Category: Andrew Breitbart

A jolly inspirational fellow.

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Chains Rattling, and Who’s That Ghost?

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P.J. O’Rourke encounters Andrew Breitbart at the
Manchester, N.H., Radisson Bar, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012

“At more than one point in the movie, Breitbart asks members of audiences he’s addressing to hold up their iPhones, pocket cams, and other recording devices and to turn them on. You, he says, are the media. That gesture is the essential takeaway of Andrew Breitbart’s work — and of the documentary Hating Breitbart. Such moments illustrate how something weird and wonderful is happening when it comes to media. . . .
“Andrew Breitbart understood that it’s easier than ever to own a press and that despite the vast, incomprehensible increase in chatter . . . the demand for even more is still infinite.”
— Nick Gillespie, “Hating Breitbart‘s Powerful Post-Partisan Message,” Nov. 2

One of my favorite books is P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, which ought to be on every college freshman’s reading list. It therefore seemed obvious, when I bumped into O’Rourke in the bar of the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, N.H., after the Republican presidential debate, that I must introduce him to Andrew Breitbart.

So now I sit here and ask myself, “How would ‘a lone humorist’ attempt to explain the entire tragic situation at Breitbart.com?”

Having spent more than a few hours on the phone talking to people about it the past several days, a reasonably coherent picture is emerging, and I’m not really sure I want to be the guy describing it. In fact, the smartest thing for me to do would probably be to ignore it.

None of my business. Walk away and pretend nothing happened.

Except there’s a federal lawsuit filed by Dana Loesch, which is actual news, and maybe it’s not a good idea to let myself get scooped here.

Andrew Breitbart liked to say he had two modes of operation, jocularity and righteous indignation, and it’s rather unfortunate that he never got around to writing the book, Jocularity: Excuse Me While I Make You Laugh Your F–king Asses Off, because he certainly could.

In his righteous indignation mode, by contrast, Andrew went off on Glenn Beck last year, calling Beck a “coward,” a “snake” and a “huckster” in an interview on Stephen Bannon’s podcast:

You really ought to listen to that entire 13-minute interview. As a matter of fact, a transcript might come in handy, because (a) people are telling me that it was Glenn Beck who wanted to hire Dana Loesch away from Breitbart.com, (b) the same people depict Stephen Bannon as the villain of the story, and (c) I’m genuinely perplexed by all this.

My advice has not been solicited, because I’ve only worked in the news business since 1986, so what do I know about newsroom management?

Every newsroom is a seething cauldron of frustrated ambition. There has never been a news outfit that wasn’t afflicted by clueless management, inept editors and disgruntled reporters. “We’re working for chimpanzees,” as a former Washington Times colleague used to say.

Mistakes, conflicts, rivalries, backstabbing — it’s par for the course, standard operating procedure, and the key to survival in the business is deciding how much craziness you can stand before you decide to sing that Johnny Paycheck classic, “Take This Job and Shove It.”

What’s bizarre about the case of Dana Loesch v. Breitbart.com LLC is that when Dana wanted to leave, they wouldn’t let her.

Or so Dana alleges, I hasten to add, because the last thing I need is someone suing me for defamation, tortious interference, etc.

“Mongo just pawn in game of life.”

The last thing I need is to insert myself into the middle of the New Media equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad, but as I said a couple days ago, the sharks are going to have themselves a feeding frenzy no matter what I do (or don’t do) and why should I let myself get scooped?

Never mind my dilemma. Hear what Patterico has to say:

I never said this before, but I was personally the recipient of some pretty shabby treatment myself from that organization, after Andrew died.
[M]y experience was not the only such experience. Not by a long shot. And having been through it, it is plenty easy for me to believe that Loesch was also treated shabbily.
And when you treat people like crap, it doesn’t stay a secret.

Read the whole thing, because it’s exactly right. The world of conservative New Media is kind of like a small town, and if a secret is juicy enough, don’t think you’re going to keep the town gossips from doing what they habitually do. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly.

Anyway, this wasn’t my plan for a cheerful Christmas Eve column, and I’m sorry for throwing this bummer on you when we’re all supposed to be making merry. But even heavy burdens are lighter when they’re shared by enough people, and maybe we can crowd-source this problem.

After all, as Breitbart said: You are the media.

UPDATE (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers!





 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Newsroom Management Training Video

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“The idea that I could do for a living that which I would do in my free time, for free, is the single greatest thing on the planet.”
— Andrew Breitbart, May 2007

“He had so much energy. He was so positive. . . . He was definitely a mentor. He was great to his employees. . . . He leaves behind a huge legacy.”
— Dana Loesch, March 1, 2012

“This case concerns a poorly managed but well meaning relationship gone tragically awry, resulting in the attempt by one vindictive party to sabotage the reputation and career of another. . . .
“For reasons that may just as easily be attributed to basic ideological conflicts, the working environment for Loesch became increasingly hostile.”
— Dana Loesch v. Breitbart.com LLC, December 2012

Generally speaking, when a routine personnel matter at a political news organization turns into a federal lawsuit that zooms to the top of Memeorandum, we might suspect that editorial management practices are not optimal, to say the very least.

Look, I once worked for the legendary notorious Otis Brumby, the pluperfect stereotype of the temperamental domineering publisher.

Otis recently did the world of journalism an enormous favor by dying, so that he can’t sue anyone for libel. Then again, truth is the ultimate defense and there were alway plenty of witnesses willing to testify that Otis was one evil, mean and crazy son of bitch.

A certain level of “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” in the newsroom therefore seems entirely normal to me, experience that came in quite handy during my decade at The Washington Times, another news operation where the words “commitment” and “institution” have special significance.

IYKWIMAITYD.

Megalomania as a managerial principle is perhaps a suitable topic for a graduate thesis at the University of Columbia J-school, but I digress . . .

Having further explored the background on what is now a matter of litigation (Loesch v. Breitbart.com), I think three things are obvious:

  1. Andrew Breitbart never would have let this happen;
  2. There’s much more to the story; and
  3. Dana Loesch has already won.

Whatever happens to the lawsuit, Dana is and will remain a person much beloved by the conservative Tea Party grassroots, whose light cannot possibly be kept hidden beneath a bushel.

The problem for the defendants in this lawsuit is that there is now blood in the water and the sharks — TPM, ThinkProgress, Media Matters, Mother Jones, Slate, Salon, Politico, Gawker, etc. — are going to insist on having themselves a feeding frenzy.

When McKay Coppins did his little “sources say” story in October, it pissed me off, because institutional loyalty and staff morale are essential to any news organization. It was shocking to think anyone who worked for Breitbart would have anything to say to McKay Coppins that did not begin with “fuck” and end with “you.”

Now, however, in my mind’s eye I’m seeing a 4,000-word article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, or an equally in-depth cover article in The New Republic — written by liberal journalists who despise everything that Andrew Breitbart believed — and there is nothing anyone can do at this point to prevent that from happening. Too many people are already talking, and the inherent news value is too great, to convince an editor that it’s not worth reporting at length.

Go read Dana Loesch’s lawsuit and ask yourself what is meant by such phrases as “poorly managed . . . vindictive . . . sabotage . . . basic ideological conflicts . . . increasingly hostile.”

Well, these are merely allegations, eh? So far as we can claim to know, all these things are wholly imagined by the plaintiff, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

I first met Andrew Breitbart at CPAC in February 2007, and interviewed him for a feature profile in May 2007. I hung out with him many times over the years, including at the Michigan AFP event in February this year, just a few days before his untimely death.

And I think everyone involved in this unfortunate mess — defendant, plaintiff, and the horrified witnesses — can agree with this four-word sentence: Damn, I miss Andrew.

 

 

 


Dana Loesch, Indentured Servant?

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Rumbles of discontent at Breitbart.com, which I’d been hearing from various sources since spring, have finally erupted into actual news, as Dana Loesch has filed a federal lawsuit seeking (a) $75,000 and (b) to be released from her contactual obligations:

St. Louis talk radio host Dana Loesch, also a frequent guest on CNN, alleges in the suit filed in federal district court in St. Louis that the site is refusing to publish her work while “sabotag[ing] her attempts to labor in a similar fashion elsewhere through public misstatements and private threats to sue those who would otherwise employ Loesch.” . . .
Breitbart.com is “binding Loesch to what amounts to an indentured servitude in limbo,” she charges in the suit, which was first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

More at the BuzzFeed. It’s unfortunate that matters came to such a pass, and I don’t want to get into the blame game in a situation where I don’t know both sides of the story.

As I said, I’ve heard “rumbles” about the Breitbart.com operation for several months, but having spent so long in the newspaper business — where every newsroom is a seething cauldron of frustrated ambition — it’s something I didn’t want to read too much into.

Dana Loesch is one of my favorite people in New Media, and I know she was one of Andrew’s favorite people. It’s just very sad to see things break down so badly so soon after Andrew’s death.

Click here to read the eight-page text of Dana’s lawsuit.

UPDATE: Now a Memeorandum thread. I’ve printed out the lawsuit and may have further comment after I read it.

UPDATE II: OK, now having skimmed over the lawsuit, the claim is that in October 2011, Breitbart.com failed to exercise its option to renew Dana’s contract for another year, so that her employment thereafter was on a month-to-month basis. In September of this year — perhaps having been offered better terms by another site — Dana gave a month’s notice of her intent to leave Breitbart.com, at which point management claimed that she was still contractually bound to the company, and threatened legal action against any company that hired Dana.

Four word come to minds: Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Without regard for contracts, it is just plain nuts for Breitbart.com to try to keep Dana if Dana wants to leave. What is this, the Mafia or something, where once you’re in, you’re in for life?

Frankly, I’ve never heard of anything like this before. It simply doesn’t make sense: If, as Dana alleges, Breitbart.com no longer wants to publish her writing, why would they prevent her from taking her work elsewhere? If her services are not valuable to them, why deny her the right to find another publisher who might value her services more?

Maybe management at Breitbart.com can explain this, or maybe I’m somehow misunderstanding the dispute, but what it looks like is, they’re trying to drive Dana Loesch off the Web altogether: She can neither write for Breitbart.com, nor write for anyone else.

How the hell can they do that in America?

UPDATE III: Linked by Doug Hagin at Daley Gator and by The Lonely Conservative. Continuing rumbles indicate that the situation with Dana Loesch may be part of a larger issue with the business model and the management philosophy at Breitbart.com: More like an old-style Hollywood studio system, oriented toward celebrity “star power,” so that if they can’t have Dana Loesch, nobody can have Dana Loesch. Or something like that, anyway.

David Martosko at the Daily Caller points out that, since Andrew died in March, “a coterie of friends of the company’s late namesake has continued to run the  company, most recently hiring a raft of conservative bloggers and reporters that  included former Washington Times staffer Kerry Picket and former Daily Caller  reporter Matthew Boyle.”

Knew they had hired Boyle, a young investigative reporter, but didn’t realize they’d also hired Picket, an ultra-aggressive Capitol Hill reporter. And, to show you how little attention I pay to these things anymore, I hadn’t seen this Dec. 10 story by Betsy Rothstein at Fishbowl DC, talking about Breitbart.com’s Stephen K. Bannon hiring up reporters by the bushel basket load, signing them up to four-year contracts:

Reporters around town being wooed for Breitbart.com include: Katie Pavlich of Townhall, Lachlan Markay of Heritage, Charlie Spiering of the Washington Examiner, Caroline May of The Daily Caller and Daniel Halper at The Weekly Standard.
Some have described a cultish feel to the process, with phrases such as “This is the way Andrew would have wanted it” being bandied about in conversation.

So, if they’ve got all this cash to throw around for hot talent in D.C., why should they insist on keeping Dana Loesch sidelined?

To repeat: Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

They’re Still Hating Breitbart

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After screaming into the phone in frustration, I caught my breath and calmed down, finally paraphrasing scripture: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Never mind to whom I was talking or what the original subject of my rant was, the bottom line is something some of us have been saying for months: “Damn, I miss Andrew.”

Of course, Breitbart himself was often frustrated — in his “righteous indignation” mode — at the apathy and incompetence he encountered when dealing with the ossified GOP Establishment.

Despite the mythical image of Breitbart as an invulnerable superhero who went from one triumphant victory to another in his war against the “Democrat-Media Complex,” Andrew experienced discouragement just like anyone else. While he was always sanguine in public, understanding his role-model status in exemplifying the “happy warrior” spirit, he didn’t mind sharing his disappointments privately with friends.

This morning, Da Tech Guy had Aaron Walker’s attorney Dan Backer on his radio show for a two-hour special about the Kimberlin saga. The astonishing news this week — Judge Richard B. Potter’s dismissal of the Virginia lawsuit Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. — was a main topic. I called in during the second hour of the show, and there was extensive discussion of how to get courts, cops and reporters to start taking this story seriously. People have been SWATted, other people have been sued, arrested, wrongly accused, threatened, harassed and cyberstalked, people have lost their jobs or had their employment jeopardized, and yet there continues to be a false narrative about this story that it’s “just about politics” or “just a bunch of crazy people arguing on the Internet.”

Frustration and discouragement are natural, and it is difficult to see the way forward without visionary leadership. “Damn, I miss Andrew.”

OK, so . . . Bill Schmalfeldt.

Bill Schmalfeldt of Elk Ridge, Maryland, a.k.a. “Liberal Grouch”

You remember: Two weeks ago, the deranged Schmalfeldt threatened to call my wife and, over a span of 48 hours, sent me more than 200 Twitter messages inspired by his obsessive rage. He had been attacking me since June, but I’d tried to ignore it until Schmalfeldt’s madness escalated to such an intensity that I felt obliged to turn on the light and let people watch the cyberstalking cockroach scurry away.

Do you know how much Bill Schmalfeldt hated Andrew Breitbart?

Two weeks ago — the day after Thanksgiving, the same day he went nuts on Twitter — Schmalfeldt took over the “Breitbart Unmasked” site that for the past nine months has been used to attack various targets of what I’ve called the Kimberlin-Rauhauser Axis. But even before that, four months ago, Schmalfeldt did something so perverse and hateful that decent people can scarcely comprehend it.

In July, Schmalfeldt created a Web site called “Big Damnation” which he promoted with a Twitter account called @DeadAndrew that mocked Breitbart as supposedly repenting his conservative “sins” (and denouncing his former colleagues) while suffering in Hell.

Bill Schmalfeldt is a remorseless liar and, after this vile project was exposed, Schmalfeldt deceptively used his phony “Bill Matthews” alias at the Examiner to promote his dishonest (anti-Breitbart) version of this controversy. In doing so, Schmalfeldt (a) defended Brett Kimberlin and (b) pretended that he wasn’t responsible for the “Big Damnation”/@DeadAndrew atrocity, as Lee Stranahan has explained.

This is important to understand because, as I have previously pointed out, the original reason Aaron Walker became a target of Kimberlin is because Walker was CC’d on an e-mail sent to Andrew Breitbart that became part of a police report.

That is to say, Walker was collateral damage, a target of convenience, in Kimberlin’s larger project of destroying Breitbart. This project has continued even after Breitbart’s death, and Schmalfeldt appears very much to be part of that project, although whether he’s being paid or is just a moonbat volunteer is not clear.

Two weeks after his “Big Damnation”/@DeadAndrew atrocity project was exposed, Schmalfeldt used his “Bill Matthews” alias at the Examiner to attack me as “one of the few odious wisps of intestinal gas still floating in the air, emanating from the decomposing empire of the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.”

Like everything else Schmalfeldt writes — his initials are “B.S.” — this is laughably wrong. I was never part of Breitbart’s “empire,” never contributed to nor was paid by any of Breitbart’s enterprises.

Rather, I was just one of many friends that Andrew made over the course of his career. I first met him at CPAC 2007, and interviewed him later that year for a Washington Times feature story. This friendship continued over the next five years and, as chance would have it, I was among a dozen or so people hanging out with Breitbart in a hotel lobby on the eve of an AFP Michigan conference the weekend before he died. Somewhere online, there’s video of the speech I gave at the D.C. memorial for Breitbart, but I’m not in a mood to look that up now.

My point is that (a) Schmalfeldt is a liar, (b) he’s part of a much larger project aimed at destroying the conservative citizen-journalism movement that Breitbart helped inspire, and (c) the reason I became a target is that, like so many other targets of the Kimberlin-Rauhauser Axis, I’m trying to carry on this movement. As I wrote on May 18: Who Warned Us About Brett Kimberlin?

People better wake up. Where there is no vision, the people perish.

And remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

 

 

 

 


The Continuing Newsworthiness of the Weird Kimberlin-Rauhauser Story

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Brett Kimberlin could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison

“Keep in mind that Rauhauser, by inciting Nadia Naffe’s lawsuit against Patterico, has obligated Patterico to avoid writing about this subject on advice of counsel, and Aaron Walker‘s attorneys have advised him likewise. So two of the bloggers most knowledgeable about what I call the Kimberlin-Rauhauser Axis are not in a position to tell readers what’s happening on that front. William Hoge has been keeping tabs on the court proceedings, but Rauhauser’s methodical cyberstalking required my special attention.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Oct. 21

“It’s as if the whole matter is just being treated as a blogger war, as opposed to something that could have gotten multiple people killed.”
— Patrick “Patterico” Frey, Nov. 8

“I believe this to be reckless endangerment if not attempted murder. The intent there was to cause harm.”
— Aaron Walker, Nov. 27

When Neal Rauhauser’s blog went dark (and Neal’s pet Twitter troll, “Occupy Rebellion” went silent) Friday, it didn’t make big headlines — even most blogs ignored it — despite the fact that it involves one of the central figures in one of the most bizarre stories of the year.

Among the minor frustrations of covering this story has been the occasional accusation that I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, chasing an inconsequential controversy that boils down to “just a bunch of crazy people arguing on the Internet.” Yet the story remains every bit as newsworthy today, in early December, as it was on May 25, when it accounted for the top seven threads on Memeorandum.

As a matter of fact, with a key court date approaching Tuesday — when Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Richard B. Potter will hear several motions in the Virginia case of Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. — the story is now more newsworthy than ever. Furthermore, the possibly related incidents of “SWATtings” (which have targeted conservative bloggers including Patrick “Patterico” Frey) recently gained notice in the mainstream press:

So here we have a story with a celebrity angle and nationwide significance, related to the Anthony Weiner scandal, and also involving Brett Kimberlin, the infamous “Speedway Bomber” who gained notoriety for claiming to have sold drugs to a youthful Dan Quayle. In addition, this story involves the late Andrew Breitbart because, as I explained Nov. 24, Aaron Walker first came to Kimberlin’s attention after Walker was CC’d on an e-mail that liberal blogger Seth Allen (who had been sued by Kimberlin) sent to Breitbart last year. And, if all of that is not enough to make the story sufficiently interesting:

The strange relationships between all these incidents and individuals could scarcely be sorted out and explained in a single blog post, but as confusing as it may be, the point is — as Patterico told L.A. Weekly‘s Simone Wilson — this isn’t just “a blogger war.”

The Internet is being used as a weapon of what Patterico has called “political terrorism.” Law enforcement seems indifferent to this threat to First Amendment freedoms, and a similiar indifference has been shown by many journalists and bloggers.

“It is very easy to decide ‘this isn’t any of my trouble’ and permit vicious behavior. . . . Who wants to get involved? Easier, and surely safer, just to duck one’s head and hide, and hope the danger visits someone else.”
— Ace of Spades, May 22

Over the past six months, the danger of which Ace spoke has been visited on many innocent law-abiding American citizens, some of whom had nothing to do with the Kimberlin story. Neal Rauhauser has boasted of his skill at playing “conflict cupid” with his enemies, and has evidently incited several vile creatures to join a sort of troll army, attacking not only those who have spoken out against Rauhauser’s client Kimberlin, but also anyone who has rallied to the defense of Kimberlin’s targets. Larry Sinclair, Bill Schmalfeldt and Brooks Bayne are among those who have assisted in sowing confusion, conflict, suspicion and fear around these targets. This is part of what I’ve called the “accuse the accusers” strategy and, as I said in September:

I am not deceived. I am not distracted. And I sure as hell ain’t afraid.

There was an election campaign to cover and so, except for the occasional mention of new developments, “The Kimberlin Files” were laid aside until that ended. Now I’m back on the story.

Aaron Walker’s lawsuit against Kimberlin, Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert aims to hold people accountable for their dangerous and harmful activities. The hearing Tuesday in Manassas, Virginia, will resolve several preliminary motions in that case:

Kimberlin’s conduct in the case, acting as his own attorney, has been decidedly weird. At one point in August (see “Exhibit J” here), Kimberlin sought to delay the case to Dec. 15 and e-mailed Walker’s attorney Dan Backer:

“I am cooperating with the FBI and other law enforcement officials regarding several issues involving your client and I believe that the resolution of those matters will have a bearing on this case.”

The idea that a notorious criminal like Kimberlin would be “cooperating with the FBI” is strange enough, but what “issues involving” Aaron Walker could be of interest the FBI?

My guess is that Kimberlin was talking about Rauhauser’s effort to depict Walker (along with Patterico, HB Gary, Jen Emick and others) as part of a conspiracy that exists only in Rauhauser’s twisted imagination. Rauhauser has been pushing this craziness for months. In February, it was the “Kookpocalypse“; a few months later, Rauhauser adapted the conspiracy theory to his false claim that Brandon Darby was to blame for the SWATtings. By September, Rauhauser (aka “Carlito2000”) was pushing this insanity at Barrett Brown.

If Kimberlin thought he could save himself the trouble of defending against a lawsuit by getting the feds to prosecute Walker based on Rauhauser’s false “Kookpocalypse” theory, wouldn’t that implicate Kimberlin in an attempt to obstruct justice? What other purpose could Rauhauser’s falsehoods serve, except to distract and confuse authorities investigating the SWATtings? And, as Patterico points out, why would Kimberlin plead the Fifth Amendment when asked what he knows about SWATting?

There are people who think they know the answers to those questions, just as there are people who think they know why Rauhauser’s blog suddenly went “dark” on Friday. Rather than supply the common-sense inferences — readers may connect the dots however they please — my main goal is to encourage journalists and bloggers to bring attention to this case as Tuesday’s hearing approaches.

More than six months after I canceled a planned trip to the G-8 Summit in order to cover this story, Walker’s lawsuit against Kimberlin promises to bring some sort of clarity (and, perhaps eventually, closure) to this savage tale. Reader contributions to The Shoe Leather Fund have permitted me to stay on this story despite every effort by Kimberlin and his henchmen to intimidate me into quitting, and I know readers don’t want me to quit now. So once again I remind you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

 

 

 

 

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

 

 


You Should Watch This Video

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A full hour long, this is an appearance Andrew Breitbart made in September 2011 at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. It starts kinda slow, but you really should grab a chair, get yourself a sandwich, click “view full screen” and watch the whole thing. I promise you, it’s worth your time and will leave you feeling inspired.

McKay Coppins, Concern Troll

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Every newsroom is a seething cauldron of frustrated ambition. It’s been that way forever, and is true everywhere.

Nobody goes into the news business with the goal of being the headline writer on the obituary page, but somebody’s got to do it, and the phenomenon of the “disgruntled staffer” is not really interesting unless the guy shows up for work one day with a high-powered rifle, four or five clips of ammo, and a grim determination to finally get his name on the front page.

It was in this light that I read McKay Coppins’s BuzzFeed article today about “disgruntled staffers” at Breitbart.com.

To make a long story short: So what?

There’s nothing in this article that was really news to me. I know nearly everyone at Breitbart.com, and like all of them — just for example, I was hanging out with Andrew at the 2007 YAF West Coast conference where he first met Alex Marlow — and if some of them don’t like other . . . again, so what?

Is there some rule that everybody in a news operation must like each other? Or that the staff writers must always agree with the editorial choices of management? If so, nobody ever told me about it, and I’ve been in the news business since 1986.

In other words, whatever your opinion of the internal quarrels of the Breitbart.com staff — who’s right or wrong, who’s good or bad — it’s really just the typical grumbling common to all news operations.

The same backstage rivalry goes on every day at Fox News or CNN or the Iowa Hog Farmers Gazette.

And what McKay Coppins has done is to exploit that for profit at BuzzFeed, playing “concern troll,” as if he admired Andrew Breitbart and shared Breitbart’s goals or ideals. He didn’t.

Finally, to my friends at Breitbart: If you don’t like your job or you don’t like your boss, you can always quit.

If you feel that your value to the organization is insufficiently appreciated, the smart thing to do is to offer your resignation and seek employment elsewhere. I’ve often reflected with amusement that, when I resigned from The Washington Times in 2008 — after they hired a guy from the Post to replace the retiring Wes Pruden — they were willing to let me walk away.

Since then, they’ve gone through three editors, massive layoffs, a disastrously expensive blunder of a Web site re-design and, when last I heard, were about to hire their fourth editor in as many years.

Me? I’m a correspondent for The American Spectator and run a blog that averages more than a quarter-million hits a month.

That may not seem like much, but it ain’t failure, and is much better than the misfortune of folks who got laid off in the staff-cutting bloodbaths that followed my departure from the Times.

Moral of the story: If you think the guys running the operation don’t know what they’re doing, get out while the getting’s good. Otherwise, shut up and do your job.

And don’t ever tell McKay Coppins jack shit, either way.

@HatingBreitbart Shall Be Seen Alongside 2016 As Essential For Understanding The Obama Era

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by Smitty

An absolute must-see. And must-own.

My old Nokia N97 was immortalized about midway through the movie, where, after he was done addressing the Tax Day Tea Party in 2010, I asked him a question:

Other famous folks included, but not necessarily making the credits, were Da Tech Guy, Marooned in Marin. Dave Weigel is in there a bit, though his position is ambiguous on a good day. Also, some guy named Dan Riehl. Stacy says his voice is heard in the New Orleans party scene, but I missed that.

The new thing that I learned from the movie was the influence Orson Bean had on Breitbart; I had heard Andrew say that the Clarence Thomas hearings had affected his thinking, but his father-in-law seems to have impacted Breitbart’s transition to conservative stalwart, as well. But the movie isn’t really so much a biography of Andrew Breitbart as it is a summary of his actions while prosecuting his #War against the mainstream media. I personally attended and blogged considerable portions of the 2009-2010 events in the movie. Thus, it’s a fantastic summary of events to which I stood on the edge, observing closely.

Will there ever be another strange, inverted period in American history like the last four years? God forbid. We are witnessing the death of the Commie-infested media, and Andrew Breitbart played the role of its Jack Kevorkian. Someone was asking on Twitter if there will ever be another Breitbart, as though Andrew were some Arthurian figure. Responses:

  • No: Breitbart, MLK, George Washington, &c are all Highlander figures. “There can be only one”. But they do precipitate out of the solution that is history, as needed.
  • Yes: there is a Breitbart in each one of us, albeit a microscopic grain in the case of Lefty tools. That is, even the gimpiest Legacy media gimp, and I’ll throw out Chris Matthews for a name, probably still at least dreams of his pre-gimp days. Breitbart, while no military veteran, can be seen as having ‘supported and defended the Constitution of the United States against all enemies. . .domestic’.

And thus I salute this fine American.