on moral grounds. I don't think having mixed feelings about it or questioning whether happiness is the proper response to OBL's death was due to a "christian impulse."

being super gleeful about an assassination raid is pretty iffy on moral grounds.

obviously i disagree with your premise. it depends on who is being assassinated.

say, a terrorist, or head of a state that routinely kills people

if rachel maddow, paul krugman, michael moore, or some other individual that the Teabags passionately hate suddenly dropped dead i doubt that there'd be much handwringing amongst that lot about whether or not it's proper to "celebrate" their deaths. they're reaping what they sow and i don't give a fuck if some liberal somewhere isn't sobbing buckets over this piece-of-shit's death gives them the vapors.

I'm just saying that the idea that "handwringing" over death celebration is a christian impulse is just total nonsense.

maybe a Buddhist impulse

i know that's what you're saying, but you're not doing a good job of disproving it. i posit that the handwringing comes from a pervasive cultural sense of 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' (Matthew 5:44) deeply embedded in christian ethics.

dancing on yer enemy's grave is a human impulse ... no amount of Christianity can ever displace that.

Matt hates Christians more than Christ amirite

spiritual, not religious

i know that's what you're saying, but you're not doing a good job of disproving it. i posit that the handwringing comes from a pervasive cultural sense of 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' (Matthew 5:44) deeply embedded in christian ethics.

― Mordy, Friday, March 2, 2012 4:04 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um, you live in america right

I would love to live in a country that has this "pervasive cultural sense"

I think he's talking about the ones who have integrity

I think loving your enemy, e.g. not joyously celebrating assassination death, would be something found in pretty much all religious faiths. but I guess it's not pervasive or something.

if this was so pervasive then I doubt the death penalty would be enforced in almost every US state.

would be something found in pretty much all religious faiths

presumptuous, tbh.

lol

In the new 24/7 mediaverse, in a brutal, unending culture war, with the web unleashed and news and opinion flashing every few seconds, you can very easily lose yourself, and forget how and why you got here in the first place. There have been times writing and editing this blog on that kind of insane schedule for more than a decade when I have wondered who this new frantic way of life would kill first. I do not doubt that Andrew tried to keep a balance, and stay healthy, but like the rest of us, became consumed with and overwhelmed by this twittering, unending bloghorreic chatter. It takes a much bigger physical, emotional and spiritual toll than most realize, and I've spent some time over the years worrying it could destroy me. Here I am, after all, at 9.30 pm, still blogging, having just filed another column, and checking the traffic stats, and glancing feverishly at every new item at Memeorandum.

Human beings were not created for that kind of constant unending stress, and the one thing you can say about Andrew is that he had fewer boundaries than others. He took it all so seriously, almost manically, in the end. The fight was everything. He felt. His anger was not feigned. He wanted to bleed and show the world the wounds. He wanted to scream. And he often did. And when you are on that much, and angry to that extent, and absorbed with that kind of constant mania, and obviously needing more and more validation, and on the online and real stage all the time, day and night, weekends and weekdays ... well, it's a frightening and dangerous way to live in the end.

He is in that sense our first new-media culture-war fatality. I fear he won't be the last.

Sullivan, of course.

it's rough out there in the blogosphere

so frightening and dangerous!

work has started on the blogger memorial at the national mall

r.i.p. first casualty of the culture wars. it was tough being angry all the time for dumb reasons.

CELEBRAAAAATE MY DEATH

literally killed by blogs rip

2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

Mt. Rushmore jpg: Breitbart, Drudge, Sully, Josh Marshall.

Breitbart seemed coked out of his gourd.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:20 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whatever he's snorting is aging him remarkably fast. isn't he like 40?

― it's smdh time in America (will), Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:23 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

behaaaaaaaaave.

― Clay, Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:24 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Breitbart seemed coked out of his gourd.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, February 12, 2012 2:20 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm told people could smell the whiskey on his breath on the A's in behaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave yourself

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:45 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hes one messed up dude

― lag∞n, Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:46 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am weirdly satisfied by the fact that his last major moment on video was calling me and my friends "filthy animals"

u killed him u monster

u filthy animal

behave

"stop raping the people"

otm

btw it was "freaks and animals," my apologies to mr breitbart, who is surely looking upon my journalistic error with great consternation at the great hack jam in the sky

funny, if say the MC5 called their audience "freaks and animals" from the stage in 1970 it'd be taken as a compliment

coming from breitbart it is 100% a compliment

On the issue of celebrating a villains death, etc. fact is we are living in America and even if you ran around shaming OBL Death Parties it wouldn't change the fact that you've contributed financially, socially, culturally, etc, towards his death. If being gleeful and acting like a sports fan about it is 'iffy on moral grounds' then what of funding it with taxes & being complicit in the whole post-9/11 war thing? I'll define complicit in this case as anything less than moving to a country not involved in these wars. Acting like an gleeful fool is bad sportsmanship ok, but it doesn't matter imo as long as you are playing the game.

Unless you don't live in America, of course.

iffy moral grounds make the best coffee imho

even if you ran around shaming OBL Death Parties it wouldn't change the fact that you've contributed financially, socially, culturally, etc, towards his death. If

^if you are saying i am somehow complicit in bin Laden's death, I'm happy to accept that.

In the new 24/7 mediaverse, in a brutal, unending culture war, with the web unleashed and news and opinion flashing every few seconds, you can very easily lose yourself, and forget how and why you got here in the first place. There have been times writing and editing this blog on that kind of insane schedule for more than a decade when I have wondered who this new frantic way of life would kill first ... well, it's a frightening and dangerous way to live in the end.

kinda worried abt max and ghost rider now

be careful dudes

you've contributed financially, socially, culturally, etc, towards his death

i try to be more humble about my contributions to OBL's death, but if you insist...

I've written something on Breitbart and his acolytes (including James Delingpole, of whom most US readers will be blissfully ignorant).

http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/the-rage-machine-breitbart-delingpole-and-the-internet/

did Sully coin that term "bloggorhea" because if so well done sir

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/on-making-yourself-right/253889/

When I heard that Andrew Brietbart had died, I was saddened. It is natural to think of the damage Breitbart did to people like Sherrod by embracing lying as a weapon. But I found myself thinking of the great injury he must have ultimately done himself, for by the end of the Sherrod affair, he was a man lying only to himself and other liars.

That's nicely put.

Dave Weigel, meanwhile:

The Breitbart call would last no less than twice as long as you thought it could. Previous calls had dealt with the merits of the forgotten ‘80s group the Alarm (Breitbart loved them), whether the Ting Tings had another album in them, and whether “Swamp Thing” by the Chameleons was the best song ever written.

beetbort beetbort beetbort

probably shouldn't say beetbort 3 times lest you summon him

oh shit

just makes me think of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i14prAxnV1E

the merits of the forgotten ‘80s group the Alarm (Breitbart loved them)

ok, he was completely worthless

from the comments to the TNC post:

Neighbors73 4 minutes ago

Okay. I love this and I'm intending more to listen then to say anything---but typo alert at the end of Paragraph 3. I think it's "revenge."

lol

Matt Johnson was part of Red Wedge

When Ted Kennedy died I know a few liberals who lamented how he'd tarnished his legacy with his early recklessness; they were willing to admit that they were ambivalent about the man. The reaction to Breitbart's death on the right shows – starkly – the difference between the liberal and conservative sensibility. He's a hero, pioneer, Thomas Paine, revolutionary, indispensable. No acknowledgment of the damage done to Sherrod.

They're going to find the next few years amusing. Or is it that I'll find them all the more amusing?

how the corner received the news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkWj-jd1ric

still waiting to be convinced this guy was remotely significant in ANY WAY, but let's not try.

Well he shut down Acorn so I'd say yes re significance.

I hear he introduced Judd Apatow to Seth Rogen

A couple of guys in my gym this morning were talking about how big of a loss this was. I held my tongue.

tongue-holding very much out of character

Agreed. But since moving to the south, i find myself outnumbered. The run-up to the Georgia Republican primary is unreal. Sometimes you just gotta grin and bear it.

don't talk to people at the gym if you can help it

Don't talk to people if you can help it tbf. They'll usually just disappoint or piss you off.

Has anyone else noticed that a number of MSNBC shows and Keith Olbermann have not even mentioned Breitbart's death? What gives? Not wanting to give ammo to their adversaries?

Young Turks (on Current TV) did a lot of negative stuff on him, though they interviewed him about two weeks ago.

Young Turks (on Current TV) did a lot of negative stuff on him, though they interviewed him about two weeks ago.
― President Keyes, Friday, March 2, 2012 8:52 PM (6 minutes ago)

Oh yeah, I forgot them...thanks

I've been trying to figure out who he reminds me of, and I think it's David Hemmings with beard:

http://disinfo.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/AndrewBreitbart.jpg

http://www.redtelephone66.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/happens-thumb1.png

He looks like a conductor in that shot, actually. Someone needs to shop in a baton.

Bill Maher didn't say a single word about beetbort on his show last night. I kind of dug that.

But weren't they buddies, at least to an extent? Maher seems like just the sort of hypocrite to lay off the smarm when it's a buddy of his.

I don't know if they were pals, but Maher always seems to appreciate batshit conservative fuckfaces, at least when they're bringing the lols on his show. I fully expected a maudlin, drawn-out, excruciating "tribute" to Breitbart last night, but fortunately, nothing of the sort transpired.

Has anyone read Friedersdorf's response?

But I found myself thinking of the great injury he must have ultimately done himself,

do they mean in terms of his political credibility?

cos we have know way of knowing how A.B. perceived himself or whether it "took a toll" or whatever. i mean he died at 43 obvs but that could be a congenital heart defect or just a lot of drugs and alcohol and not taking care of himself.

also are we supposed to feel bad for bad actors because their bad actions make them pariahs? i mean, if that happens, that means society is, you know, _working_.

Why did I just read the comments on tha Atlantic article o_0 Boggled at the women commenters vigorously defending Limbaugh. its like that batch of tweets from women welcoming Chris Brown to hit them. Good luck usa.

Also ugh, beetbort looks scarily like a bitter, abusive long ago ex of mine with that fat face and tiny, mean little mouth. Makes me feel ill.

do they mean in terms of his political credibility?

I think they mean in terms of the damage done to his soul.

Driftglass:

The Conservatism Retrovirus left us open to infection from a whole suite of  opportunistic wingnut disease, and from Falwell to Limbaugh to Beck, Conservatism has permitted each of them and all of their mutant imitators to breeze past democracy's natural antibodies -- an educated electorate, an honest press, a respectful politics -- and settle in for a nice, long parasite feast.

Andrew Breitbart was just such an opportunistic disease: another ratfucking bastard child of Lee Atwater and Roy Cohn who took a sociopath's glee in the wide, pestilential path he carved through America's political media. He destroyed people and pissed on their graves for fun and profit and prospered because he completely understood and embraced what a collection of monsters and meatsticks the Right truly is.

Mr. Breitbart didn't just get things terribly wrong: he was an able and eager leader of the dregs of American culture whose flock giddily embraced darkness and evil.  As I wrote back in 2010:

The People of the Lie

"Narcissists...project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others." 
— M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie"

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever to the Conservative Movement for the last 30 years that the Breitbart BigGovernmentMiscreant site has quickly rallied itself to respond to the glaringly indisputable fact that its owner is a lying shitbag.

I hope you weren't waiting for an apology...

Here's the headline:

From JournoList to Shirley Sherrod: The Left’s Default Response Is Fascism

by John Nolte...

Since I don't link to sites run by liars and frauds, if you want any more of Nolte's scintillating defense of his meal-ticket, you'll have to Google it yourself. Suffice it to say, you'll probably want to have a Kevlar sick bag on hand.

I post it here today (along a few of the comments it generated) to underscore a larger, sadder and much more important point: sooner or later, Liberals as a Movement must come to terms with the fact that people like Breitbart -- who operate with a free hand and a blank check at the very heart of the Conservative Movement -- are not simply crazy or misguided or possessed of a strange but equally sincere ideology, but genuinely evil.

And the reason we keep banging our heads when trying to cope with evil is that evil renders our entire Liberal toolbox worse than useless.

Evil doesn't care about policy or governance. At. All. Which is why we are so often reduced to a spluttering "But don't they realize...?" incomprehension when the Right stomps on the throat of the weak and defenseless...again. While smiling...again

Evil does not have a conscience which can be appealed to, or a sense of shame which can be invoked.

Evil doesn't give a shit about fair play or reason or causality or the niceties of democracy.

When faced with positive proof that what it is doing will harm others, Evil says "Go piss up a rope, hippie."

"Evil deeds do not make an evil person. Otherwise we would all be evil. If evil people cannot be defined by the illegality of their deeds or the magnitude of their sins, then how are we to define them? The answer is by the consistency of their sins. While usually subtle, their destructiveness is remarkably consistent. This is because those who have "crossed over the line" are characterized by their absolute refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness." — M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie"

What evil has in place of a conscience is vanity, megalomania, greed and an all-encompassing fear that they will be found out and ridiculed for being the wretched, little scuttlefish that they are. 
They live in terror that someone might see the sorry state of their mingy soul, which is why they band together for protection under the banner of an ideology which glorifies cruelty and heartlessness, and why they reserve their most furious hellfire for kindest of people.

This is why they hate Shirley Sherrod -- a woman they did not even know existed a week ago -- with such hysterical, berserk fury, why they eagerly swallow every ACORN lie that churns out of the Breitbart/Beck/Limbaugh Paranoid Conspiracy Factory and beg for more: to Evil, those who advocate publicly on behalf of kindness, justice and compassion, and who -- by lesson and language -- implore their fellow citizens to assay their souls in a clear and Christian light are the sources of scalding pain.

Every act of decency rubs Evils' nose in the horror of its polluted existence, and every public gesture of confession and humanity threatens extinction.

Faced with these threats, Evil has no recourse but attack!attack!attack! 
...
The estimable Ta-Nehisi Coates puts the matter more kindly here:

... That is what took me to sadness. I have experienced curiosity as a primarily selfish endeavor. It originates in the understanding of the brevity of life, and the desire to see as much of it as possible, from as many angles as possible without doing too much damage to my morality. The opposite of that -- incuriosity, dishonesty, the opportunistic deployment of information -- is darkness. Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss.

I have heard it said by some fellow liberals that Breitbart was in fact a good person, that his public persona was not the same as his private. This kind of praise is so broadly true of most controversial public figures as to be meaningless. And it is irrelevant. Breitbart may well have been an excellent father and a great friend but that is not why we are talking about him. We are noting his death because of the impact he had on our politics and our conversation. It must be said that that impact was for the worse. Any talk of his private life, is an attempt to change the subject and avoid discomfiting truths. ...
but I believe however gently we choose our words, the moral of Mr. Breitbart's brief and ugly life is blunt and clear.

The children Mr. Breitbart tragically left behind are his progeny.

But the lesson that he left behind -- that among Conservatives is now considered a noble thing to turn a buck selling comforting lies to moral degenerates -- is his true and tragic legacy.

I'd forgotyten he was the guy who torpedoed the vile fuck Weiner.

so even an evil man can do some great good. RIP

i am sorry that 99.9999999% of the world does not satisfy you. unfortunately this is the only one you'll ever know.

nowhere near true, am. it's politics that are pure shit.

In his final column, he takes on...Chicago storefront theater!

lol that column is the incoherent ranting of a crazy person

Also in 1937, Despres and his wife delivered a suitcase of “clothing” to Leon Trotsky, then hiding out from Stalin’s assassins in Mexico City.

lmfao

"Despres worked with secret Communist and Soviet spy Lee Pressman to support strikers at Republic Steel in Chicago in 1937; the strike ended in tragedy when 14 rioting strikers were killed and many wounded in a hail of police bullets. "

charitable of him to call it a tragedy i guess

And with a hail, farewell and an acid-dipped shiv:

http://gawker.com/5890660/andrew-breitbart-big-deal-big-coronary-big-corpse

damn mobutu

Can Shirley Sherrod continue with her defamation lawsuit against his estate? Or is that suit now dead? I'd hate to think that he managed to screw her one last time by dying.

Apparently the suit is continuing, last I checked. It'd be appropriate if his own videotaped snippets resulted in him losing.

And with a hail, farewell and an acid-dipped shiv:

http://gawker.com/5890660/andrew-breitbart-big-deal-big-coronary-big-corpse

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, March 6, 2012 5:19 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ouch. i think they relation the acorn stuff poorly (taibbi was better on this), but otherwise OTM.

i think breitbart fans are trying to use the #war hashtag on twitter?

matthew yglesias' book has 205 1-star amazon reviews now, haha damn who are these people

Jesus, that Gawker piece is brutal.

ok damn

https://twitter.com/#!/margaretjoskow

His mom was a malfunctioning copyright twitter bot?

he really was king of the trolls

i think this guy is behind it

http://twitter.com/#!/morganwarstler
http://twitter.com/#!/morganwarstler/status/175674803343204352

huh, he is

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=13358#comments

read the comments, if you have hold no real value to your time, like i do, apparently

good find. fuck that guy.

Kurt Schlichter ‏ @KurtSchlichter Close
The person who is going to come along and carry on for #Breitbart is reading this. it's you. Don't you see? That's Andrew's message. #War

i saw that comment on the site and thought man, what kind of failure of decency and ambition is it to want to carry on for beetbort?

xpost -- In that case I surrender.

tbh i think engaging w/those dudes is basically giving them more clout, they thrive on the conflict and w/o it they're nothing.

http://www.oneinchpunch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/war_jet_li_jason_statham.jpg

really doesn't speak well of this man's moral sense

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=13516#comment-142231

though if u check the troll feed right now it's... pretty funny

http://twitter.com/#!/margaretjoskow

a caricature? nice commitment to your trolling i guess

thats some vile shit

i know, justin bieber isn't even dead

rip biebs

http://patdollard.com/2012/03/breitbart-news-names-executives-who-will-run-company-in-wake-of-andrews-death/

fuck that guy btw

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0jotp11p51rpy179o1_500.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/forourposterityvenividivici/