Andrew Breitbart Dies, Matt Taibbi Pens Most Fitting and Subversive Tribute
I can’t pretend to have had a modicum for respect for Andrew Breitbart while he lived, as I have gone on the record numerous times spewing intense and unvarnished hatred toward the man and his journalistic practices, his tenuous relationship with the truth and his habit of rearranging footage to forge a destructive frankenstein-esque creation that levied ultimate damage on the new and social web he knew so well.
Breitbart died suddenly just after midnight Thursday walking in his Brentwood neighborhood (a death that struck fear into the hearts of bloggers everywhere, given his seeming average health and the fact that he was a scant 43 years of age), and despite hating on him so hard, I, like many others, reacted in a kind of, “well, I didn’t want him to die” sort of way. Although he did some pretty awful things in the years leading up to his death (the Sherrod incident, ACORN, mentoring the fuckery that is James O’Keefe), the man leaves behind a wife and four little kids, which is horrifically sad any way you slice it.
Grave dancing is a slimy-feeling pursuit no matter who has died, and Breitbart himself was known to take the safety off when going after the recently deceased- taking a bunch of vulgar potshots at Sen. Ted Kennedy after his 2009 death, for instance. So the obit penned for Breitbart by scathing Rolling Stone writer and muckraker Matt Taibbi is perhaps the most fitting tribute one could give the deceased founder of BigJournalism.com from the other side of the aisle.
Titled Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche, here are a few excerpts, beginning with the beginning:
“So Andrew Breitbart is dead. Here’s what I have to say to that, and I’m sure Breitbart himself would have respected this reaction: Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.”
Taibbi goes on to admit he “actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart,” before ever-so-slightly commending Breitbart’s work to take down ACORN and describing his biggest coup d’état- unseating the scandal-ridden former congressman Anthony Weiner at his own apology press conference and hamming it up for a good long while before Weiner finally got the chance to take the stage. Taibbi recounts:
“Watching Weiner apologize to Breitbart later in that same event was certainly chilling for a number of reasons (if I were Weiner, I wouldn’t have apologized to that fucker even under torture) but it was hard not appreciate the deliciousness of the scene from Breitbart’s point of view.”
He continues:
“Watching Weiner pause, swallow hard, and make the extraordinary decision to plant his lips squarely on the loathsome Breitbart’s ass on national television, that was like the ultimate Mona Lisa masterpiece of right-wing media provocations. That the outrageous Breitbart was standing right there, looking gorgeously gassy in his unbuttoned shirt, bloated Joey Buttafuoco cheeks and splendiforous silver half-mullet, made the humiliation of the trim and neatly-groomed Weiner even more abject.”
Of course, Taibbi’s Breitbart eulogy is best enjoyed in full and can be found over at Rolling Stone.
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About the Author
Kim LaCapria Kim LaCapria is a writer and editor based in New York. A longtime information junkie, she began blogging full-time at the Inquisitr in 2009. Prior to that, she worked as a marketing assistant in the cosmetics and skincare industry. In addition to her writing for fortytwotimes, she also writes for Medacity and The Inquisitr. Kim is also a contributor for SocialNewsDaily, Indyposted, and TotallyMoney. In the past, she contributed to Lipstick and Luxury and managed social media accounts and blogs for several small and mid-sized businesses.
