Say what you will about Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, but give him credit for going on the offense against the
Obama-worshipping left-wing press which the late Andrew Breitbart correctly called the Democrat-Media Complex, who, as Romney said, "are inclined to do the president's bidding."
As Big Hollywood.com's John Nolte writes, "Yesterday's Breitbart.com interview not only made clear that Romney completely understands how corrupt the media is, but also that he's not afraid to point to them and call them by name. It's one thing to know who your enemy is, it's quite another to let them know you know."
In casually scanning a news website first thing this morning, we saw the report of Andrew Breitbart's passing.
At first we thought it was a gag or a hoax but sadly other websites had confirmation of this stunning, unbelievable news.
Breitbart was the remarkable Internet impresario who created "the bigs"--i.e., BigHollywood.com, BigGovernment.com, and BigPeace.com--and who helped launch the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post.
Commenter "righthearted" posted this on NationalReview.com and sums it up well:
I don't have a clue who can or will attempt
to replace Andrew Breitbart...and it's probably way too soon to even
think about such things...but at the end of this sad day in which we all
recognize his passing and pay our much deserved respects for this hero,
I do hope and pray that somebody of wisdom and boundless courage will
at least take up his mantle and begin to try to do so. Indispensable is a
great word for Andrew and his work...it speaks of the great and urgent
need we have for men and women of his stature to keep the movement going
forward. RIP, Andrew...We'll all be praying for your family and friends
in their great loss today. Thank you for all you did for all of us.
Tributes to Breitbart are ongoing.
Earlier today, National Review's Jonah Goldberg and The Five's Greg Gutfeld reacted to the breaking news on FNC:
Added: Commenter "BurkeanBadger" posted these thoughts at LegalInsurrection:
...More than any other prominent conservative journalist/pundit/blogger, Andrew deeply understood the left. He understood the will to power which underlies left-leaning ideologies from orthodox Marxism-Leninism to mild mannered welfare-liberalism. He understood the utopian obsession, the elitism, the echo-chamber style of discourse (almost completely ignorant of the political/social opinions of the broader society…and proud of that ignorance) which are omnipresent in most leftist circles. Most importantly, he understood that the left will use any means to achieve its ends.
But that’s not all: He was also fearless. He successfully used leftist tactics against the left, and he did so mercilessly, masterfully, and without hesitation...
I keep going back to @andrewbreitbart's
Twitter feed, still unable to believe that one of my conservative
heroes has dropped down dead at the age of just 43. Perhaps I shouldn't
be so surprised: Breitbart did enjoy a voraciously Type A lifestyle –
smoking, drinking and burger-scoffing like there was no tomorrow. Which,
sadly, for this big-hearted, generous, witty, rumbustious, intelligent,
fearless father-of-four there now isn't.
Like PJ O'Rourke, Breitbart was one of those rare types who manages to make conservatism look both fun and cool..
It's all Bush's fault--depending on what the definition of the word "it's" is...
Many urban Bush-bashing "sophisticates" like to consider themselves edgy, but is there anything more out there than navigating the ultra-liberal Manhattan enclave wearing a "Palin power" button?
That's what gutsy columnist and FNC talking head Jedediah Bila did during the 2008 presidential campaign, as she recounts in her short book/diary Outnumbered: Chronicles of a Manhattan Conservative. The engaging publication describes her various encounters with tolerant (is there any other kind?) leftists in the city, including in the private school where she used to teach.
Despite a non-adversarial, understated approach, Bila found herself on the outs with friends, colleagues, and students because her sincerely held views--on those occasions when she expressed them--differed from theirs. Politics should be irrelevant to relationships, but then again things have a way of working out, though; these same personal experiences compelled Bila to reinvent herself as a successful political commentator.
Whether you supported or opposed the Bush administration (and many of us on the right disagreed with a number of his policies as well as his curious inability not to respond to irresponsible accusations), the left spent eight years vilifying and caricaturing President Bush and his appointees and officials in the most offensive way. But the "Democrat-Media complex" barely said a word.
In fact, the media celebrated this so-called exercise of free speech and dissent as patriotism. Now apparently it is a horrible, disgusting hate crime if you in good faith oppose the policies of the Obama administration and its legislative water-carriers on Capitol Hill, especially the loathesome effort that rammed through the healthcare bill against the wishes of the majority of the American people. If you peacefully assemble--e.g., everyday, often non-ideological Americans participating in the Tea Party movement--you are demonized and marginalized. You are part of a mob engaging in "hate speech." Any criticism of the administration's march towards socialism apparently also means you are also a racist, sexist, and homophobe. C'mon; in the year 2010, isn't this lame propaganda getting a little tedious? Ironically, about the only people that still pay attention to it, unfortunately, are those in the mainstream (i.e., lamestream) media who feel comfortable in their own parallel universe.
Michelle Malkin just wrote an excellent column addressing the left's "faking the hate":
...the Left never takes a break from falsely accusing the Right of fomenting hatred and violence through political speech. The MSM never takes a break from whitewashing leftist intolerance, death threats, and extremism — and engaging in selective reporting (or rather, non-reporting) of the long history of leftists’ manufacturing of hatred for political gain...Then, as now, being a Democrat Party official means never having to say you’re sorry for smearing conservative dissent.
So, some of these recent allegations of threats against Democrats reported in the media appear to be a hoax. But that aside, any kind of violence or threatening behavior is complete unacceptable. It's disgusting. Among fringe elements on the left and right, there are some isolated violent tendencies, but did the media give headline coverage to the African-American man at a Tea Party who was beaten by SEIU thugs in St. Louis last year, or the Republican headquarters in Milwaukee that was vandalized during the November 2008 election cycle?
And by the way, some very vile things were said by the left/liberals about Secretary of State Condi Rice, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or GOP Chair Michael Steele when he ran for the U.S. Senate, and many others. Again, the media hardly made a peep.
People who engage in these tactics are the enemies of our constitution, and that hardly describes in any way, shape, or form the Tea Party movement or other concerned citizens.
Andrew Breitbart has offered a $10,000 reward for proof that racial epithets were shouted during the March 20 Tea Party protest in Washington. So far, no one has claimed it.
And here's Kevin Jackson schooling a clueless MSNBC "reporter" about these phony, race-baiting accusations:
George Orwell said this about left-wing "journalists" and intellectuals of his day:
Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet regime, and suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.
More on the Tea Party movement and the media here.
