Last Friday, at 10:30 p.m., Andrew Breitbart sent me a two-word
text message: “Where y’at?”
We were both in Troy, Michigan, that night. He was
scheduled to speak at the next day’s Americans for Prosperity
forum. I was in town to cover the Republican presidential primary
campaign. Knowing he would be in town, I’d called him earlier, to
find out where he would be hanging out, and when he texted me, I
called again and learned he was at Morton’s steakhouse, down the
road from the Marriott Hotel where the AFP conferees were staying.
Soon I joined him at Morton’s, where we talked a while. He said he
had become bored with the GOP presidential race. Instead, he was
focused on new angles of attack on the Left. We went over to the
Marriott, where Breitbart joined a dozen or so people hanging out
in the lobby bar.
Hanging out with Breitbart was an experience that hundreds
of his friends and allies had the pleasure of sharing over the
years and, when the shocking news of his death came Thursday
morning, those people began sharing their stories of a man destined
to endure as a legend in the history of the conservative movement.
His high-profile public life as a daring provocateur — who exposed
the dirty secrets of the Left and then leveraged his own celebrity
to pour the gasoline of publicity on the fires he kindled — was
the tip of a massive iceberg of hard work, generosity, and
inimitable genius.
Breitbart was a man of impressive intelligence, possessed
of a deep and intuitive understanding of news, politics, and
culture. Some of the most talented and experienced journalists of
my acquaintance were awed by Breitbart’s genius. Long before he’d
gained nationwide fame for his work in exposing ACORN and the
Anthony Weiner sex scandal, Breitbart was already admired by those
who knew of his pioneering work in the development of online New
Media, as the former sidekick to Matt Drudge who subsequently
helped Arianna Huffington develop the Huffington
Post.
The first time I met him was at the 2007 Conservative
Political Action Conference. It was near midnight when he came
through the hotel lobby with conservative journalist Joel Mowbray.
They were on their way up to their hotel room to have a few beers,
and I tagged along. Soon, Breitbart was regaling us with tales of
his online adventures including the time he spotted police
examining a suspicious vehicle parked near a home that was hosting
a Hillary Clinton fund-raiser in his Brentwood neighborhood. He
posted a brief headline at the Drudge Report, then went into his
kitchen to get a snack. As he was walking past his TV on his way
back to his computer, he saw that CNN had added the bomb-scare
headline to the “crawl” across the bottom of the screen. Such was
the impact of this new online medium, and harnessing the power of
the Internet to influence news coverage was Breitbart’s
obsession.
“Changing the narrative,” as he often described it, was
what Breitbart was all about, and he had studied the habits of the
news industry so long and so intensely that he knew exactly how
they would react when he began striking back at what he called the
“Democrat Media Complex.” In the case of the ACORN exposé — with
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles using hidden cameras to catch
officials of the left-wing group agreeing to abet a prostitution
operation — Breitbart first released one video. When ACORN
officials insisted that this incident was anomalous, Breitbart then
released a second video recorded by O’Keefe and Giles at an ACORN
office in another city, where officials were similarly willing to
assist plans to pimp out teen hookers. More denials from ACORN
ensued, but then Breitbart released another video, and then another
and another and another. Reporters who at first had accepted
ACORN’s denials at face value were eventually forced to acknowledge
that Breitbart’s young protégés had indeed exposed a willingness of
the “community organizing” group to turn a blind eye to
criminality. The negative publicity forced ACORN to declare
bankruptcy, although the organization lives on in altered form,
with various local chapters reconstituting themselves under new
names.
The key to the success of that sting was Breitbart’s deep
understanding of how the news business works, and how people in the
industry think and behave. He employed that understanding to
powerful effect, and helped others understand it, too. Yet there
was only one Breitbart, and his unexpected death at age 43 leaves a
huge vacuum in the world of conservative New Media that he did so
much to build. By the time of his death, he had become a hero to
millions, an inspirational leader. Breitbart was a popular speaker
at Tea Party rallies and other conservative gatherings, and always
spoke extemporaneously, without a text or notes to guide
him.
The last time I saw him, at the AFP Michigan event
Saturday, he arrived at the last minute, unshaven and with his hair
uncombed, having stayed until the wee hours hanging out in the
Marriott lobby. Without any preparation at all, however, he gave a
speech that stirred the audience, telling the Tea Party activists
that their victory in the 2010 mid-term elections “freaked the
living daylights” out of the Left. He talked at length about the
Occupy movement, and its strong ties to left-wing organizations —
including labor unions — that made it “Barack Obama’s army.”
Referring to the fight for the 2012 Republican nomination, he urged
his listeners not to focus their attention on the candidates
because, he said: “You are needed more than the
candidates.”
Breitbart was a powerful voice, who always sought to
empower others and encourage them to join his fight against the
forces of the Left, which he saw as attempting to destroy the
America he loved. He will be long remembered by those who had the
pleasure of sharing the Breitbart experience.
“Where y’at?” he asked in that text message a week
ago.
We’re still here, Andrew, still hanging out. But it’s just
not the same without you.
