Goodbye, Andrew

I had only met Andrew Breitbart a few times- had dinner with him once. What I first admired about him as a person (and not just as an activist) is that he talked to me- directly to me- and had not the slightest air of "do you know who I am?" and "why am I talking to you?" He didn't measure me what I could do for him or whether or not it was worth his time to talk to me.

It reminds me of my friend whose husband produced a Julia Roberts movie. After the red carpet premiere, the cast and crew went to a dinner, and Ms. Roberts sat down next to my friend and asked "Who are you?". When my friend told her she was just the wife (lol) Ms. Roberts smiled and said "I'll go sit somewhere else".


And she did. She sized up my friend, decided she was not worth talking to, and moved.

Sad, really, that we all calculate our interpersonal relationships by metrics of utilitarianism. I shouldn't blast Ms. Roberts for doing what I do each time I dodge a neighbor of let a call go to voicemail.

Andrew didn't do that- at least not when I met him. And he was huge- he was famous (or infamous)- he could have commanded the presence of people much more important and influential than me. He didn't. He asked what I thought about things, he listened to my opinions. It was not about him. Ever.

The hardest part of being on the right is finding champions of the right. We have some tremendous players on the right: Rush and Ann Coulter and Dennis Miller, not to mention Hannity and Laura Ingraham and many, many others. But Andrew was cool. Andrew was Hollywood cool, and he wasn't trapped in a branded media outlet (TV, talk radio, weekly column, etc). He was, in fact, and idea more than he was a product.

And his ideas where incredible. Like his offer of $100k to the United Negro College Fund for anyone who found videotaped evidence of tea party activists shouting the "N" word at black democrat congressman preparing to vote on healthcare. That lie has been recycled by the media for years now, but no one ever claimed the reward. Not even the black congressmen who had themselves videotaped the spectacle (especially Jesse Jackson, Jr).

Congress voted to defund ACORN after the great pimps and ho's movies made my James O'Keefe. If you read the current NPR stories about Andrew's death, they still refer to this event as ACORN offering tax advice to the pimp. No mention of the underage, illegal immigrant sex workers.

NPR fired their leadership because of a truth brought to light by Breitbart. Anthony Weiner had to resign from Congress.

Andrew did what the rest of the media refused to do: tell the truth about the institutional left.

The Breitbart moment I will cherish forever is the impromptu news conference at the NY Hilton when the press corp waited for Weiner, and Andrew hopped up on stage and conducted his own gaggle. His passion, his demand for them to find evidence of lying, his exposure of their corrupt cover-up of Democrat candidates and values... never before had I seen someone attack the press so brilliantly leaving them speechless, with cameras rolling.

My heart and prayers go out to his wife and small children. And to the Conservative movement who has lost a true champion. Cool. Original. Fearless. Kind.

Has anyone had such impact on the institutional left?

Thanks, Andrew. We will all miss you.