Thursday, March 8, 2012

Andrew Breitbart R.I.P.




I've been traveling the past week and haven't had a chance to post on the tragic death of Andrew Breitbart, who died suddenly a week ago of apparently natural causes at the young age of 43.

Breitbart was a former liberal who was radicalized into the conservative movement by the Clarence Thomas "high-tech lynching" during Senate hearings for his nomination to the Supreme Court. Breitbart was astonished at the viciousness of the attacks on Thomas-- the Democrats' resurrection of the old racist (i.e. Democrat) slur that black men are sexual predators was an epiphany. For Brietbart, the Thomas episode laid bare the soul of the left. He resolved to fight it.

He was a brilliant fearless journalist, working in the highest traditions of his profession. He championed citizen journalism-- the right and responsibility of ordinary people to uncover the truth about our society and our government. He uncovered scandals-- the A.C.O.R.N. scandal, Weinergate, the Shirley Sherrod scandal, among others-- he built a media engine devoted to uncovering the truth that the leftists who dominate the mainstream media are frantically covering up, and he provided invaluable training for young conservative journalists who now are picking up his mantle and carrying on his fight using the new media.

My condolences to his wife and four children. He was a brave and good man, and he will be missed. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. 

24 comments:

  1. There is no nasty & dishonest crackpot too low for Egnor to praise -- as long as Egnor agrees with him politically or religiously. That says more about Egnor than about Breitbart, who even conservatives are recognizing, had an immensely negative impact on society and on individual people. At the end, when nobody was buying the faux scandals like Sherrod any more, he was reduced to frothing incoherence.

    Next week on Egnorance: praise for Joe McCarthy, Father Coughlin, and Fred Phelps.

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    1. "There is no nasty & dishonest crackpot too low for Egnor to praise..."
      There is you. I have not heard praise for your nasty and dishonest garbage.
      Shriek much?

      "Next week on Egnorance: praise for Joe McCarthy, Father Coughlin, and Fred Phelps."
      Howl much?
      BTW It is a daily blog, Einstein.

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    2. Joe McCarthy was the primary victim of the 50's witchhunts. His character was defamed, his life was ruined, all because he dared to tell the truth about communist infiltration of our government.

      Don't know much about Coughlin (and I doubt you do either), and Fred Phelps is a jerkwad and a registered Democrat. He supported Al Gore in 2000, and has run for governor of Kansas three times on the Democratic ticket. He never won the nomination, thankfully.

      That classy guy Kos wants Fred Phelps to crash the Breitbart funeral. http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/daily-kos-calls-for-westboro-baptist-church-to-protest-at-breitbart-funeral/

      J.Q>

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    3. "Breitbart, who even conservatives are recognizing, had an immensely negative impact on society and on individual people."

      Who are these conservatives and what is their reasoning?

      J.Q.

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    4. Father Coughlin was a progressive leftist. He attacked Hoover and 'international bankers'. He backed Roosevelt. He said "Capitalism is doomed and is not worth trying to save." He attacked Al Smith on the radio as a tool of Wall Street.

      Leftist. Leftist. Leftist. Learn some history, anon.

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  2. I have great respect for McCarthy. He was a man of integrity who told the truth. He had a few overreaches (his critique of Marshall was excessive, but not entirely without warrant), but generally he was right. In fact, he understated the communist infiltration of government, as the Venona files have demonstrated.

    Couglin was a malignant leftist and bigot, and Phelps is nuts.

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  3. “The Shirley Sherrod scandal” I can’t believe you’re giving kudos for this racist smear piece. The Acorn sting was also pure lying bullshit. Breitbart was among the most hateful and vicious public figures in America. His popularity among conservative Christians shows just how shallow, hateful, and deceitful conservative Christianity has become. Being the type of people who support and venerate a super-asshole like Breitbart does more to harm Christianity than the war you imagine is being waged against you.

    -KW

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    1. What was racist about the Sherrod video is that the NAACP audience laughed and applauded when Sherrod described her racist treatement of the white applicant.

      The ACORN sting was no smear-- ACORN was a criminal enterprise.

      You hate Breitbart because he told the truth about the left. The truth is the one thing you can't allow.

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    2. KW,

      How exactly was Breitbart's handling of the ACORN and Shirley Sherod incident racist or bullshit?

      I want to know. Tell me.

      TRISH

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    3. He had a few overreaches (his critique of Marshall was excessive, but not entirely without warrant), but generally he was right.

      Generally he was wrong.

      In fact, he understated the communist infiltration of government, as the Venona files have demonstrated.

      The only thing the Verona project has really demonstrated is that it is almost impossible to come to solid conclusions using decrypted messages. And that it is pretty much impossible to obtain evidence sufficient to convict anyone of anything using them.

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    4. How exactly was Breitbart's handling of the ACORN and Shirley Sherod incident racist or bullshit?

      Try watching the full video. Then go compare it to the edited version that Breitbart put out.

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    5. "Generally he was wrong."

      No, generally he was right.

      "The only thing the Verona project has really demonstrated is that it is almost impossible to come to solid conclusions using decrypted messages. And that it is pretty much impossible to obtain evidence sufficient to convict anyone of anything using them."

      Ever read the Venona Project? Kind of dry, but revealing. Pick it up.

      I wonder if you have ever really delved into the topic of the Cold War, particularly the most perilous years of the 1950's. The USA and USSR were waging relentless war with each other, albeit without bullets. There were spies and propoganda ministries and misinformation campaigns.

      I guess I don't understand what you find so far-fetched about the idea that the Soviet Union might try to infiltrate our government with partisans who are loyal to them. Do you think that they wouldn't try? Do you think that they wouldn't succeed? Do you think that there's no such thing as a communist? What is it?

      We know, for example, that Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs were both communists, and communists spies. They handed the plans for the most dangerous weapon in history to a madman named Joseph Stalin. They were found guilty in a court of law and the Left spent the better part of the next fifty years in denial about their guilt.

      Carlito

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    6. All right, Anonymous. I'm nine and a half minutes into a forty-three minute video. She's been talking about her father's murder and how she wanted to leave the South. I don't have thirty-five more minutes to spend on this.

      Why don't you just tell me how the Sherrod video was deceptive? What did Breitbart do wrong? And the ACORN videos? I mean, how ACORN employees must be found conspiring to help establish child prostitution rings do we have to have before someone says enough?

      Yes, I've seen the whole Sherod video before. She says that a white farmer came to her, a USDA employee, for help in saving his farm. She didn't really want to help him. She did the minimum. *Crowd yuks it up* After all, there were a lot of black farmers who were losing their farms, so why should she care if a white farmer does too? That would serve him right. But them she had an epiphany--it's not right to discriminate against people because they're white. It's right to discriminate against people because they have money.

      The point of the video was to demonstrate that there was indeed anti-white discrimination at the USDA and that the NAACP thought it was hilarious. The fact that the woman felt bad about it later doesn't change that fact. It's good that she had a change of heart, but it doesn't mean that the discrimination didn't exist or that the people assembled in that room didn't condone it with their laughter.

      Was his editing deceptive? What part was left out? I think you're probably angry with him because he told the truth.

      TRISH

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    7. I shouldn't say that I've seen the "whole" Sherod video before. Not the forty-three minute video. I meant that I've seen the part where she admits to racist discrimination, and then the crowd laughs, and then she explains that she felt bad about it and made amends.

      TRISH

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    8. "Was his editing deceptive? What part was left out?"

      In the edited version, the entire portion in which she goes on to say that she didn't actually discriminate against him but did her job is left out. The part where she secured him a lawyer to help him, and when that lawyer wasn't working out, she secured him another. The part where she demonstrated that the racist allegations against her were false.

      Breitbart left out those parts, and his estate will likely have to pay Mrs. Sherrod damages for libel. In short: Breitbart lied, and in fact there was not anti-white discrimination at the USDA.

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    9. "I wonder if you have ever really delved into the topic of the Cold War, particularly the most perilous years of the 1950's. The USA and USSR were waging relentless war with each other, albeit without bullets. There were spies and propoganda ministries and misinformation campaigns."

      Plenty. Try reading something like one of these days.

      "I guess I don't understand what you find so far-fetched about the idea that the Soviet Union might try to infiltrate our government with partisans who are loyal to them. Do you think that they wouldn't try? Do you think that they wouldn't succeed? Do you think that there's no such thing as a communist? What is it?"

      No one is saying they didn't try. The problem is that based on the Verona Project information it is very difficult to determine to what extent they succeeded. Most of the "code names" have never been identified. Some have. others might have been, but the identification is in doubt. In many cases it is unclear what the relationship, if any, there is between the NKVD and the people discussed in the messages. The data is incomplete, what there is is inconclusive in many areas, and it just doesn't add up to anything like the conspiracy that McCarthy claimed existed.

      "We know, for example, that Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs were both communists, and communists spies."

      And they weren't convicted based on evidence gained from the Verona Project. They were convicted based upon witness testimony. Maybe you missed that.

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    10. The formatting screwed up in that last post. I suggested reading The KGB Against the "Main Enemy": How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States.

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    11. "In the edited version, the entire portion in which she goes on to say that she didn't actually discriminate against him but did her job is left out."

      That's not what she said. She said quite clearly that she did less than she could have because he was white and supposedly, according to her, was trying to show her that he was above her. She was learning a lesson. She originally took the job of state director of rural development only to help her own race.

      TRISH

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    12. At 16:39: "When I made that commitment, I was making a commitment to black people. And to black people only."

      At 17:20, Sherrod admits that she didn't want to help the white farmer. The implication is clear-- her original intention in taking the job was to help black people and black people only. "What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him." *laughter. Woo! That's funny!* "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land."

      Oooh...yeah, and that's a real dilemma. If some black farmers are losing their farms, wouldn't it just be fair for some whites to lose theirs too?

      Well, no. A truly non-racist person would help black and white alike, to the best of her ability. But that's not what Sherrod did in her own words. At 17:45: "So, I didn't give her the full force of what I could do. I did enough..."

      TRISH

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    13. Keep in mind, she's already indicated that she went into this career field to help blacks and blacks only. A white man comes to her for help and she finds it problematic that there are blacks around the state losing their farms. I don't know why that had such an effect on her thinking, but it appears to be her sort of racist idea of justice: if blacks are losing their farms, why should she care if whites are losing their farms?

      At 18:01 she says "He needed to go back and report that I did try to help him. So I took him to a white lawyer that had attended some of the training that we had provided."

      At 18:19: "So I figured that if I take him to one of them [white lawyers], that his own kind would take care of him."

      Is this what you call "doing her job"? Is this not racism? Hey white farmer, I'm only here to help blacks. Let me call a white lawyer, maybe he can help you. Let the whites take care of the whites, that's not my job. That's her attitude.

      It's at this point, and this point only, that she has an epiphany. "That's when it was revealed to me that it's about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white--It is about white and black. But it's not, you know, it opened my eyes. Cause I took him to one of his own. I put him in his hands and said, okay I did my job."

      Nothing racist about that.

      You seem to think that this is an example of how diligent she was in helping this man. But keep in mind that she hasn't gotten around to explaining her change of heart yet. She is still doing the minimum in her own words. So she took him to a lawyer--a "white lawyer" as she says. Let the whites take care of their own, she's only there to help black people. I see this as her attempt to dump him off on someone else. Keep in mind that this guy is supposed to go back and report that she helped him. She doesn't want him to report that she slammed the door in his face, so she's attempting to shuffle him off without doing much. All of this because he's white.

      Yes, her attitude is slightly better now. But up until this point, she basically a racist public servant who's refusing to lift a finger for a white man. What little she's done has amounted to getting him out of her hair, and she only did that because he was supposed to report back that she did something to help him.

      So your version of what happened in the video is essentially rubbish. Breitbart's excerpted version leaves off the part about her change of heart because he was trying to demonstrate that the woman admitted to discriminatory practices and that the NAACP members laughed.

      TRISH

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  4. @KW,
    "I can’t believe"
    We know.
    "His popularity among conservative Christians shows just how shallow, hateful, and deceitful conservative Christianity has become. "
    Why the need to lump Christianity in there, KW? If your beef is with the conservative movement, why attack a religious group that lays partially within that mix? (those are rhetorical questions, in case that also escapes you)

    "Being the type of people who support and venerate a super-asshole..."
    Stereotype much? Bigot.

    "...does more to harm Christianity than the war you imagine is being waged against you."
    More damage than an imaginary war? How could he not (or I, or anyone for that matter) do more good and/or damage than an imaginary thing?
    You trip over your own rhetoric (again).
    Do yourself a favour and take a DEEP breath before you type.
    Do us all a favour and hold it in till you black out.

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  5. @Mike,
    "Please keep him and his family in your prayers."
    I have a long list of names today, but I will definitely include this man and those he left behind.
    May God bless you for your kind words and prayers, Doctor.

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  6. Wonderful post for a wonderful, brave courageous, irreverent, funny, SMART man. He would love that there are detractors everywhere his name is mentioned. He knew that it says more about them than anything else ever could.

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