Upon hearing of the death of Andrew Breitbart, Breitbart’s Twitter nemesis Eric Boehlert of Media Matters sent a respectful and classy tweet:
Even Media Matters itself, with whom Breitbart sparred almost daily, issued a respectful statement:
Media Matters has a long history with Andrew Breitbart. We’ve disagreed more than we’ve found common ground, but there was never any question of Andrew’s passion for and commitment to what he believed.Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today.
By contrast, David Frum used the occasion to accuse Breitbart of stoking if not embracing racism, and to repeat falsehoods about the famous Shirley Sherrod tape:
Because President Obama was black, and because Breitbart believed in using every and any weapon at hand, Breitbart’s politics did inevitably become racially coded. Breitbart’s memory will always be linked to his defamation of Shirley Sherrod and his attempt to make a national scandal out of back payments to black farmers: the story he always called “Pigford” with self-conscious resonance.
For the record, there was no “defamation” of Shirley Sherrod, something I analyzed in great detail a little over a year ago, and Pigford was a scandal for reasons having nothing to do with the race of the farmers. It’s not enough for Frum to play the race card before Breitbart’s body was cold, he also had to lie about supposed lies.
Ace said Breitbart took with him in death Frum’s last shred of credibility. It’s so much worse than that.
What is it about death that brings out the worst political instincts in Frum?
When Gabby Giffords was shot and several people murdered by the psychotic Jared Loughner, Frum used the deaths as an opportunity to attack Sarah Palin. Now he’s dancing on Breitbart’s grave.
I know many readers will wonder why anyone cares what Frum says. It’s a point made repeatedly in the comment section when Frum is mentioned here. The reason it matters is that the media has anointed Frum a representative of conservatives and Republicans, even if it is undeserved.
When one of our media-anointed representatives treats our dead with less respect than our political opponents and uses death to stoke the false narrative of racism, it should not go unanswered.
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