I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is not important, but I was shocked that he even knew who I was; but as I’ve come to learn, Andrew seemed to know who everyone was in the conservative blogosphere. He was just that way.
Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else. In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.
Andrew lived in a world without restraints. He could be who he wanted to be, a luxury few bloggers have, particularly those who blog under their own name and work for others.
I live in a world of restraints, and I envied Andrew’s freedom more than you can know.
Andrew is irreplaceable, but we would serve his memory well to aspire to more freedom of thought and more freedom of action.
I’ve often wondered where to go with this blog. I now know.
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Comments
Pick up the fallen flag and take the battle to their doorstep: Each of us, in our own city, at the doors of the media complex that is lying to our fellow citizens.
Breitbart left a rich legacy, not least of which is his recent book which provides practical information on how to do just what you suggest.
I need to go get that book. Today.
Joan, I’m going to leave my copy of Andrew’s book on the bus stop bench nearby our house tonight. I’m giving you a head’s up. It’s first come first served!
I’ll just buy a new copy.
What’s the name of that book? I’ll look for a copy at Amazon.
“Righteous Indignation”
It’s called “Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save The World!”
And … doing your little part to save the world … don’t forget to buy it through the Legal Insurrection store! 🙂
I see it has shot up and is now #28 at Amazon.
Not that I would pretend to know…
but I figure it would be more fitting than sending flowers to his survivors.
Much more durable, and somehow more personal, too. The royalties go to his family, as well.
Good point. I am going to buy a hard copy of the book then pass it on with a note to pass it on.
Now THAT would make Breitbart happy. We all have a little Andrew in us, and we need to pick up our flags and get to war. Great comment, Joan.
You really should re-think your end to this post. Where will you go?
Will you pull a Breitbart with people like Shirley Sherrod? Go off half-cocked and end up having people hate you but not having the decency to apologize for misleading through selective editing?
Will you associate with the likes of James O’Keefe, perhaps putting your law license, not to mention your reputation, at significant risk?
Or will you wait for your once-in-a-generation opportunity to nail someone like Weiner, as Breitbart did so masterfully?
Caution, Professor.
Breitbart did not selectively edit.
Anyone who believes in the truth would be proud to associate with James O’Keefe. He also seems like he’d be a hoot at parties.
I’m sure that nailing a miserable punk like Weiner was fun, but not the pinnacle of Breitbart’s career you seem to make it.
Caution my left testicle.
OK, let’s say that Breitbart was not the one doing the misleading editing. But he still posted it. Here is his own admission:
Do you agree that the edited video took things out of context?
Well, yes. But I put up what I had. It granted a great portion of her redemptive tale, but not all of it. If I could do it all over again, I should have waited for the full video to get to me.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/07/30/breitbart-i-d-like-to-speak-with-sherrod-in-private.html
You’re splitting hairs here. You also are taking him at his word that he posted a full video of an excerpt, rather than excerpting it himself. Since he runs a website that acquires video and edits it for publication, I would say an argument could be made that he had the whole video the first time and may have been involved in the editing process.
Bottom line: Breitbart was a conduit for publication of a misleading video excerpt.
I repeat my question to the professor: Will we be seeing the same behavior on LI?
You are ignorant. Breitbart’s original video was not out of context, as I analyzed extensively, https://legalinsurrection.com/2011/02/dissecting-shirley-sherrods-complaint-against-andrew-breitbart/ . Get your facts straight before you dance on someone’s grave.
Wow, I had to work and I missed all the fun. Professor, you get my official Troll Slayer Award. I knew you’d discussed the tape at length but I didn’t have time to look it up. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Jim
The video did not target Sherrod, but the NAACP. It exposed the prejudice which is obfuscated by their claimed pursuit of civil rights. It exposed contemporary civil rights businesses as fostering an environment which denigrates individual dignity and profits from its perpetuation.
Collectivists love a lie, and cannot be compelled…by any means…to refrain from chanting it.
It is who they are.
BiggerJerk, you’re either a liar or you’re ignorant.
If you’re ignorant, learn to keep quiet until you’ve read for yourself what you’re claiming to review.
If you’re a liar, just go pleasure yourself elsewhere.
What is it with people like you?
He isn’t gone half a day, but you just can’t help yourself.
No class. Absolutely no class.
You really should re-think your end to this post. Where will you go?
…
Caution, Professor.
I hardly ever give thumbs-down’s or post personal remarks. I’m making an exception for you, you two-bit Iago.
Gee, when I read the article at Gateway Pundit about Sherrod, it included both the Breitbard story and the original clip. I watched both.
The edits were fair. Too bad you didn’t bother to check.
Drop dead, troll.
Your should really get up to speed on the real issues of Shirley Sherrod and the Pigford ripoff before you criticize Andrew Breitbart (and Professor Jacobson, for that matter). Ben Shapiro does an excellent job explaining the whole case here.
Motivation… Breitbart had it in spades.
In life he was a motivator of the conservative mind to find a voice. Now, his voice is gone, so we must raise our own.
“I now know.”
Most excellent good sir. As you well know, a vile, classless enemy of freedom is what we face. We. Must. Win.
[…] Professor Jacobson: A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart […]
@jstrevino You wish to honor the man? Very well then: take up his sword, and fight like he did.
Good counsel, and a fine memorial.
[…] MORE: Prof. Jacobson: “I’ve often wondered where to go with this blog. I now know.” […]
“I’ve often wondered where to go with this blog. I now know.”
To the toppermost, Professor.
I think I can speak for everybody when I say, “We know we don’t say it enough, but we love you and we’re behind you all the way.”
Mrs. Jacobson is right … we don’t have that many bright media lights.
I hope yours grows brighter and brighter so you may act as a voice for us.
LukeHandCool (who will now shut up and stop making everbody cringe. But who, in memory of Andrew, is determined to redouble his efforts (whatever they may be) and strive for nothing less than complete victory).
[…] William Jacobson: “Andrew is irreplaceable, but we would serve his memory well to aspire to more freedom of thought and more freedom of action.” […]
The biggest mistake we can make at this juncture is to go back to waiting around for the next Whoever to ride in and save us. Because that’s a strategy full of FAIL.
No waiting. We are the ones!
Haha! Excellent, both of you!!
@Joan
You’re comment is now linked, verbatim, via Instapundit
I stumbled across the news of Andrew’s death while looking for something completely unrelated. I was, and remain, completely stunned…to the point of denial. Naw! This is just a massive, over-the-top Breitbart stunt. He’s drawing the left out to make fools out of themselves only to drop some ultimate shocking revelation: “No, I’m not dead, AND ALSO ____________________”
I know that’s not true. But one needs to have implausible hopes at times.
Make no mistake, the reason some lefties are giddy in celebration (disgusting as that may be) is simple: 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. Moreover, he did not care what anyone said about him, what any self-righteous indignation the chattering classes spewed forth about him. Indeed, he relished it. He reveled in drawing them out, in pushing them to inadvertently exposing themselves as smug, elitist, intolerant, power-hungry adolescents. He peeled back their finely crafted and tightly bound veneer of civility.
Did he go too far at times? Yes. People with a mission and passionately driven to achieve that mission often do. But he was of a greater threat to the left than National Review, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, etc. combined. I’m sure that if Andrew is looking down on us right now, he is thrilled to read some of the comments on lefty blogs about his passing. I’m sure he’s pleased to see that even in death, he managed to expose the ugly personalities of so many self-satisfied and morally tut-tutting progressives.
He can rest in peace; it’s up to us to carry on his mission.
^ This ^
You are absolutely right that Breitbart was a greater threat to the left than all of the rags combined. That is – aside, of course, from the sheer fact of his death – why the loss of Breitbart hurts so much. I never fully realized before today how much pep he put in my step, how much optimism he gave me, and – forgive the Obamaism – how much hope and change he promised.
I was absolutely stunned when I saw it on the news this morning. My first question to my brother was, “What the hell are we going to do? Who is going to replace him?” Breitbart did what needed to be done: dragged the right out of its shell and went on offense, and not just politically, but culturally. He dragged us to engagement. Agh….
I’m not just sad. I’m actually angry. Really, really angry.
RIP Andrew.
I don’t think that Andrew Breitbart lived with any fewer restraints than we do, whether self-imposed or other-imposed, but perhaps he tested the restraints more than we do, and found (or perhaps more precisely, forced) the boundaries to be more malleable. The left operates unrestrained by decency, courtesy, or grace. I think he lived by the motto “Be Not Afraid,” and perhaps that’s what we all need to do.
No thumbs down. A fat finger tip on a tablet while reading through posts.
I started my own blog today because of him.
Go easy, Mr. Breitbart.
Welcome to the revolution.
Get busy out there and earn some enemy flak! Wear it like a badge of honor. Andrew always did.
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Thanks for this.
I’ve been thinking this morning on what Andrew meant. It is hard to measure, i.e., hard to find the end of his value and meaning. We had an expression in radio — “no one is indispensable.” In Andrew we met the indispensable man. He not only identified and embraced the war with the Left (in and of itself pretty shocking given the long stupor of the Bush era and the internalized beaten-wife syndrome on the Right) but went head first into the fray. He SOUGHT OUT conflict. This was not actual heroism because he loved what he was doing. He couldn’t NOT do it. But it was objectively heroic in its achievement and wider value.
He was a revolutionary strategist. He rejected every premise of a war we were losing and seemed content to go on losing; he trashed the entire paradigm of how conservatives or libertarians or classic liberals (he was all of these, broadly speaking) were supposed to behave and the formats to which we were supposed to conform. He set about devising a new paradigm — or a new media world beyond paradigms. Nothing was more threatening to the Left.
Many conservatives of course engage the Left under the right circumstances and with referees (that is, under the Left’s forms and rules). But Breitbart went after them “in the raw”, exposed their true nature. He created the circumstances, made the moments, forced the debate – no rules, no referees, no limits. He didn’t just stand up to the Left, he routed them. With his wit, merriment, energy, he scandalized and scared them. The sight of this was exhilarating.
These qualities, so desperately necessary then and now, are simply not in the genetic code of the conservative. Breitbart was a beautiful freak. We lost the most important cultural warrior of our time.
I am absolutely utterly inconsolable. His last book was an intense read and inspiration for people like me. He was so fierce and fearless and insightful that I’m afraid his like will not be seen again.
I am absolutely utterly inconsolable.
Hard to concentrate today. He was a fearless warrior for truth. we’ll miss him greatly.
The best thing I can say about Mr. Brietbart is that he saw clearly.
No ambiguity. No nuance.
It is truly a gift to be able to see the truth;clearly, instantly.
No weighing, no measuring.
Crystal clear.
From what I gather, Professor Jacobson also possesses this quality.
More than merely seeing clearly, unambiguously and without nuance, Mr. Brietbart spoke clearly and without ambiguity or nuance. He said what he meant and meant what he said. For that alone he deserves a huge salute and will be sorely missed.
Indeed.
Critical element I omitted.
(This is how the comment section is supposed to work!)
Big Insurrection ?? 🙂
its a real loss for sure, he gave us tools to use and we should use them.
Love it!
[…] Guy, The Lonely Conservative, The Anchoress, Don Surber, Ed Morrissey, Michelle Malkin, Ace, Professor Jacobson, Moe Lane, TCOTS, and of course, many more. Tweet Tagged with: Andrew Breitbart […]
Andrew Breitbart was our Elijah. (He didn’t have to ask for three years of no rain over the land.)
It is now our duty as Patriotic Americans to ask God for double the portion of his fearlessness and courage, just as Elijah’s assistant, Elisha asked.
And once we obtain that double portion of Breitbart’s courage and fearlessness, use it!
I too just stumbled on this news and am absolutely stunned. At first I thought it was a joke; I had to go to numerous sites before I would actually believe it was true.
I first met Andrew at last year’s CPAC. About a month or so prior to my heading out to D.C. I had sent something to both he and Dana about a local issue that I thought urgently needed to be brought to their attention. Neither one knew me from Adam, but they both rallied the troops and effectively dealt with the issue firsthand.
I am not easily intimidated but when I walked up to thank him for everything he and the “Bigs” had done, my legs were literally shaking. He was like a rock star to me. Not only did he recognize my name and remember the issue but he also, without prompting, launched into a full “update” of everything that had gone on behind the scenes. For the four-five minutes I stood there, transfixed, listening to his play-by-play, I felt like I was in the presence of an absolute Jedi Master. I will never forget the absolute animation, the smirk… When he walked away, all eyes were on him. He commanded the room whenever he stepped into it.
I later asked him if he would consider heading up a “Big Education” in the spirit of tackling academia. True to form, he said he had already bought the naming rights, was all over the idea but was waiting until he could get the right people and “do it right.” I thought it was a great idea when I had it but not only had he already gotten there months (years?) in advance, he had already taken steps to make it happen.
This year, all I heard from friends who were at CPAC was the latest on what Andrew was doing now. One sent me a text here in Iraq saying, “Your friend Benjamin [an absolutely massive Navy SEAL] just saved breitbart from an occupy mob.” When I later read what he had done, and how he had done it, when I finally saw some of the videos, I smiled deep and wide. That was him. That’s exactly what he would do.
If he saw the enemy, he waded in face first with guns blazing. Andrew was a warrior in the truest sense of the word. The man had no fear. I am still in shock. I am very sad to hear he has passed.
Forgive the meta-link, but I think this is apt: Don’t Shut Up!
Get loud, people.
That’s a great post – I hadn’t seen it before. I hope people will take the time to click over and read it.
I wish I were as eloquent as the rest of you about Andrew Breitbart, but, suffice to say, I am tearful that such a fearless advocate for conservative values has been silenced. God Bless his family and all of us who will miss him so terribly.
He should be remembered for his effort to expose fundamental corruption that is motivated through policies which denigrate individual dignity and devalue human life. Policies enacted and justified through emotional extortion and by a selective history. Policies supported through votes for promises of physical, material, and ego instant gratification. Dreams to be fulfilled through redistributive and retributive change, but also through fraudulent and opportunistic exploitation.
semper fidelis
From the LA Times:
The Times’ Robin Abcarian visited his office in West Los Angeles in 2010. “The command center of Andrew Breitbart’s growing media empire is a suite of offices on Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles with the temporary feel of a campaign office. Only the computers seem firmly anchored.”
[Sawtelle … the name of my daughter’s old band and the song the Professor posted at LI last year. I’m gonna drive down Sawtelle today and see if I can spot a little memorial to Andrew.]
Breitbart lived in the West L.A. area with his wife, Susie, and their four young children. He was adopted by moderately conservative Jewish parents and attended two of L.A.’s most exclusive private schools — Carlthorp and Brentwood.
[I knew he went to Brentwood, but I didn’t know he attended Carlthorp. It was right across the street from the first apartment my wife and I rented after we were married.]
His father, Gerald, owned Fox and Hounds, a landmark Tudor-style Santa Monica restaurant that later became the punk rock club Madame Wong’s West. His mother, Arlene, was an executive at Bank of America in Beverly Hills and downtown L.A.
[I remember eating at Fox and Hounds a few times as a kid and Gerry Breitbart coming over to chat with my dad. He must’ve met my dad when my dad was city manager back in the early 1960s. Years later my dad opened a store a block away and Gerry Breitbart became one of our customers. Good man. And then it became Madame Wong’s West. I saw quite a few bands play there. It’s funny … ever time I saw Andrew on TV or heard him on the radio, because of his last name, I always thought of Gerry Breitbart, not realizing Gerry was actually his dad … until I read a piece on Andrew in Newsweek that mentioned his dad owned a steakhouse in Santa Monica … small world.]
Professor, LI has become my favorite blog – and I read MANY.
You distinguish Andrew’s world (“without restraints”) from your world (“I live in a world of restraints”). The uncomfortable but simple fact is that we choose which restraints limit us. It’s not the world that is victimizing you, professor.
Professor, just one word: “Charge!” Well, actually, there might tbe several more words like, “Fix Metaphors, charge right down the middle, and tear’em apart!” Still, take whatever road is there and make it yours. Enough of us will be there to help as we can. But, your LI blog will be a beacon of light that can burn so very bright for this country.
Damn, we’ll miss Andrew Breitbart a lot but his memory will help us all.
A sad and thoughtful time for Andrews family, friends and those of us who looked fondly everyday for bits of wisdom found on his web pages.
For me, I also find bits of wisdom on these pages, keep up the good work.
[…] Jacobson at Legalinsurrection […]
The rag USA Today’s obit is revolting but typical.
This is what they say about the Acorn videos:
“The videos show ACORN staffers purportedly offering advice on taxes and other issues to actors posing as a prostitute and pimp.”
How can any video show “purported” action? They were doing it or they weren’t. The video shows it clearly or it doesn’t. They were offering advice. The media simply cannot bring themselves to say this. They MUST insert a qualifying, scumbling adjective or adverb.
They go on to reiterate the lie about the Sherrod tape, mentioning the “full transcript” in a way that indicts Breitbart but failing to mention he printed the entire transcript. They say Sherrod was “fired” because of the tape but fail to mention Obama fired her despite the exculpatory full transcript Breitbart published simultaneously. It was Obama who discriminated against her.
They also call the tape “edited.” It was not edited.
Media lies and smears. Reaffirmation of Breitbart’s message.
One more thing:
“The videos show ACORN staffers purportedly offering advice on taxes AND OTHER ISSUES to actors posing as a prostitute and pimp.”
Yes, those “other issues” were how to set up an underage prostitution operation. Not worth mentioning?
This is our media.
I’m still in shock and speechless. What a horrible loss to us all. But you’re right, his legacy can be each of us doing that much more that much more fearlessly. It’s time.
Ace of Spades links to an excerpt from David Frum about Breitbart’s sudden passing. Frum reacts in the inappropriate and undignified way that is completely in character for the odious David Frum.
And Ace totally rips Frum apart, which is pretty much what we’d expect from Ace.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/327127.php
David who?
Thanks for linking that. Ace is brilliant, but especially so in that post. Made me cry for joy and righteousness and sadness.
May be Ace’s finest, most powerful posts..in my opinion.
David Frum is as clueless as me … when I was 16 and in the presence of a pretty girl.
I had an excuse … I was a dopey teenager at the time.
What’s his excuse?
Commenting on the Ace piece, the great Frum himself exhibits the gall, pride, chutzpah to go one further – presuming to weigh and judge Breitbart’s life and make a pronouncement of what he ‘might have become if he had lived.’
5 “In time, Andrew Breitbart might have aged into greater self-control and a higher concept of public service. Premature death deprived him of the chance at redemption often sought and sometimes found by people who have done wrong in their lives and work.”
Posted by: David Frum at March 01, 2012 02:46 PM (fsFpl)
http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=327127#c17656219
Whereas with longevity Frum will continue to rot.
So the Prof’s gonna get jiggy with it? I can’t wait!!!!!! We’ve got your back, sir; what an honor to have Mr. Breitbart contact you personally – he had excellent instincts in who was good out in the blogosphere.
He will be sorely missed, but he has given us the template by which to continue his work.
I look forward to your future endeavors –
Prof, continuing AB’s work is important to us all. Your site has become indispensible to those of us that seek an honest reporting of the news.
Prof, if you have something audacious in mind, I’d say go for it.
Yep. I say, when in doubt, go for it!
And if you start to take Vienna … take Vienna!!!
LukeHandCool (who is quite mild-mannered in person, but when the future of the country is in the balance, he becomes something of a tiger … a mild-mannered tiger)
Dana Loesch said something on her radio program this afternoon that really struck me. She said “A bright conservative light has not gone out, it has been fixed in the sky to guide us.”
“I’ve often wondered where to go with this blog. I now know.”
Great men inspire us to do what we should do, and be who we should be.
[…] The L.A. Times had a decent article on Davy Jones and Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection reminisces about Andrew Breitbart. 0.000000 0.000000 Rate this: Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe […]
Prof Jacobson: Forethought is the watchword if you choose Breitbart as style. Andrew Breitbart, like pre-BC Alexander cannot be copied. Good luck in choosing battles.
The best way to honor Andrew Brietbart is to continue his work and take up his sword. I am really impacted by this terrible news. What a loss.
Amidst the sadness perhaps his epitaph should read “he fearlessly paved the way so that others could follow.” He showed us how, now it is up to us to honor his memory and “do” what he would have done.
On Seeing A Piece of Our Heavy Artillery Brought Into Action
Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse.
Spend our resentment, cannon,-yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.
~ Wilfred Owen
RIP Andrew, our heavy artillery, our breaths in storm
Wow, Bill45000 — thank you. So beautiful and true.
Thank you, Professor Jacobson.
Your steadfastness, your even-tempered, truthful commentary on current events and the challenges of our time, are inspiring. Your care, precision and dedication to accuracy are a steadying influence. LI is a blog for our times. Thank you.
Andrew Breitbart was incandescent. Andrew was break it, smash it, confront it, allow it no place to hide, chase it to the corner, shine a light on it, make people admit what it is and what they’re doing, and what they’re peddling while they call it “journalism.” One of a kind. Sui generis. I love Andrew Breitbart. I am so sorry he’s not with us anymore. God bless him.
Professor, your personal note brought tears to my eyes.
I support you in whatever your heart and resolve lead you to. 100%.
Bill 45000 —
thank you for the poem of terrible beauty.
The poem below has brought me hope in times of trouble.
Winston Churchill quoted the last verse when the United States came into the war in WWII:
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
To me it means we must have courage in times of pain and darkness. WE may be receiving help we don’t yet know of, even though everything feels dark.
It helps me to think such a thing when a powerful force of nature, of truth and common sense as Andrew Breitbart is gone from us so suddenly and without expectation or warning.
I hope and I believe that the American people, the spirit of the American people “Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.”
I want to say to all who read here or post here : I have no enemies in this fight. Except, perhaps, those who wish to enslave the human spirit. If you are for a free America, we are allies.
God bless you, Andrew Breitbart, fiery teacher of the truthful way.
the complete poem:
Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth
SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
by Arthur Hugh Clough
Like you, Professor Jacobsen (someone I have admired more and more over the year as I am a conservative teacher living on the front of Madison, WI) – I now know what my efforts need to be in light of the loss of our flagholder – our rock star – or reminder that real liberals evolve into real conservatives as they continue to stay engaged in their skepticism of Big Government.
I am with you 100%. This matters – that we keep the flag running through the field even though the brightest (most effective) flagholder has been laid down…..
I now know what to do – just like you.
Hi, Professor. I’ve been going around all day feeling like I had a hole in me. I read the memorials to Breitbart and watched the replays of his interviews. Nothing helped until I read the last two lines of the above statement. We lost one warrior today, but perhaps another was born. I don’t know what I can do to help from a small town in the deep South, but whatever you need, I’m here.
[…] about this great conservative soldier, but I’d like to quote some comments that I saw over at Legal Insurrection, compliments of Joan of […]
I’ve been following you for a little while now, Professor, and I’ve left a couple of comments. This post, and the comments, have moved me.
Shocked, then crestfallen, now inconsolable, I’ve also felt growing in me a new resolve. Your post has crystallized it.
I too have many constraints, things I value and need to protect – things that being an outspoken defender of liberty and its conservative values might threaten. I live and work in enemy territory and I learned to lay low, knowing very well how unfairly progressives treat dissenters.
I just bought Righteous Indignation through your site. I hope I can learn how to summon just a fraction of the courage of Andrew. He is our fallen warrior, and now our guiding star.
*tears*
As long as we’re sharing verse:
too alarming now to talk about
take your pictures down
and shake it out
truth or consequence, say it aloud
use that evidence race it around
there goes my hero
watch him as he goes
there goes my hero
he’s ordinary
don’t the best of them bleed it out
while the rest of them peter out
truth or consequence, say it aloud
use that evidence race it around
kudos my hero
leaving all the best
you know my hero
the one that’s on
– foo fighters
I think Breitbart was most effective because he was from the left at one point and was an articulate person for conservatism.
I remember even when I was a liberal, I heard of him, and decided I wanted to listen to what he said, and he spoke so plainly yet so appealingly, and he spoke as someone who was a lefty and so knew how to “convert” people aka open their eyes to the left blinders, the double standard on the left.
He seemed like a genuine man, and indeed he was a happy warrior. His insights will be greatly missed, especially by recovering liberals like myself, we are recovering liberals in large part due to people like him, his courage and his tenacity to uncover the left LSM will be missed.
A true American Patriot. RIP.
Utterly in shock. Truly an American Patriot who would have fit in perfectly as our country was being born, for he fought just as fervently for his country today. RIP and God Bless.
[…] Jacobson recalls: I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is […]
Well said, Professor. Especially the last sentence ….
Once the shock is over, what will happen to BreitbartTV and its sister websites? Who will pick the mantle to run it?
No matter what, WE must continue the fight.
Andrew was like the proverbial candle who burns at both ends…twice as bright but lasts half as long.
You will be missed.
I have been trying to wrap my head around this since this afternoon.AB made me laugh …yes laugh I can think of very few things over the last few years that have given me as much joy as watching AB dismantle liberal institutions. When ever I saw him on a show I perked up waiting and hoping for the next installment.
[…] Quotes of the Day March 1, 2012 – 5:00 pm – by Ed Driscoll Tweet “The biggest mistake we can make at this juncture is to go back to waiting around for the next Whoever to ride in and save us. Because that’s a strategy full of FAIL.” […]
One of Andrew’s colleague’s just said on Hannity that they will come out with the tapes of Obama at Harvard that Andrew mentioned at CPAC in a week to 10 days.
Sounds like they are determined to keep the Bigs a growing force.
The Daily Kos Kidz lower the bottom of the barrell:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/01/1069835/-Let-s-Help-Andrew-Breitbart-go-out-In-Style-Get-Westlake-Baptist-Church-to-Protest-Him-?via=siderecent
I won’t even bother I need no further reason to despise the left
They are actually trying to get the Westboro Baptist Church freaks to protest his funeral.
I swear to God, I’ve never hit a person in my life, but if a bunch of freaks turn up trying to ruin the funeral of the father of those four kids saying goodbye to their dad …
well it may surprise you but the head of that church is a democrat …google him
The more I think about Andrew’s death the more depressed I feel. One can talk about his inspiration and memory and “continuing his fight” etc. — which is all good — but the hard fact remains that he is irreplaceable. His gifts were phenomenal — I mean no one before him had EVER done what he did, and no one has demonstrated anything like what he’s done since he’s been doing it. Who else will go into the Leftist’s nests and take on their worst attacks and flip them back at them? Who else will confront SEIU stooges at their own protest rallies, or single-handedly disperse Acorn rallies on roller skates, or call out and humiliate NY Times reporters by name at National Press Club gatherings, who will challenge the NAACP with $100,000 bets to prove racism slanders, or confront Richard Trumka at Harvard, or dress down the “despicable” Max Blumenthal in the lobby of CPAC, or take over and steer the narrative at press conferences intended for disgraced politicians whom he disgraced? Not even Reagan in his days in the fray with the Left at SAG had Breitbart’s joyful and piratical audacity.
The Bigs will remain I suppose but I wonder how he left them, and if some kind of power struggle will ruin them. I never saw a writer or contributor at the Big sites anywhere as close to as impressive as Andrew.
I wonder if we’ll all return to our diffident and defensive ways with the Left now that the our one true risk-taking warrior is gone.
May Andrew Breitbart’s light shine brightly in our hearts forever. I linked to this post in a massive roundup tribute to Andrew Breitbart here:
A Great American Hero Has Died
When I saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NzHHQASizE
I said to myself that Andrew is not long for this world.
A Hero. Loved, mourned, thanked, blessed by this commentator, also. He poured out his life, his fortune and his sacred honor for Truth and died at the head of his troops, than which no greater honor can descend upon a man. Blessed be Andrew’s name forever.
The first post on this blog that I ever read was about Ben Nelson, and you had been in the car all day. I registered today so I could tell you go for it!! You may never have the freedom our valiant warrior did( and indeed, who among us will?)but if we all run to the end of our chain and stay there, we can honor him with our courage, and I am glad you are in!!
There is also the possibility of assassination.
While Andrew may have had existing heart problems, the use of exotic chemicals to cause a heart attack is a studied method of assassination. There are ion-channel blockers that cause death by heart attack. They are exceedingly lethal by themselves, rapidly acting, not commonly tested for in postmortem, and difficult to detect in any case due to the small amounts present.
Combinations of these or custom molecules could prove to be even more lethal and quite undetectable.
To give an idea of the toxicity of these chemicals, the lethal dose in a human would be about 1-2 grains of table salt. This could be applied to a surface such as a car door handle with a carrier solvent such as DMSO, directly injected, placed in food, etc.
Of course he may just be dead of natural(er) causes.
My first thought ran to assassination and remains there. “Hit back twice as hard.” etc. The fight is not words and assumptions only. The enemy is violent in all regards, ruthless and remorseless. His goal is sex, money and power. Simple. Words to him are tools having no intrinsic meaning or use. Government as “rulers” waging civil war against citizens/underlings. The situation is dangerous pan-optically.
The end-goal of the enemy is population elimination on a grand scale, by all means available, abortion, infanticide, death panels, euthanasia, discouragement, abasement of currency, communications, education and living conditions, persecution, murder, genocide, mutilation, frustration of procreation and nature generally, incarceration, promiscuity, family separation, etc.
Hero indeed Andrew is for seeing and facing that devil and fighting her to the end.
[…] Please see Professor Jacobson‘s (another mentor of mine in the blogosphere) personal note on Andrew Breitbart’s death […]
[…] built an empire, Every blogger who fights the fight is a part of it. Legal Insurrection proves that this is true: Andrew lived in a world without restraints. He could be who he wanted to be, a luxury few bloggers […]
Why don’t you start with the massive conspiricy to coverup obama’s forged birth documents and Selective Service Card…And that’s only the beginning of the massive fraud involved in obama’s entire life history….Not one story on Sheriff Joe’s News Conference yet on your blog ?!?!?…Are you even aware who Breitbart’s last interview was with ??? Yup, It was Sheriff Joe. That was the big news he was refering to that was going to happen on 3/1/2012….
Andrew was a fearless American Patriot, a combination of Patrick Henry and Paul Revere, whose likes cannot be replaced, as Mr. Andrew Breitbart went where wise men dare not go, into the liberal lions den of corruption, lies, propaganda, deceit, and utter hatred and contempt for The People and the US Constitution and fought them fearlessly, and won !
I can only hope that I, and all the other Tea Party Reagan Conservatives, keep the Andrew Breitbart fight against injustice and media bias for the rest of our lives, as Andrew would have done with the same continued devoted passion.
I send my most sincerest condolences to the Breitbart Family, in this most tragic of hours. I pray for the Family.
Rest in Peace Andrew Breitbart