Devastating news: Andrew Breitbart dead at 43
No one can be replaced, but some people seem more irreplaceable than others, and Andrew Breitbart was one of them.
He was also one of the last people whose death announcement I expected to read today.
He was young. He was irrepressible. He was fearless, unique, playful, bold, funny, determined, and smart. He was a family man and a public figure. And his death serves to remind us that none of us knows when we our time is up.
The cause? Fate, I suppose. But he is reported to have collapsed while walking near his home and collapsed “of natural causes” and could not be revived:
Breitbart was walking near his house in the Brentwood neighborhood shortly after midnight Thursday when he collapsed, his father-in-law Orson Bean said.
Someone saw him fall and called paramedics, who tried to revive him. They rushed him to the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Bean said. Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier, but Bean said he could not pinpoint what happened.
Breitbart was an author, TV personality, once of the Drudge Report but then of his own websites Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Breitbart.tv. I could call him “conservative”—but only politically, because he was innovative and on the cutting edge in terms of the use of media. I will also add that I briefly met Breitbart at one of those blogger conferences PJ ran in the early, heady days of the blogosphere, before Andrew became quite as famous as he later was. He had a way about him that seemed fun and yet down-to-earth, effervescent and yet not too full of himself.
It goes without saying—but I will say it anyway—that he will be tremendously missed: by his family, by his political allies (I count myself among them), and by all who value the dissemination of truth.
RIP, Andrew Breitbart.
[NOTE: It should come as no surprise that Breitbart was a political changer. I wrote the following about him in July of 2010:
Breitbart’s hard-hitting theatricality would not be nearly as unique if he resided on the left, but as a man of the right he is very unusual. It is therefore not at all surprising to learn that Breitbart is a political changer. He grew up in Los Angeles, and dates his political transformation from the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings:
“He was, he said, a typical West Coast liberal ”” until the Clarence Thomas hearings lit him up with the fires of conservative resentment against the liberal establishment”¦’It was the moment that I saw a glimpse of the matrix,’ Breitbart said. ‘And I started to ask some very tough questions of myself, and my peer group, and my parents and their friends.'”
I sometimes think of Breitbart as the modern-day, conservative (or libertarian?) version of fellow-provocateurs Hoffman and Rubin of Sixties Yippie fame. He shares with them a streak of wildness and a knack for publicity, and the ability to use the media to get a message across in creative and somewhat novel ways, as a well as an irreverence and a sense of humor””although just about everything else about Breitbart and the Yippies (political aims, specific methods, and substance) is very different.]
[ADDENDUM: Michelle Malkin has a tribute, and a roundup of nasty tweets on Breitbart’s death from the left.
Roger L. Simon remembers Breitbart. He calls him “a whirlwind,” which seems apt.
Stephen Green’s first thought on hearing the news was that it was a hoax. I can see why. Breitbart was a prankish sort. But unfortunately, this is not one of his jokes.
Greg Gutfield remembers his friend.]
Yes, alas, it brings one up short. I’ll pray for his wife and children.
Not having met the man, I still feel a personal sense of loss. May he find comfort in the arms of Angels.
I’m shocked, and saddened. A great loss for his family and friends, and an even greater one, if that’s possible, for America.
We have lost a great in-your-face fighter. May God help his family.
I wonder if there will be anyone brave enough, and articulate enough, to take up his mantle. It’s a great loss. My prayers are with his family.
I saw the news and thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. I loved his fight, his courage, his production, his energy. For all of us who appreciated and valued his life, his creations, his battle, we are greatly saddened. There is no doubt we lost a warrior of the first caliber.
I’ve been in shock all morning …didn’t believe it at first …surprising how much I thought of the guy, just took him for granted kind of, but counted on him as a do-er, “getting it done”.
…been immensely impressed …and that had just grown over the years, the more I knew of him and his myriad projects, and the more I read and heard and saw him doing. He was kind of omnipresent, popping up just everywhere. He surprised me, constantly.
I guess …I liked him.
Nothing personal, just, well, the guy was a comfort …a piece of America that could make me feel that it would all be okay.
I feel like this huge hole has suddenly appeared in the political troposphere.
Conservatism has been diminished in ways that won’t be immediately apparent.
My prayers go out to his family and friends.
…I just think this was a tragedy for all of us.
Woodward and Bernstein inspired a generation or two of aspiring journalists. We could sure use a generation or two of Breitbarts right about now.
Let’s hope there is a full investigation, just in case this is not as it seems………
Just devastating news. One of the few, sharp truth-tellers out there. I can’t believe he’s gone. There is a huge void in the world with him gone.
Get the sense the planets are aligned against us?
I have a strong sense of personal loss. He was a good man in the fullest sense of the phrase.
Needs to be a coroner’s case, for sure.
I feel so sorry for his family.
This is just horrible. I saw the news almost immediatly on one of the ‘Bigs’ this morning, and I was certain it had to be a hoax.
Shocked and saddened. we’ve lost a fighter we desperately need. For proof just look at the very sick comments that Neo referenced that Michelle Malkin has posted.
The sudden death of a young, vibrant person is a tremendous shock. It is truly sorrowful to comtemplate the grief his family is experiencing this very moment and will continue to experience in the days ahead. RIP AB, you were a savy and humorous warrior.
Such shocking and sad news. May he rest in peace and his family find comfort.
Simply irreplaceable.
We have lost a warrior for the truth.
LAT says the LA Coroner’s Office will investigate the death.
However, the degree of investigation remains to be determined.
I am reminded of the KGB-facilitated death by ricin (the umbrella-tip murder) of a Bulgarian dissident in London in 1978, discovery of which required a special Scotland Yard forensic investigation to find the tiny embedded projectile-the ricin vector- in the victim’s calf.
Don, 10 years ago i would have called that crazy talk for here in America. But the times they are a changing.
Not long ago he intimated that he had possession of some item (video, perhaps) about Obama and would release it when the time was right. I certainly hope he had shared this with some trustworthy associate.
I am still in shock. What a loss, to his family, and to the conservative movement. It will take a brave, intelligent person to pick up his mantle and continue to fight the good fight.
Andrew Breitbart Talked Politics in L.A. Bar an Hour Before Dying
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/andrew-breitbart-dead-la-bar-politics-296386
Marketing executive Arthur Sando tells THR about his lengthy debate with the conservative activist at The Brentwood; they said goodbye around 11:30 p.m., 50 minutes before Breitbart was pronounced dead.
Neo, believe it or not you misspelled his name twice in the story. You left out the first r after the first B. Breitbart, not Beitbart. I didn’t see it earlier this afternoon when I made my other comment but it jumped out at me now.
I thought this poem by Emily Dickinson too over the top, maybe too known, but seeing how the whole conservative house is in mourning, it seems appropriate:
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,–
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
Until then, Breitbart. Your passing will inspire and create future you’s. Perhaps that is the silver lining in the clouds. We have a better understanding of the difference one man can make.
…I thought it entirely apropo, Curtis. Not “over the top” at all. It expresses what I’d like to be able to say. TY.
I’ve been downright pissy and unpleasant all day long. But it’s finally time …thankfully, time, here on the West Coast …to raise a glass in memory of a fellow traveler.
As I said the other day in these very-same comments: When I think of “political changers”, Andrew Breitbart always comes to mind. He had the passion of a 1960’s campus radical, but he was on OUR side, like David Horowitz and (I hope, I hope) just maybe in recent years, Alan Dershowitz.
God, what a champion! There was something about him that was quintessentially 18th Century American: the spark of “the shot heard round the world” burned so brightly in his breast, it was easy to imagine him passionately debating, say, Alexander Hamilton. He even looked the part with his unkempt hair.
God knows we needed him for this upcoming election; the greatest political challenge of our lifetime; this was was dire loss to the cause of freedom . Thanks for this post, Neo. I expect that you see more clearly than most that that he was a former “fellow traveler” who saw the light, and therefore appreciate, more than many, the magnitude of our nation’s loss.
Who can possibly take this great man’s place? And he was only 43…
i remember meeting him at that osm thing, too – and you!
vigilance personified.
RIP…
d’ya think the ambulance guys were seiu? i think almost all are…
just saying…
maybe one recognized him and got … carried away…
You’re right, carl, his hair did remind me of 18th century powdered wigs.
From Investor’s Business Daily: Andrew Breitbart is dead at 43. So?
Iowahawk’s tribute
kcon: thanks. I was writing fast. Will fix.
I’m stunned. I never, ever thought he would die any time soon. He was brilliant and truly innovative in his exploitation of new media. I can’t believe it. What a tragedy.
I always liked the guy and am going to miss him…
Andrew Breitbart is an inspiration to all of us. He was an American who truly made a difference. I hope someone will be inspired to follow in his footsteps and make non-statism (AKA conservatism) a 21st-century enterprise.
We need leaders, and Andrew Breitbart was a wonderful leader.
Susanamantha, one of the guys that worked for him was on Hannity last night and said that the videos he was referring to at CPAC would be released within 10 days.
A huge loss.
There’s a lot of speculation over on Hot Air, for example, on the contents of those tapes. I just watched AB’s speech at CPAC — which I’d highly recommend, btw — and it sounds like he’s describing what the tapes will show. Specifically, it sounds like AB had tapes from the early 1980s of BHO hobnobbing with notorious radicals — likely including Ayers and Dohrn themselves, before those two became “respectable” (Dohrn had only surrendered to authorities in 1980) — and that these people were declaring that they wanted to eventually take over the White House. IOW, the tapes would imply that BHO was not only himself a radical leftist back in the day, but was being toasted as a possible Manchurian Candidate for the radical left from the time he was in college.
Anyway, that’s what I infer from what AB actually said about the tapes.
At the risk of wading out into the fever swamp (oh, what the hell), I’ve often reflected on the fact that Obama initially DECLINED (publicly, I mean: this is on tape) to run for president, saying essentially that he wasn’t personally ready and couldn’t really GET ready in time to make a serious go of it in 1980. Now, in that moment of apparent candor, it is easy to see the side of BHO that is frankly sort of lazy: He’s the golfer, the vacationer, the televised sports addict, the fellow who kvetches about the annoyances that go along with being president, etc. But then, a short time later, of course, he’s running, and the rest is history. Clearly, it seems to me, someone or someONES changes his mind, and we can infer that with Hillary ready to waltz her way to the nomination and presidency, those someones WEREN’T anyone who could be called “Establishment” democrats. Nor were they traditional Democrat constituencies like the unions or the teachers, for example, any of whom, it seems, would have been more than content with HRC back in the WH. Further, BHO does not seem to have a Joe Kennedy, Sr. or other strong inner circle of family or friends dictating his every move. This makes me wonder if it’s just possible that Obama’s former mentors from the radical left went to him and said, “Look, if you EVER want to be president, then you ARE going to run in 2008, because we have the goods on you, and we don’t want to wait for 2016 to get OUR guy in the WH.”
Now come the wave of hate, and the wave of conspiracy theories…
at no time am i claiming that this is what happened, there is nothing to point to it, nor would their be for some time if ever if it did happen… but this is what will feul the whole thing and cause the confusion where some will never settle on the conclusion given prior incidents and known capabilities (let alone unknown).
Is this just another “Lev Rebet”? Stepan Bandera? Khattab? Hafizullah Amin?
Has Kamera been resurrected, did it ever really stop given name changes?
Don’t bother to look up Kamera in Wiki, there are no entries… (or Google is so helpful in its spelling corrections you can no longer get to it)
We know that Department 12 of Directorate S of the SVR is back in business (Putin worked there at one time),
Here is how…
Illegals Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program
what did he do? he turned over Anna Chapman and the others… you remember her in recent news, no?
what about the scandal we forgot about Katia Zatuliveter?
Thats directorate S….
Putin worked in directorate S before taking over the country… now he is claiming the US is meddling in their elections… (which tends to mean they are meddling in ours – but that would be a given, as they never stopped)
for information on Laboratory 12, see:
Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_12
Currently: Several laboratories of the SVR, (headquartered in Yasenevo near Moscow), are responsible for the “creation of biological and toxin weapons for clandestine operations in the West”
“I gave orders to Mairanovsky to conduct experiments on people sentenced to the highest measure of punishment, but it was not my idea” Laventy Beria
the purpose was to find various poisons and toxins that can be used that would cause death to appear as natural causes, and would not be detected in autopsy. sprays, gels, pellets, things put in drinks…
Nikolay Khokhlov was poisoned by radioactive thallium Germany in 1957 for refusing to work as a KGB assassin.
and before you say that was then this is now: Zhu Ling, Chinese university student poisoned with thallium in 1995…
and Yuri Shchekochikhin (d. 2003), Russian investigative journalist, died presumably from poisoning by radioactive thallium
Alexander Litvinenko (d. 2006), Russian ex-spy and investigator, died three weeks after being poisoned by radioactive polonium-210. (he was at a bar/restaurant and they slipped it in his food and drink)
Roman Tsepov (d. 2004), Russian businessman poisoned by unspecified radioactive material
Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned during her flight to Beslan in 2004.
Viktor Yushchenko, Ukrainian politician, poisoned with dioxin during the 2004 electoral campaign.
sometimes the point is not to make them sick right away, but to give them cancer that would happen over time, but not a long time.
What socialist leader whose been uncooperative recently has been found to have cancer? Chavez?
with such things in the world, and a constant, there is no way to know. if you discover through some reason that it IS, then you know. but otherwise, there is always the uncertainty given how sudden, and the fact that the idea is “no man, no problem”.
If you claim to make history and control it, why leave things to luck?
so that’s where its all going to come from, and what you will find is that the uncertainty will just divide the camps between those who are certain that it wasn’t that way, and those that are certain that it IS that way. while the truth is, until we know it was, we wont know it wasn’t… the actual uncertain answer is what they cant stand… they have to resolve it so they pick it, rather than just accept that, that is all they can know…
There’s one thing you can say in defense of the liberals dancing on this poor man’s grave in jubilation, something that should surprise no one. The worst, the absolute worst you could possibly accuse Breitbart of was treating liberals the same way the liberal press has treated conservatives for decades.
Breitbart brought a lot of energy and fire to his work, and while I think he did, in fact, do some questionable things journalistically, it doesn’t significantly dilute the fact that he was a force for truth in a media so dominated by lockstep groupthink and political thuggery.
Art, I regret to say that taking people out by causing cancer “but (not) over a long time” flies in the face of oncologic knowledge. Your thesis also assumes such cancers cannot be cured. The radio-isotope murders you reference, specifically Litvinenko’s, are due to bone marrow wipeout.
Chavez perhaps has a pelvic sidewall sarcoma (rare, utterly unknown causation), usually impossible to resect completely, even by those mahvellous Cuban surgeons,
On one hand Breitbart didn’t mess around; his scoops brought results. On the other hand, short of showing Obama beheading puppy dogs, what could the tapes contain that could be more damaging than, for example, the fact Candidate Obama faithfully attended the church of a screaming racist loon who preached I Hate Whitey every Sunday? Didn’t hurt him one bit; his MSM body guard made sure of that.
@ armchair:
First, I think the association with Wright DID hurt Obama, just not enough to do him in. Second, there was plenty of videotape of Rev. Wright, but none of it showed Obama clapping and cheering during Wright’s anti-American rants. It’s certainly conceivable that a videtape of Obama saying or applauding some deplorable thing would hurt him, if such a tape existed.
Another thing: In 2008, Obama’s defense to the Wright Stuff (I am clever, no?) was that Obama really was a post-partisan, centrist unifier, and guys like Wright and that other crazy pastor didn’t really reflect Obama’s true political sentiments. That would be a tougher sell today because of the way he has overned as president. People now realize to a much greater degree that Obama is in fact a committed leftist, so videotape evidence that he was a radical from way back could really seal his fate with independents.
Hello Neo,
You have a typo in the headline for this piece. A syllable has been lost from “devasting.”
As always, I enjoyed reading the article. Thanks.
cornflour: thanks. I had quite a few typos in this piece, actually. I think they’re all fixed now.
Neo wrote, ‘I could call him “conservative”–but only politically, because he was innovative and on the cutting edge in terms of the use of media.’
Sounds to me, just a little bit because I know she knows better, that statement can be read to say only Progressives innovate- they are progressive, after all- while Conservatives are rooted, mired in the past, those dullards.
Don Carlos: I crafted that sentence carefully in an attempt to avoid readers misunderstanding it. I used the word “politically” to modify “conservative” to describe Breitbart in the political sense. When I then mentioned the media cutting-edge stuff in a way that indicated it was not “conservative,” I thought it would be clear I was then using the word “conservative” in a different sense—its non-political (i.e. more generic) sense, as in definition #4 here, for example, “conventional in style or type.”
That is exactly what Breitbart most assuredly was NOT, although he was conservative politically.
I wasn’t serious about Chavez, though if you go out there and take a look, there is people saying it.. one of them being Chavez… 🙂
http://www.thejournal.ie/chavez-wonders-if-us-hatched-cancer-plot-against-latin-american-leaders-315907-Dec2011/
the point was that they were going to say it, not that it was true… you missed that totally… despite the large paragraph…
The only people in this nation that are capable of fighting the Left effectively is probably defectors from the Left. Which sorta means most conservatives and Republicans are… in an interesting bind.