“Walk toward the fire” — Andrew Breitbart died 8 years ago

WILLIAM A. JACOBSON MAR 1, 2020 5:40 PM

Every year on March 1, we remember the life and legacy of Andrew Breitbart.Here’s what I wrote on March 1, 2012, Andrew Breitbart dead:

Very sad news to report, just breaking.  Andrew Breitbart is dead.Via Big Journalism:

Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

… There are few people who are irreplaceable, but Andrew may have been one of those few.

I wrote A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart that day:

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.

One of Andrew’s more famous quotes:

“Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, you’re sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too.”

To this day, Andrew is maligned from the left for the video he and Larry O’Connor released about Shirley Sherrod. I have tried to set the record straight, but particularly in this social media age, I’m not sure the truth prevails anymore:

• The Original Sherrod Clip Was Not “False”
• Dissecting Shirley Sherrod’s Complaint Against Andrew Breitbart
• Saturday Night Card Game (Repeat after me: “The Shirley Sherrod tape was not misleading”)
• The myth of Andrew Breitbart’s “deceptively edited” Shirley Sherrod tape lives on at Slate.com
• NY Times perpetuates myth of Andrew Breitbart’s misleading Shirley Sherrod video
• Shirley Sherrod case settled, now put to bed myth that Breitbart’s tape was misleading

“Apologize, for what?” became most associated with him, and it was phrase he tweeted the day of his death:

As I noted last year, if that was the phrase most associated with Andrew, this was his advice which is more true now than ever:

Wake up, Conservatives: Left is involved in 100% organized class & race warfare & you think you can sit this one out & not fight back?!?!

Whenever I think of Andrew, I also think of Mandy.

This is still my favorite interview of him, by Prof. Glenn Reynolds and the Instawife:

Those who knew him best, and many who he inspired, remembered him today as well.

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