Patterico's Pontifications

3/1/2012

Andrew Breitbart: Some Personal Memories

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:58 pm



The last time I saw Andrew Breitbart in person was one month ago. We saw each other almost every month, at the house of a mutual friend who hosts a monthly dinner party attended by all sorts of interesting people.

I met Andrew several years ago at the precursor to that function, an event hosted by Scott Kaufer at the Yamashiro restaurant. That’s where I met Cathy Seipp, and it’s also where I met Andrew Breitbart.

I can’t believe they’re both gone.

The next dinner party is tomorrow night. I expected to tell him a few things. I still can’t believe I won’t get to tell him.

One month ago, Andrew and I were among the last people to leave. We lingered at our friend’s house with Roman Genn for a good hour. The discussions are off the record as a rule, but I’ll break the rule to note this: Andrew said he loved his wife and kids in that conversation.

And I will say that he was his typical self: so completely honest and forthright about himself, even if his stories made him look like a complete idiot, that you had to love him. There was something completely endearing about the way that he just said what he thought, and told things the way they were — and it didn’t matter how it made him look. At all. He said it anyway.

We laughed and laughed.

Andrew and I were often among the last to leave, and there was one time late last year when the things I was telling him seemed important enough to both of us that he invited me into his car, and we continued the conversation for about 20 minutes.

One day I’ll tell you what that was about, because I think it was important. And I think he was starting to see that it was important. Yeah, I’m teasing something for the future. Now where did I learn that technique?

IN THAT VEIN: Andrew used to let me in on a lot of scoops. He would allow me to tease things, which was fun for me — and allowed me to come back later and proclaim: Always trust content from Patterico! I knew he had the Weiner pictures before they broke. He called me about one of the ACORN stories before it broke. And so forth. I still have vivid memories of walking around in my backyard talking about ACORN, or walking in the street in front of my home talking about a story about a violent criminal — and always feeling like I was being let in on secrets that the whole country would care about the next day.

He didn’t care which Republican candidate got elected. He just cared about the truth. He had a severe case of ADD, in my amateur opinion, and when he got stories wrong it was because he wasn’t being careful. Not because he was dishonest. The man didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body. He was totally honest, all the time. Whatever he thought, he would tell you.

I read today that he was a homophobe. When he threw a party for gay Republicans at CPAC. I read today he was a racist. When he fought for poor black farmers screwed in the Pigford settlement, and was inspired to enter public life by the indignities heaped on Clarence Thomas.

What crap people will spew when they don’t know someone.

I never said this before, but Andrew wanted to hire me to work for him a while back. I guess it’s OK to say that now. The problem was, I have a family and need a stable job, and I love what I do, and I couldn’t make my hobby into a career for half the money. But though I couldn’t work for him, I somehow want to live up to what he wanted me to do. It will be tough to balance that with the rest of the demands in my life. But I’ll try.

But mostly, I just can’t believe that I don’t get to see him tomorrow night. I’ll walk in the door at my friend’s house, and somehow I will expect him to be there. And everyone will be talking about him. But I won’t get to talk to him.

How does that suddenly happen to a 43-year-old man?

Anita Busch called me this morning and told me she wants to work on a fund for his children. Some of you have contacted me to ask if you can help his children. We are going to figure that out and I will get back to you.

This post feels very disjointed and rambling. It’s totally honest. It’s what I’m thinking. But it’s just whatever thoughts I happen to be thinking, unfiltered, spilling out onto the virtual page.

As a post about Andrew, that feels just right.

86 Responses to “Andrew Breitbart: Some Personal Memories”

  1. Thank you for this. It is what I have most wanted to hear.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  2. Tomorrow I hope to “retweet the hate” by posting a compilation of the crap people have said about Andrew. Because he would have wanted that.

    And I am going to tell off Frum, Yglesias, and Ehrenstein. All of whom are dead to me.

    But not now.

    Just really really soon.

    Patterico (feda6b)

  3. Sir, the friendship you shared with him is not surprising. The man you describe is someone who would respect integrity and honor like yours. You are different then he was obviously, but you share some of his finer virtues.

    I have largely avoided places that would talk of him other than your thread here and Facebook. I did not want to hear the trash, I wanted to share the company of good people. Thank you for hosting a place I could turn to, and for sharing these special moments, though it must have been painful and hard. It is appreciated.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  4. Roman Genn (born May 17, 1972, Moscow) is an American artist.

    He is most well known for his illustrations for the conservative magazine National Review, of which he is a contributing editor.

    Genn grew up in Moscow and moved to the United States in 1991.

    While living in the USSR he was repeatedly arrested for publicly exhibiting anti-government caricatures.

    notma

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  5. Thank you Patterico.

    I feel a sense of great loss just from having followed so many of the stories involving AB closely and fighting off the malicious efforts of the left to distort what he and his colleagues had actually done.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  6. the malicious efforts of the left to distort what he and his colleagues had actually done

    i just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don’t own me…

    If I’m gonna die, I wanna still be me.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  7. most of us can’t afford to think like that

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  8. Redeye is brilliant tonight.

    Patterico (feda6b)

  9. I don’t know that I can retweet the hate tomorrow.

    I had so much fun watching that show tonight and just feeling like he was still around.

    Patterico (feda6b)

  10. This was comforting for me to read. Thank you.

    Noodles (3681c4)

  11. Thank you for this post, I look forward to the unveiling of your tease. I think we are only vaguely beginning tonunderstand how important Breitbart was tô the Conservative movement. I would gladly give to a fund for his family – please email me when this gets put together and I’ll send along all profits from this design I made up: http://www.zazzle.com/andrew_breitbart_apologizing_tshirt-235168615739728690 . God bless!

    Soopermexican (56811b)

  12. I’m glad someone is thinking about his kids. Hopefully his wife will be able to understand that he left a huge hole in the blogosphere…and that she was married to a genius.

    But, yes, we need to offer our support…a fund would be a nice thing to do

    rk (f61a6c)

  13. My profound sadness was not lessened by the RedEye tribute. Not sure why. Could be that I am just not handling this very well, and nothing would suit me.
    I do enjoy Patrick’s personal reflections. Perhaps more of those are what I need.

    sybilll (b6c25a)

  14. #9,”I don’t know that I can retweet the hate tomorrow.”
    Comment by Patterico — 3/2/2012 @ 12:58 am

    I am glad to see this. I would prefer to see you hold off on that. Breath some clean air and bask in your memories a bit.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  15. My heart aches. I am truly sorry for your loss, Patrick.
    A.B. was someone I did not know, but made me feel that he was taking care of things, for all of us.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  16. No need to RT the hate. Treacher did that ably today (yesterday, I’m up too late).

    Joe (b9dd11)

  17. From the intro piece…

    Oh, they’ll hide it behind a facade; the smirks will be papered over with Serious Looks. But they are already sniggering behind their hands.

    Naw, they’re not hiding it at all. Just go look at Taibibi’s piece in The Rolling Stone. Then read the libtard comments that follow.

    If you were doing this, to, say, Chris O’Dummmellll, you’d never hear the end of how crass and eeeeevil you were to be saying such things over a man’s dead body.

    I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of The Easy Solution... (8e2a3d)

  18. Thanks for sharing your memories, Patterico. It gives some insight into Andrew and into you, as well. As moved as most of us are by what he accomplished and what he stood for, I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it must be for those who knew him well. And for his wife and children.

    Colonel Haiku (0d9d91)

  19. I’m sorry you’ve lost your friend.

    Xmas (c39642)

  20. He would allow me to tease things, which was fun for me…

    It was fun for us, too. The fact that you were able to do that, to be part of his big reveals, made us feel a little of that reflected glory.

    I’d read one of your teases, and immediately think “something BIG is coming!” And knowing that made me feel like I was in the game.

    The game just got a little harder to play.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  21. Patterico – there’s no event in one’s life, i’ve found, like the loss of a good friend. I am sorry for your loss.

    aphrael (963465)

  22. I don’t want to overstate it, aphrael. We weren’t close friends. I never made it to his house, though I always meant to. In between the events we would speak on the phone on occasion but not regularly.

    It didn’t matter, though. We felt like we understood each other. The sudden nature of it is just startling any way you slice it.

    I didn’t sleep much last night.

    Patterico (feda6b)

  23. This is just sucky.

    JD (ddebbb)

  24. The man you describe is exactly how I imagine him. That’s why I don’t understand all the hate toward him. It’s as if nobody cared to listen to what he was saying, and just hate against what they wanted him to be.

    As I said yesterday, Patterico, you and Lee and AB are and were so brave. And for that I thank you.

    MayBee (081489)

  25. Andrew Breitbart was honest.

    That is exactly why the LIBTARD COMMIE LEFT hated him. He shined a light on cockroaches.

    Going forward, our fight against these sick dishonest freaks should always include a heartfelt “thank you” to Andrew Breitbart. The more the LEFT hates you, the more you are on target.

    Gus (36e9a7)

  26. And I am going to tell off Frum

    I know that Andrew was your friend, but you’re going to have to go some to top Ace’s crushing of Frum. Frankly, if Frum had any self respect, he’d crawl into a hole somewhere and curl up into a fetal ball.

    I never met Andrew Breitbart, but I know that he was a fighter, a tireless warrior. That will be missed. And as the father of three small children, I cannot imagine the grief that his family is enduring right now. My prayers go out to them and to you, his friend.

    physics geek (6669a4)

  27. ______________________________________________

    I read today he was a racist.

    In honor of Andrew Breitbart, who described himself as converting from being a typical limousine liberal growing up in LA’s westside (chock full of LLs—but, again, one does not have to be wealthy to exemplify the two-faced, phony nature of liberalism), discovering reality and finding a ray of common sense entering his mind later in life, I hereby re-post the following…

    calvin-coolidge.org:

    Although [Democrat, progressive, US President 1913-1921, winner of the Nobel Prize, champion of the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations] Woodrow Wilson received only 5% to 7% of the black vote (in the states where they could vote) [black activists] [Monroe] Trotter and W.E.B. Dubois had backed him, believing anything would be an improvement over the two previous Republican presidents. They were wrong. The new Democratic Congress immediately enacted laws barring racial intermarriage in Washington, DC. Wilson went along. Signs bearing the words “whites only” and “blacks only” began appearing above toilets and drinking fountains throughout the city. Jim Crow practices crept into federal agencies. The number of black presidential appointees dropped sharply – from 33 to 9. Blacks only divisions were created, beginning with the Departments of Treasury, Post Office, Navy, and later the Interior, all headed by Southerners.

    When black leaders voiced concern [about blacks-only windows being created in post offices], Wilson told them segregation was necessary because of the friction between [postal] clerks of both races. When Trotter reminded the president that for fifty years, clerks had worked together harmoniously – even during the previous Democratic administrations of Grover Cleveland – Wilson, by his own admission, lost both his temper and his judgment.

    [D.W. Griffith’s film, “The Birth of a Nation”]…had been based on a novel, The Klansman, [a sympathetic portrayal of the KKK] by Thomas Dixon, a friend of Wilson’s. The President said the production was “like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it’s true.” Others called it “history upside down, complete inversion of historical truth.”

    A representative of the Irish American League proclaimed the production a “disgusting, brutal, libel on the colored people of the country.” Harvard’s President Emeritus Charles Eliot denounced the movie as “false history.”
    ________________________________________

    seattletimes.nwsource.com, November 1991

    Harry Truman [Democrat, US President 1945-1953, who chastised conservatives/Republicans on the campaign trail, and supported the idea of public healthcare] who made civil rights a federal priority for the first time since Reconstruction, expressed strong racist sentiments before, during and after his presidency, a historian says. Although Truman toned down his racist expressions after entering the White House in 1945, he continued to use racial slurs in private conversation for the rest of his life, said William Leuchtenburg, president of the American Historical Association.

    In 1911, the year he turned 27, Truman wrote to his future wife, Bess: “I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman.”

    “(Uncle Will) does hate Chinese and Japs,” Truman continued. “So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia and white men in Europe and America.”

    More than 25 years later, Truman, then a U.S. senator from Missouri, wrote a letter to his daughter describing waiters at The White House as “an army of coons.” In a letter to his wife in 1939 he referred to “n—– picnic day.”

    Leuchtenburg said recently that some scholars have known about Truman’s racist utterances since his letters were opened. “But somehow,” Leuchtenburg said, “this has not permeated the public consciousness.”
    _____________________

    frontpagemag.com: Years after Truman left office, [TV producer David] Susskind was working with the former president on a television documentary. Wrote [James] Humes [writer of speeches for five presidents]:

    Susskind said that each morning he would arrive at Truman’s house at Independence [Missouri]. He would wait on the porch on a cold February day while Mrs. Truman went to inform her husband of his arrival. After about the fourth morning, he asked the president in his walk why he was never asked inside.

    “You’re a Jew, David, and no Jew has ever been in the house.”

    A nonplussed Susskind replied, “I am amazed that you who recognized Israel and championed the integration of the army would say such a thing!”

    “David,” he explained, “this is not the White House – it’s the Wallace [Bess Truman’s maiden name] house. Bess runs it, and there’s never been a Jew inside the house in her or her mother’s lifetime.”

    But of course it wasn’t just his wife. As president, Truman was constantly complaining about Jews. At a cabinet meeting in 1946 he angrily remarked, “If Jesus Christ couldn’t satisfy them here on earth, how the hell am I supposed to? I have no use for them and I don’t care what happens to them.”

    aman.members.sonic.net

    Larry Patterson [Clinton’s bodyguard in Arkansas] confirmed that he frequently heard Bill Clinton use “n—–” to refer to both Jesse Jackson and local Little Rock black leader Robert “Say” McIntosh. Longtime Clinton paramour Dolly Kyle Browning corroborated Patterson on Clinton’s use of “n—–.” “Not only did he use the ‘N’ word, he called him a ‘GDN’ [goddamn n—–], if you catch my drift,” Browning told Fox News in 1999. [NewsMax, 17 July 2000] Brown also told NewsMax that the president would regularly make derogatory comments about African-Americans in private. “He has used the ‘N’ word before. Bill would make snide remarks about blacks behind their backs.” [Carl Limbacher and NewsMax Staff, 17 July 2000]

    Patterson said Hillary was no stranger to the “N” word either. He heard her say “n—–” “probably six, eight, ten times. She would be upset with someone in the black community and she would use the ‘N’ word, like, you heard they’ve got the president’s brother on tape using the ‘N’ word.” [NewsMax, 17 July 2000]

    It’s all in the family: Captured on videotape when Arkansas state police had Hillary’s brother-in-law Roger Clinton under surveillance for dealing cocaine in 1984, Roger stated: “Some junior high n—– kicked Steve’s ass while he was trying to help his brothers out; junior high or sophomore in high school. Whatever it was, Steve had the n—– down. However it was, it was Steve’s fault. He had the n—– down, he let him up. The n—– blindsided him.” [NewsMax, 17 July 2000]

    Mark (31bbb6)

  28. I didn’t know anything about Brietbart’s background before, it just seemed that all of a sudden he exploded on the scene out of nowhere, “boldly telling the truth where no man had gone before”. Not, that I hardly know anything about him now, other than that he had been around in the background at drudge and huffington post getting his new media experience, so that when he went out on his own he made an instant (big) impression.

    I imagine he would think that more important than joining him in his endeavors would be to be like him, fearless for the truth, in whatever sphere we are in. And yes, the main reason to dislike someone like that is when a person doesn’t share a desire for the truth, but prefers to live in a world governed by lies (more “politely” described as one’s “narrative of choice”).

    In the short term there are few things that make me more angry than seeing lies believed and the truth denied, but in the end the truth will win out- it just often takes much longer than we would like. The truth sits there like one of the Swiss mountain peaks. It doesn’t move, it doesn’t need constant attention to cover-up for it. When all of the spin-meisters have woven a web of deceit that collapses under its own weight, the truth will still be there.

    In keeping with his indulgence of your teasing, is the video safe and sound and scheduled to appear as planned??

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  29. Patterico: again, sorrow for your loss. For all of our losses, including folks on the Left. They don’t get it; Andrew Breitbart was committed to shouting down hypocrisy.

    I don’t care to comment here much anymore due to all the rancor and trolls and nonsense in the comments section, oh my. But I learn from many of the posters, and I learn a great deal from you. Thanks for writing what you do, and in particular these memories of Andrew Breitbart.

    I want to encourage you to speak out against these awful people who are denigrating the man, in particular on the day he died.

    Let’s be fair. There were some people who wrote nastiness, were criticized, and then apologized. It’s part of our Twitterfied/Internet world: we take the people with whom we disagree politically, and make them into The Enemy, so anything bad we say is okay. And we are still great people when we say those awful things.

    Except we aren’t. The people who apologized realize it, and see that it is similar to cussing people out while driving. It feels anonymous and safe. Except it isn’t.

    I know people (and so do you) who have written the most hateful, evil things about Breitbart on the very day he died: that he was a drug addict, a drunk, a fascist, that he was worm food, that no one should care about his children because that was his fault, that they are happy he is dead..the list goes goes on and on. And yet I know good people who defend people saying that kind of thing, that they are good people who have wrong ideas.

    They aren’t.

    Again, sometimes folks post crap and then apologize for it. That’s normal. But going on and on—like the people you specifically mentioned—that is a bad sign. It shows such a lack of humanity and empathy, I think.

    I put it this way, regarding “good” people who repeatedly write hateful things about Andrew Breitbart: let’s read their rantings out loud to his widow, and ask her if they are good people?

    Look, even Media Matters tried to be tactful. There is a time to fight, and a time to respect the family and friends of the dead.

    So the people who have written such nasty, nasty stuff should be held accountable for their words. They need to process how, if they are supposedly good people, they write such hateful things. And just maybe (unlikely, I realize), they will come to see the error of their ways.

    Don’t misunderstand me. People have a right to express their opinion. They have a right to disagree, or even dislike. But I have the right to consider them to be despicable nutjobs for being so full of hatred and bile. And most of them never even met Mr. Breitbart!

    I have been called a hypocrite for feeling so strongly on this topic. But I will only observe that I am not the one urinating on the memory of a man the day of their death. Some have brought up Mr. Breitbart’s comments about Ted Kennedy on his own demise. I think that Ted Kennedy did any number of nasty things, repeatedly, in the record…that make any extreme statement by Mr. Breitbart look quite minor. That being said, I have always maintained that I was sorry for Ted Kennedy’s demise (because his death cut short the chance for him changing), and absolutely I felt for his grieving family. I will bet you Mr. Breitbart felt that way about Ted Kennedy’s family.

    But as the saying goes: h8Rs gotta h8.

    Like the people who call Andrew Breitbart a homophobe or racist, when he was demonstrably neither of those things…having stood up for gays and blacks more than most of the people flinging that terminology around as you point out. Again, I believe that Breitbart was opposed to hypocrisy above all. And in particular the hypocrisy of the powerful.

    Sorry for the long speech. I’ll go back to lurking now. I was just so saddened by his early death, thinking about the grief of his family, and outraged by the people (and they were not rare) who were dancing on a dead man’s grave, and thinking themselves fine people as they did so.

    Simon Jester (995bf7)

  30. I liked Matt Taibbi’s send-off from the left it wasn’t really anywhere near as horrible and caustic as Mr. Instapundit made it sound

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  31. Last year I had the opportunity, and pleasure, of meeting Andrew Breitbard. He, along with J. Christian Adams, John Fund and Anita Moncreif, were at a “True The Vote” seminar put on by the King Street Pariots.

    The King Street Patriots, which is truely a grass roots organization, have as their mission statement to make sure that no one’s vote is disenfranchised by illegal votes. They were already doing yoeman’s work in Houston when they caught Andrew’s eye. His support of them was implemental in getting their message out and creating the huge organization they now have. Recent, True the Vote took on the signatures in the Scott Walker recall, managing to recruite hundreds of volunteers to cross reference the signatures and show the very corruption that is the recall itself.

    That was Andrew. His support of independent groups trying to make a difference meant everything.

    Andrew Breitbart understood one thing; that the tactics used by the left could also be used against the left as they were not immune to their own foul ways. And he did, all the while maintaining a smile on his face, exposing their abolute hypocracy.

    My lasting image of Andrew Breitbart will always be the one he told me of; going to an ACORN protest against a major bank in his own home town, on roller blades. To make a long story short, as the ACORN goons were shouting “We are ACORN, mighty, mighty ACORN” Andrew skated into the crowd shouting the same thing. Armed with a camera, Andrew asked the protesters why they were there. None knew, they only knew they were directed by ACORN to go protest the bank, nor did they seem to know that Andrew was not one of them.

    Once his ADD kicked in, and Andrew tired of their shenigans, he started telling the ACORN goons that they were now being ordered to meet at a local Denny’s. One by one, the goons left to met at Denny’s, and Andrew went home. That was Andrew’s brilliance; being able to use the left’s tactics against them, all with a smile on his face and laughing at them. And that is the reason the left hated them. He exposed them to the light of day.

    But that is the image I will forever carry of Andrew Breitbart. One man, on roller blades, skating into the belly of the beast, and slaying the beast without firing a shot.

    retire05 (a4365a)

  32. To make a long story short, as the ACORN goons were shouting “We are ACORN, mighty, mighty ACORN” Andrew skated into the crowd shouting the same thing. Armed with a camera, Andrew asked the protesters why they were there. None knew, they only knew they were directed by ACORN to go protest the bank, nor did they seem to know that Andrew was not one of them.

    Once his ADD kicked in, and Andrew tired of their shenigans, he started telling the ACORN goons that they were now being ordered to meet at a local Denny’s. One by one, the goons left to met at Denny’s,

    That is incredibly funny. Andrew had a backbone, a funnybone, and he was a genius. Some of his responses and plans just fit perfectly once they were implemented, leaving the rest of us in awe.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  33. I can’t believe they’re both gone.

    Cathy Seipp and Andrew Breitbart, two brilliant meteors in the sky of journalism.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (f4c297)

  34. The roller blade story is my favorite of all of the Andrew stories for its multiple absurdities; esp. the image of AB gliding by the goons like Nancy Kerriga, and the quickness with which his easy manners transmuted the vacant show-protest into a cut-rate pancake party.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  35. Patterico – are the folks left behind at his websites ready to pick up the mantle? Who will keep it all going?

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  36. there are no cut-rate pancakes only cut-rate pancake eaters

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  37. I don’t really care to see any of the lefty tweets or posts. The “carrying on” part has more interest to me.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  38. I have heard that ACORN members are lousy tippers, hf.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  39. That was a wonderful story, retire05. Not many people could do that and it’s a large part of why Andrew Breitbart will be irreplaceable. But each of us can do something, no matter how small, and together it will add up to something very big. To me, that is Andrew Breitbart’s legacy.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  40. Sarah, I know that Breitbart News Network LLC has positions like Chief Operating Officer And VP for Business Development. I don’t know who holds those roles today, but it wasn’t Andrew himself.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  41. Actually, I think that “retweeting the hate” and making the haters own their words is important. Which is why Andrew Breitbart did it; most folks on the Left think that they ride on unicorns of purity and niceness—or are faux-tough guys, to be fair. Regardless, I think they need to own it.

    Good reading:

    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/02/wapo-gosh-arent-breitbarts-foes-being-awfully-kind-to-him-after-his-death/

    Or did you want the public perception to be that Mr. Breitbart’s foes were kindly and civil upon his death?

    Simon Jester (6a8415)

  42. speaking of the ACORN Mr. Taibbi used his column to draw his obamawhore readership’s attention to the sleazeyness that was ACORN

    I thought that was very sweet, even if it was laden with the surfeit of doucheyness Mr. Taibbi is so burdened with

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  43. I don’t really care to see any of the lefty tweets or posts. The “carrying on” part has more interest to me.

    Comment by Sarahw

    I was retweeting them for a while and then it just really started getting to me. I got pretty depressed. I often engage a couple of these creeps. Usually one at a time. But this is first time I tried to keep up with the volume of hate.

    I don’t know how Breitbart did it. I do think it was valuable that he did.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  44. We are all Andrew Breitbart now.

    Gus (36e9a7)

  45. Someone who cheered the then likely passing of the pope, yes that’s a solid perspective I’d like to here (in New York Press in 2005)

    narciso (87e966)

  46. Your post was honest and on point. You actually knew the man (I could worship from a distance), and your anecdotes are insightful. If you thought you were rambling, I hope that, at least, it was therapeutic.

    Patterico, just keep doing what you’re doing with renewed vigor.

    John (3fb46b)

  47. Ehrenstein’s blog post is particularly vile. And dumb. He wrote that Breitbart has four daughters; I believe it is three sons and one daughter. Not that I ever did, but now I really don’t regret all the times I slammed him for his ridiculous ad homs during his occasional ventures into this blog.

    Icy (7fba82)

  48. Patterico:

    I wouldn’t overstate it, either, but you yourself said:


    It didn’t matter, though. We felt like we understood each other.

    I think you are entitled to mourn him as a friend, and that this in no way diminishes the loss felt by others who are so entitled.

    I didn’t sleep much last night.

    I can’t imagine that you would have.

    aphrael (99dff9)

  49. Mark:

    My political roots are in liberal interntionalism; as a teenager, the ideal behind the League of Nations and the UN struck me as being self-evident, and their failure a tragedy. Wilson was a hero of mine, once.

    I was shocked to the core when I learned about his effect on race relations in the US.

    Simon Jester:

    that no one should care about his children because that was his fault

    You know, this kind of thing really pisses me off.

    I mean, it’s one thing to speak ill of the dead on the dead on the day of their death. It’s uncouth and rude and marks a man off as less than he should hope himself to be; but it’s at least about the target of the underlying anger.

    Speaking ill of, or wishing ill towards, those who loved the recently dead? That’s utterly barbaric behavior for which there is simply no excuse.

    aphrael (99dff9)

  50. That’s utterly barbaric behavior

    Well said, my friend. There are many folks who stand for the same things the ‘left’ stands for, but are civilized and have self respect and self awareness.

    —–

    I just read this from J C Adams:

    I asked Andrew last week, “why do you retweet all of the ugly horrible things people say about you?” His response: “it shows what the Left really is. How ugly they are.”

    “Doesn’t that pain you personally?” I wondered.

    Obviously not enough. Andrew Breibart was an American who ignored the personal pain to defeat the enemies of liberty and justice, like the patriots at Kings Mountain or the righteous at a Greensboro lunch counter. And that makes him a Great American.

    That doesn’t mean Machinist or Sarah W (both really great commenters) are wrong. I like how Adams captures that this is painful. Andrew was a human being, and even though he appeared to be invincible to all the horrible things Shuster et al would say with a smirk, of course he wasn’t. When he appealed to them to tell the truth instead of lies, he sincerely wanted that to happen.

    And as Breitbart’s last tweet to Lamar showed, he had good faith about it and just sought intellectual honesty.

    I don’t think there will be many who are tough enough to really ever do what Breitbart did so fearlessly.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  51. #50,Comment by Dustin — 3/2/2012 @ 10:32 am

    Dustin, I assume Patterico will post the nasty stuff, and I can just skip it if I wish. I was thinking it might be better for Pat himself to wait a day or more to think well of his friend before wading into the muck.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  52. I think one way to honor Andrew Breitbart is to continue his effort to expose evil thoughts and deeds in order to seek the truth.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  53. Machinist, I think you’re right. I also think you’re right he can give that project a little time.

    I will try to do my (very very small) part in continuing to expose evil thoughts and deeds, DRJ, and as we all do our part, one observation we’re all going to have is that Breitbart was strong to do this.

    That understanding is probably one of the best ways to honor him.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  54. I agree, though I hope my evil thoughts never become an issue, or public.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  55. I used to be used as a troubleshooting manager, sent to operations that were in trouble and needed help. You had to be comfortable with being hated and very much alone.

    This was nothing compared to what he faced but it helps me appreciate how much courage he had and what a sacrifice he made to brave that river of hate. He was a far better man than me.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  56. I never had any cointact with Andrew Breitbart. I once attempted to write to him, but he never responded. I had read that he answedred most of his mail. I wondered if he thought I was hostile. Now I think maybe it is that he was in ill health. (Also maybe he didn’t want to answer the question)

    And, looking it over, maybe it’s somewhat incoherent, with several things pushed together, and he might not have parsed it correctly, or read to the end. The question is in the last paragraph. And I wasn’t supposing taht patriotusa was telling the truth exactly.
    ——————

    On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 12:30 pm EST I emailed andrew@breitbart.com as follows:

    The New York Times reports today at…

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/business/media/27breitbart.html?sq=brietbart&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all

    The Right’s Blogger Provocateur by JEREMY W. PETERS

    that “If you write him, chances are you will hear back” and it seems to gove [SIC] your e-mail address as andrew@breitbart.com

    BTW, giving out contact information is rare for the New York Times – maybe the Vdeliberately snuck it in. (in the form of a quotation)

    Now back on or around June 7th the New York Times reported:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/nyregion/conservative-group-scanned-weiners-posts-warned-women.html

    A Twitter Group Warned About Weiner
    By JENNIFER PRESTON

    …that patriotUSA76 (a nom de plume that started twittering on January 6, supposedly belonging to a Dan Wolfe, whom Ace of Spades reported you thought was female because he/she used the word “vile” (was that the only reason?)

    SarahW on 6/18/2011 @ 6:35 am on Patterico’s Pontifications in comment number 8 to Timing, Weinergate & Nikki Reid https://patterico.com/2011/06/18/timing-weinergate-nikki-reid/

    ….described patriotusa76 as a “ridiculous persona – all Reagan and crying eagle 9/11 bumperstickers too too much.”

    Later on, at Comment number 42 on 6/20/2011 @ 9:52 am in the post

    Questions for NYT’s Jen Preston and Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher, in her parody – very good parody – of the fake RAW to GC messages in which GC is shown to be in control of the Nikki and Maricella accounts – she used it again and described him/her as a “Ronald Reagan Crying 9/11 eagle patriot”

    Weiner: Brilliant! And you shall tweet for them. But first we shall create a Ronald Reagan Crying 9/11 eagle patriot to draw in the rubes essential to our plan.

    Anyway, back on June 7 the New York Times reported:

    “On May 5, Mr. Wolfe told him that he had a friend who knew Matt Drudge who had said that a scandal involving a member of Congress was coming soon. The same day that Meagan Broussard, 26, of Texas, said that she had received an e-mail from Mr. Weiner with a photo she had asked him to take, while holding up a white piece of paper that said “me.”

    At 6:35 p.m., Mr. Stack, using his Twitter handle, @goatsred, posted: “Rumor … a ‘bigtime’ Congressman caught with mistress. There are pix and a top 5 right-wing blogger has them. @RepWeiner is it you?”

    Do you think Patriotusa meant you (as the friend of Drudge)? Can you shed any more light on this? How did this scandal become a mistress? there never was a mistress.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  57. The original “friend of Drudge” citation actually got edited out of my email. Now I can’t find it.

    The sopurce for Mike Stack, who posted that “top right wing blogger” was patriotusa I remember.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  58. The sopurce for Mike Stack, who posted that “top right wing blogger” was patriotusa I remember.

    Can you rewrite this? I don’t understand.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  59. No, here it is.

    Right in that New York Times article I quoted:

    Back on June 7 the New York Times reported:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/nyregion/conservative-group-scanned-weiners-posts-warned-women.html?_r=1

    “On May 5, Mr. Wolfe told him that he had a friend who knew Matt Drudge who had said that a scandal involving a member of Congress was coming soon. The same day that Meagan Broussard, 26, of Texas, said that she had received an e-mail from Mr. Weiner with a photo she had asked him to take, while holding up a white piece of paper that said “me.”

    At 6:35 p.m., Mr. Stack, using his Twitter handle, @goatsred, posted: “Rumor … a ‘bigtime’ Congressman caught with mistress. There are pix and a top 5 right-wing blogger has them. @RepWeiner is it you?”

    I sent that to Andrew Breitbart on June 27 in an email message, which he never responded to. I quoted it here but I guess it got caught in the spam filter. The email actually is quite hard to parse.

    I wanted to ask Andrew Breitbart if he thought that by “a friend who knew Matt Drudge” patriotusa meant him.

    That doesn’t mean that Dan Wolfe actually had any kind of contact with Breitbart, or was telling the truth about what contact he had. You note Dan Wolfe/patriuotusa (was making somebody else his original source source and if he meant Breitbart, he was changing Breitbart to the source. While in reality maybe Breitbart was being supplied with pictures by him or his group.

    I thought that Andrew Breitbart thought I was hostile, or he didn’t want to answer the question and tell what exactly what kind of contact he had had with Dan Wolfe, because he felt it needed to be secret still.

    Now I wonder if maybe the fact he was somewhat ill was the reason it was never responded to. Or that my message was a jumble and not really formatted so as to be understood because I looked at it again..

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  60. I think number 56 was delayed in appearinmg first and number 57 appeared first.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  61. “My political roots are in liberal interntionalism; as a teenager, the ideal behind the League of Nations and the UN struck me as being self-evident, and their failure a tragedy.”

    Well, hopefully, you’ll wise up as grow older.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  62. Dana Loesch wrote that the pictures she was seeing on the morning of Friday night/Saturday May 27/28, sent to Bigjournalism.com that night by Dan Wolfe – she had seen before!!

    They were not only the same pictures Meagan broussard has sent. There was more.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  63. Patterico says here now:

    I knew he had the Weiner pictures before they broke

    That’s not just the ones he got from Meagan Broussard. The other ones on Weiner’s yfrog account too, if I understand correctly.

    Dan Wolfe sent Dana Loesch several pictures the night of the scandal causing tweet including some that really are X-rated. Dana Loesch then said these are the same pictures she has and that’s very weird. (because she has them from a totally different source, not screencaps)

    I don’t think Meagan Broussard got all the pictures. Maybe that’s wrong.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  64. Why is a fund necessary? What is needed is for some lawyers and accountanst to volunteer their time and set up something to market his writings. Load up a e-book on amazon.com etc.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  65. Dustin – thanks for responding to my worries about who will keep things going. I suppose there is no master-juggler-maven replacement for Andrew, though. How could there ever be. I do hope the websites keep going.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  66. “I think number 56 was delayed in appearinmg first and number 57 appeared first.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman ”

    Yeah, that’s right.

    I think SarahW’s observation was correct. At the time I disagreed… I thought this person was simply unsophisticated and genuine.

    For different reasons than Ace’s, I thought this person may be female. But it’s not responsible for me to relay my theory publicly because of what’s happened to some of these people. Basically everyone with a real name looking into Weinergate got screwed with. Lee Stranahan had a BS police report filed on him. Patterico was attacked. Mike was attacked. Others were attacked. Family members were impacted.

    That’s the context I didn’t understand when I was commenting on this initially. This story is no longer about Weiner or his mistress (Which you are correct… that was never shown). This story is much more about real life attacks that about some tabloid gossip about a weirdo Congressman.

    I never kept up with the actual pictures, but it’s possible Weiner sent the same picture to multiple people.

    I do not think Breitbart was Dan Wolfe’s source for anything. I think speculation about these things needs to be kept grounded because this isn’t the twisted yet trivial tabloid mystery it seemed at first. I remember thinking this whole story was funny, actually. How wrong I was.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  67. So hard to lose a husband, father, friend, and leader. Keeping good thoughts for all those who feel this loss.

    I read and loved his book the first week it came out, and just watched his CPAC speech. After having been so disillusioned, for so long, one sentence in his speech has re-energized me: “If you are not on the side of the Republican candidate, you are on the OTHER side!”

    TimesDisliker (a76078)

  68. I suppose there is no master-juggler-maven replacement for Andrew, though. How could there ever be.

    It’s a great loss. I hope it inspires a lot of people to pick up slack, but it is a real loss. In that specific way, I don’t think a fully recoverable one.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  69. Why is a fund necessary?

    It doesn’t just help the kids and spouse.

    The flowers we send to funerals aren’t just to help the family. They are an expression.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  70. “If you are not on the side of the Republican candidate, you are on the OTHER side!”

    Indeed! Whoever wins the nomination must be supported.

    Colonel Haiku (4b6771)

  71. Great piece, Patrick.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  72. 25-
    “Andrew Breitbart was honest.
    That is exactly why the LIBTARD COMMIE LEFT hated him…”

    I’m sure he would have endorsed the comeback of:
    I’ll stop telling the truth about you when you stop lying about me!

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  73. I think that Dan Wolfe might have been pretending (or hinting) that Breitbart was his source (when actually he hoped to leak the story through him)

    I think it’s also likely they thought there was a mistress (even though there was not. Weiner just wanted to keep in practice.)

    “Nikki” was not hoping to entrap Weiner – she was hoping to befriend a jilted mistress and then get pictures from her (and even then hide her role)

    Meanwhile Dam Wolfe was organizing a campaign against Weiner that would cause him maybe to drop and jilt a mistress! Which mistress then would share picturess with Nikki, who would persuade her to go public.

    Nikki became 17 because she wanted to get close to ETHEL – the girl in Delaware. When that didn’t happen, she tried to break her up with Weiner the best she could.

    As for who was behind it, the campaign of John Liu is still a good candidate for that.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  74. National Review’s Morning Jolt has a lot of him and tghey did put it on the web

    http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  75. That’s not a permanent link. So here it is:

    What Yesterday Taught Us

    By Jim Geraghty
    March 2, 2012 9:19 A.M. Comments 8
    Many Jolt subscribers asked that today’s version be posted in its entirety.

    Everyone you see in the political world has his public face and his private face. At Ricochet, James Lileks shares this story:

    [Andrew Breitbart] was at my house last summer for a party, and it was a great raucous event — everyone was his friend by the end, if they wanted to be. Andrew stayed late. Everyone else was gone. We were having a last drink in the kitchen, waiting for his cab. He was leaning up against the counter, expressing frustrations about how he was regarded by the establishment right, the difficulty of getting the message through the thick stone walls of the mainstream media, the damned toll of it all sometimes, the discouraging moments when rewards seemed scant.

    He could tire, and did; perhaps he had his moments of self-doubt that may have stabbed as deep as any conviction he was on the right path. I remember that conversation, because it was the opposite of everything else he always was — and it made who he was all the more remarkable.

    If I seemed particularly vocal about the pain I felt on Thursday, it was because my primary memory of Andrew Breitbart was of his private side. It’s not that he and I were particularly close. We chatted a few times at CPAC over the years.

    But on the 2010 NATIONAL REVIEW cruise, he, his wife, and his four utterly adorable kids missed the first shuttle at the hotel, along with my wife and myself. So we spent some time waiting for the shuttle bus to return, and then on the bus ride from the hotel to the cruise ship — a good chunk of the morning.

    All of us saw the Andrew Breitbart of the web, radio, and television: pugnacious and combative, fearless and sharp, and yet cheerful and seeming to relish every moment. In his public appearances, we saw Andrew Breitbart the provocateur. But that morning, and quite a few times that week on the ship, I got to see glimpses of Andrew Breitbart the dad. I’ve joked that I wanted to see a sitcom or reality show built around the Breitbart family. His four children could very well all turn out to be mini-Andrew Breitbarts with that same spirit of mischief, that same seemingly limitless energy, that same endless reserve of laughter and fun. I heard a lot of “What are you kids doing? Get down from there!” It was the same exasperation that I find myself experiencing with increasing frequency as a father.

    So, needless to say, my first thought was of those four children.

    When some particularly twisted souls started using this occasion to show their character and what they’re made of, I found myself behaving in a way I don’t usually behave.

    You probably heard Matt Yglesias’s first response on Twitter: ”Conventions around dead people are ridiculous. The world outlook is slightly improved with@AndrewBrietbart dead.”

    I don’t usually suggest physical violence toward others. That’s certainly not the way I want to see myself or the kind of example I want to set for my sons. But, if you’re going to say things like that — just an hour after word arrives that a man suddenly died, leaving his wife a widow and his children fatherless — I don’t think you should be terribly shocked that some folks will want to register their disapproval over the bridge of your nose. And you’ll have it coming.

    Really, holding one’s tongue, offering even disingenuous expressions of sympathy, typing the letters “RIP,” when did that get so hard? When did that bar become too high? We have these cultural traditions for a reason. (A quite conservative sentiment, I suppose.) We have them for many reasons, high among them, avoiding mourners’ registering their objections across the noses of the snide and obnoxious. (It’s one of the reasons I strongly suspect that if some grieving parent were to machine-gun a whole flock of the Fred Phelps funeral protesters, every witness would suddenly get struck blind and every jury would remain stubbornly unconvinced.) We shouldn’t suggest that mocking the dead in front of those mourning a loved one is an invitation to violent retribution; the American people are a kind and patient people. But even the most kind and patient people have their limits.

    I had observed, yesterday, that there were not merely a handful of folks on the left sneering about how happy they were that Breitbart had suddenly died. There were gobs and gobs of them, all over Twitter and the web at large. If you need examples, Charlie Spiering collected plenty here, though I’d urge most of sound mind to avoid putting themselves through reading that.

    You can call this whatever you like — the Daily-Kos-ification of the Left, perhaps — but it confirms what many of us suspected and/or feared. I didn’t want to believe it, really. I personally know too many people I’d identify as Democrats, if not liberals, who are too decent to ever express such raw hate and cruelty. But a large chunk of the rank and file of the Left — way more than a small percentage — really don’t believe that their opponents deserve anything resembling basic human dignity or respect.

    We’re not really people to them. It’s not an accident that New York Times columnist referred to his critics on Twitter as “right-wing lice.” They’re not good, decent Americans who just have some different ideas about how to make the world a better place. They run on hate. It appears their entire sense of self-worth is driven by demonizing those who disagree with them and celebrating their political viewpoints as the cardinal measurements of virtue and good character. They are positively energized by the thought of lashing out at those of us who have the audacity to think differently than they. They really do project and accuse the opposition of all their worst traits: rage, closed-mindedness, cruelty, intolerance, bigotry, and an inability to empathize with others. And they completely lack self-awareness. They are blind to the irony of their actions. As someone said on Twitter today (I can’t find the comment now), “How many of the people celebrating Andrew’s death have a ‘NO H8′ icon on their avatar?”

    If, in their minds, we’re not deserving of that respect they clamor for endlessly — if their instinct, upon seeing us mourn is to “get in our faces” (a phrase that our president once strangely used) — they really cannot be entrusted with any power. They really would do away with us if given the chance.Does our side have jerks? Sure. Someday, some prominent liberal will unexpectedly pass away, and someone will make some horrid, snide comment. I doubt it will be in the same volume, though I’m sure much of this is in the eye of the beholder. But I do think that if some righty says some variation of “Hooray, that lefty died suddenly! I’m so glad his wife’s now a widow and his children are fatherless,” you will see other righties denouncing that. Even if the liberal you detest most keels over tomorrow, that’s not right. No liberal voice in America deserves to have his death celebrated the way we righteously celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden. Don’t take pleasure in others’ grieving.

    We want them to grieve the political loss of the presidency, not the loss of their loved ones.

    Anyway, this has been a grim and miserable Morning Jolt to end the week, so I’ll brighten things a bit to close.

    The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash offered one of the very finest columns about Breitbart’s passing, including this golden anecdote:

    Our friend, Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson, had won the Ayers dinner at an Illinois Humanities Council auction, and had brought us along. Tucker and I were a little worried that we had in our possession a human grenade in Breitbart, though if we were being honest with ourselves, that’s precisely why we brought him. With Andrew, every day was anything-can-happen day.

    As it happened, Breitbart was on his best behavior. “I’m here to learn,” Andrew said facetiously. It was part of the pleasure of keeping company with him. He wasn’t just a friend, he was a co-conspirator. Once we arrived at the apartment, much to Andrew’s and Ayers’s chagrin, they got along famously. Just two guys having dinner, finding commonality, even if Andrew regarded it his hidebound duty to passive-aggressively heckle Ayers as he served us plates of hoisin ribs and farmhouse cheeses. (“This is the bomb, Bill,” Breitbart said to the former explosives-rigger.)

    When Ayers asked me what I was reading right now, I told him “Moby Dick,” which actually lived up to its billing. Ayers agreed, though added, as any good academic would, “You’ve picked up the gay subtext?” Breitbart nearly choked on his tofu and quinoa. “You mean in Moby Dick?” Andrew asked. “Or at this dinner?”

    …As Thursday wore down, several conservatives remarked that they felt more unified than they had in a while; our mutual shock, grief, and admiration for Andrew reminded us all how much we share with each other — after a primary season in which it has often felt as if we’ve all been at each other’s throats. Perhaps on Monday I’ll expand on this point, but for now, if one of my less-preferred candidates ends up getting the nomination (COUGH, Newt, COUGH), hey, affix bayonets and charge, and let’s make that guy president. We can deal with his flaws after the inauguration. Right now, this country’s being run into the ground by the president who got elected by all of the folks who chose to dance a jig at our friend’s passing. Like Hell are my boys going to grow up in a country where these losers set the standards of behavior and their juvenile sneers at the recently deceased are normal.

    If this is how they want to play this game, then game on.

    As Ben Howe put it, “Dear Republican primary candidates: freakin’ draw straws or something. We’ve got work to do and you’re slowing down the works. . . . Dear Left: I’m coming for you.”

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  76. Yeah, that’s all plausible, Sammy.

    No disrespect intended, but I’d hate for a thread about Breitbart to become about convoluted theories of the weinergate story.

    So let me segue this to one of Breitbart’s most awesome and courageous moments: the talk at Anthony Weiner’s press conference.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  77. My 2:00 was a reply to the 1:55 comment.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  78. Dave Surls,

    Well, hopefully, you’ll wise up as grow older.

    That really doesn’t seem like the right spirit for this conversation, or a reasonable response to an observation i’m making about how I used to feel and how I reacted to a piece of information that, at the time, truly shattered my world.

    Thank you for your concern about my wisdom.

    aphrael (d46bb0)

  79. “Thank you for your concern about my wisdom.”

    You’re welcome.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  80. Comment by aphrael — 3/2/2012 @ 2:23 pm

    Aphrael, I appreciated what you shared. I have always been rather conservative but my views have certainly shifted with age and experience. From what people have been saying it sounds like Andrew’s did as well, so what you said was particularly significant.

    I agree that response was uncalled for and arrogant. Please know that your thoughts were valued by some. My respects.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  81. Thank you Patterico for sharing about your friendship with Andrew Breitbart — a great guy with equally great friends.

    Karen Hilda (263708)

  82. ___________________________________________

    My political roots are in liberal interntionalism; as a teenager, the ideal behind the League of Nations and the UN struck me as being self-evident, and their failure a tragedy. Wilson was a hero of mine, once.

    Aphrael, while my being of the right is predicated on years of observing the harsh reality of human nature and a desire to be as sensible as possible — and predates the era of the Internet (when finding information that’s rarely publicized is much easier than ever before) — it’s all the tidbits about well-known liberals like Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and, of course, Bill Clinton, and, in general, the various surveys that reveal larger percentages of people on the left actually are LESS compassionate and generous when it comes to philanthropy, that really solidified my respect for conservatism and people who lean right.

    BTW, my growing awareness of the truly pathetic nature of Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and, naturally, Bill Clinton behind closed doors, or also the equally reprehensible legislation associated with at least one of them during the 20th century, indicates analysts (certainly of the right) do not have to go all the way back to the era of Abe Lincoln and the Civil War in order to illustrate how cruddy Democrats/liberals actually have been when it comes to American history and the matter of civil rights and people’s and politicians’ levels of decency and tolerance.

    As for another liberal/Democrat pillar of the past 100 years, namely Franklin D Roosevelt, who isn’t listed above, while he perhaps at least didn’t sound or act like a racist/bigot in private, he can be best symbolized by one thing: His loud, public denunciation of wealthy people for not wanting to pay higher taxes, while the records indicate that FDR behaved exactly that very same way when it came to protecting his own sizable income from the impact of taxes.

    Mark (31bbb6)

  83. the ideal behind the League of Nations and the UN struck me as being self-evident, and their failure a tragedy.

    Their ideal is, indeed, wonderful.

    Their failure, more critically than being a tragedy, was a sure thing.

    The LoN for lots of reasons, the UN for the simple reason that it only utilizes the democratic process as far as it has to to claim to be such, not that it does anything but provide a mouthpiece for every hate-america group on the planet, while we foot the bill for all of its programs.

    I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of The Easy Solution... (8e2a3d)

  84. Close Encounters of a Breitbart Kind (not a permanent link, later posts will supercede it) from Robert J. Avrech’s blog:

    http://seraphicpress.com/

    One of the projects Andrew Breitbart was planning: Big Jerusalem.

    « Older posts
    By Robert J. Avrech | March 2, 2012
    Close Encounter Of A Breitbart Kind

    Karen and I attended this 2011 Republican Jewish Coalition dinner in Beverly Hills where Andrew delivered a barn-burner of a speech.

    There was no teleprompter. Andrew had no notes. He just got up on the stage and shmoozed with the audience. This talk is notable because Andrew identifies his Conservative awakening with a Reform rabbi so dopey, so liberal, that he delivered a pulpit speech in support of race-hustler Jesse Jackson in the immediate aftermath of Jackson’s ghastly Hymietown comment.

    Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1)

  85. BTW, as far as Truman goes, there’s nothing amazing about his being a bigot, he was from Missouri, nominally from the South (ditto Wilson) and so it’s pretty much canalization, which few rise above.

    I found that Truman’s behavior when it came to people pulling newly released black soldiers off trucks and beating them up to be far more telling. He may not have always done so, but he was able to recognize serious wrong when he saw it, and be outraged by it.

    Far more outrageous is Hubert Humphrey selling out elected black representatives at the 1964 Dem National Convention.

    I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of The Easy Solution... (8e2a3d)

  86. I feel your loss Patterico, I actually went to his bloggers memorial in DC last night and well, I suspect you feel as those who spoke felt, they were both heartbreaking and heartwarming all in the same telling of one Andrew Breitbart.

    I can honestly say if not for Andrew and Labor Union Report, I would not have realized the extent of the collaboration between the unions,democrats,ACORN etc., it never occurred to me that the media showing these “irate” Americans “protesting” in front of banks and bankers houses etc was one big huge SETUP to feed the masses a lie! but Andrew showed that fraud and I will be forever grateful for that. I will never again look at a “protest” by the left as anything but a ginned up exercise in deception.

    JadedByPolitics (91e088)


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