I was … I am stunned to hear of the death of Andrew Breitbart. I don’t think there’s much of anything I agreed with him about, which is an understatement. My interactions with him were first friendly, then later heated and vexed, though maybe not unfriendly even then. He tweeted something at me yesterday, which I ignored. There are some people who live for the fight. It’s something I try not to be part of. Yet it’s a big, punchy, vivid and outrageously honorable tradition in the American public square. I cannot think of many people who lived more out loud than he did, more in primary colors. I remember thinking at some points even the name — the way it rolls off your tongue — has this rough, brickbat, unsmoothable sound: Breit / Bart.
I noticed on my Facebook feed this morning this comment from my friend Hilary Rosen: “#AndrewBreitbart RIP you big crazy rabble-rousing bundle of contradictions, loathsome actions and a giant heart. You have made your mark.” I don’t think I can say anything more fitting.
He left his mark.
Beneath all the layers of our public life, we’re sons, daughters; parents to sons and daughters: naked people at our most vulnerable, true moments. This is way, way too young to die, something I know palpably since Breitbart was only a week or so older than I am.
Others knew him better, can memorialize him better. But for myself I wish the very best to his wife and children in this moment of unbearable grief and send my condolences to all his friends, of whom there were many.
