I won’t mince words, here. Andrew Breitbart was a creep. Over the last few years he – along with his partners in slime Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Fox News and the bulk of the AM radio dial – dragged the political discourse of this nation through the mud. To refer to him as a conservative would be like calling an ambulance chaser a lawyer. David Brooks and David Frum are conservatives. Breitbart was nothing more than a self-serving ideologue.
I don’t want to hear about what a terrible loss this is; or hear the “tributes” from both ends of the political spectrum; or how he “collaborated” with Arianna Huffington in the early days of the Huffington Post to get it up and running; or how it’s inappropriate to dis the dead.
Bullshit!
Throughout his sanctimonious and depraved life, Breitbart was merciless, going to any lengths to smear the reputations of otherwise innocent people to further his sick objective. His edited version of Shirley Sherrod’s speech was beneath contempt, as was the video he posted about Acorn that inevitably led to its demise. I will not be a hypocrite and join the chorus of well-wishers now that he has been put out of his misery.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. There is now one less scourge on the planet, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Breitbart personified the sort of yellow journalism that has now sadly come to define the conservative movement. That he was given a forum by the mainstream media to spew his venom – no doubt under the naïve belief that they were being “fair and balanced” – reveals more about the state of journalism in this country than anything substantive he might’ve brought to the table. He was a cancer, pure and simple.
I say this not just as a progressive, but as someone who realizes that the nation desperately needs an adult conversation about the differences between liberalism and conservatism. The polarization that has crippled our government was not an accident; nor did it happen overnight. It was carefully orchestrated over a period of years by scumbags like Breitbart. One political party has all but been kidnapped by them, while the other struggles to regain its footing. I can assure you this was NOT what the Founding Fathers intended: an all-out rumble in an alley. This wasn’t supposed to be some demented adaptation of West Side Story.
I say enough already. The death of Andrew Breitbart won’t put an end to the vicious lies and deceit that routinely comes from the Right; but thankfully there will be one less sewer rat in the gutter throwing the barbs.
And for that I am grateful.
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