I am all too aware that I'm ever so slightly late in reacting to this news, but in this case it needed more time than usual to digest. Initial reactions have been expectedly, if not unfortunately, diplomatic — including my own knee-jerk Twitter response, in which I told my very few followers, "Just found out about the death of Andrew Breitbart. I disagreed with him and his methods in almost every sense, but this is sad all the same." Indeed, this is sad, and it would be impossible for anyone to deny it in the case of this relatively young man, whose wife and children mustn't be forgotten by the outside world in its eulogies, however resentful. My follow-up from a few hours later was more measured on these points: "Okay, let's remember that Breitbart, in spite of his ardent conservatism, was a vocal champion of gay rights. What was less than admirable was his awfully demagogic tendencies. The real tragedy here, assuming there is one, is the age: 43. Too. Young."
Mentioned in the last paragraph is diplomatic side of the in memoriam articles we've been seeing around the web in the time since news hit yesterday. Most reporters carefully marshal their facts, looking to paint a portrait of their subject that is neither dishonest nor entirely forthright, perhaps completely outrageous. I mean not to include in this umbrella description, however, some of the slightly odious tweets one is condemned to stumble across in the hours following such news, or for that matter, Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi's own post on the subject — which was bitterly and perhaps appropriately titled, "Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche." Believe me, you'll want to read this one:
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. I say this in the nicest possible way. I actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart. Not in the sense that I would ever have wanted to hang out with him, or even be caught within a hundred yards of him without a Haz-Mat suit on, but I respected the shamelessness. Breitbart didn’t do anything by halves, and even his most ardent detractors had to admit that he had a highly developed, if not always funny, sense of humor.You may be able to sense that this requires full reading to fully appreciate, and take note of the update Taibbi added to the end of his post. Someone needed to write this: the internet needs a counterweight to the moist, mawkish remembrances that pop up after the death of a controversial figure. Sometimes a douche needs to be called a douche. A journalist wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't itch to satisfy the demand for a little honesty in these matters, and if I may borrow slightly from Voltaire: to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth. But if some modest advice were to be offered to Taibbi's side in all matters polemical, a writer is likely to be taken more seriously if the argument can't be summed up quite so laconically, and if the summary wasn't made up primarily of a four letter word. It's perfectly acceptable to brand someone a scumbag, even a dead scumbag. But let's make sure we actually have an argument to submit alongside it, okay?
(Image: "Andrew Breitbart speaks at a 'Cut Spending Now' rally at the conservative Americans for Prosperity 'Defending the American Dream Summit.'" Getty Images, via Rolling Stone.)