About the Author
Part publisher, part agent provocateur, part blogger, but all high-octane, politically incorrect truth-teller and mainstream media destroyer, Andrew Breitbart defies easy categorization.
Described as “überconservative” by his many political enemies, he co-created the Huffington Post. A free-speech advocate, he believes that there need to be more voices and more dissension in our democracy, not homogenized mainstream media pabulum. As a result, in 2009, he began to launch a series of groundbreaking group blogs harnessing a combustible mix of opinion, breaking news, and good old-fashioned investigative journalism, all aimed directly at the power structure of Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the political establishment. The Breitbart network presently includes Breitbart.com, Breitbart.tv, Big Government, Big Hollywood, Big Journalism, and Big Peace, with more to come in 2011.
With a fierce independence of spirit fueled by thousands of like-minded patriots and rebels, the “Bigs” took down ACORN and tapped into, defended, and propelled the Tea Party, leading the charge into the historic 2010 elections. As the Old Media falls apart, Breitbart leads a populist uprising to redefine media, politics, and culture.
Andrew Breitbart lives in Los Angeles with his wife, three sons, and a daughter.
Acclaim for
Righteous Indignation
“Andrew Breitbart is an invaluable asset to the Commonsense Conservative cause. RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION is a manual and call-to-action for awakened patriots who are too intelligent to believe the leftist media lies and distortions. Breitbart reminds us why we must fight for our country’s future by staying true to core values and never retreating.”
—Sarah Palin
“RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION starts off where many conservatives are born: after college, when liberalism’s theoretical utopia begins to clash with the real world. Gen X slacker Breitbart transforms himself—with a little help from yours truly—into a cultural warrior, a New Media powerhouse, and one of the conservative movement’s most ferocious fighters. Brash, funny, fiery, and irreverent, Breitbart and his Big sites put liberals on the defensive—where they belong.”
—Rush Limbaugh
“[Weaves] a narrative that will remind many readers of their own lives. Even if you don’t share all of Andrew’s political beliefs, you will find yourself identifying with at least some of his story and conclusions. The book is part biography, part history lesson, and part manifesto, and it flows with clarity of purpose from one page to the next. It subtly draws you into a narrative, strung through the whole book, where he meticulously makes the case against the media and pop culture, which, he argues, help spread and normalize the liberal agenda. He also explains how to combat that agenda.”
—DailyCaller.com
“Right smack in the middle of this volume is where Mr. Breitbart’s narrative takes off like a rocket.”
—Washington Times
Notes
Chapter 1: From Little ACORNs Grow…
1. Cristina Corbin, “ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census,” FoxNews.com, March 18, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/18/acorn-play-role-census/.
Chapter 3: Thank God for the Internet
1. “Ants in the Picnic Basket?” DrudgeReport.com, July 4, 1997, http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/dsp/specialReports_pc_carden_detail.htm?reportID={F996E731-A796-400C-9B0D-D91F3FAB6BBE}.
2. “White House First Learned Willey Was Talking during Online Chat,” DrudgeReport.com, March 15, 1998, http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/dsp/specialReports_pc_carden_detail.htm?reportID={EFC06A59-502F-4477-806C-954B06564D1A}.
3. Arianna Huffington, “Tomb of the Well-Known Hotel Magnate,” AriannaOnline.com, November 24, 1997, http://ariannaonline.huffingtonpost.com/columns/column.php?id=597.
4. Maureen Dowd, “For Once, Clinton Was Innocent,” Wilmington Morning Star, November 25, 1997.
5. Arianna Huffington, “The Ancient Non-Mariner,” AriannaOnline.com, December 4, 1997, http://ariannaonline.huffingtonpost.com/columns/column.php?id=600.
6. Ibid.
7. “Newsweek Kills Story on White House Intern,” DrudgeReport.com, January 17, 1998, http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2003/01/16/20030116_014732_ml.htm.
Chapter 4: Hey, Old Media: It’s Not Your Business Model That Sucks, It’s You That Suck
1. Kate Zernike, “CPAC Speaker Bashes Obama, in Racial Tones,” New York Times, February 18, 2010, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/cpac-speaker-bashes-obama-in-racial-tones/.
2. Alicia C. Shepard, “A Scandal Unfolds,” American Journalism Review, March 1998, http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?rel=ajrshepard1_mar98.html.
3. Marvin L. Kalb, One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky, and the Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism (New York: Free Press, 2001), 90–91.
4. Shepard, “A Scandal Unfolds.”
5. Ibid.
6. Kalb, One Scandalous Story, 94–95.
7. Shepard, “A Scandal Unfolds.”
8. “Report: Lewinsky Offered U.N. Job; Investigators: DNA Trail May Exist,” DrudgeReport.com, January 21, 1998, http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2002/01/17/20020117_175502_ml.htm.
9. Today, NBC, January 27, 1998.
10. “She Had Sex with Cigar: Media Struggles with Shocking New Details of White House Affair,” DrudgeReport.com, August 22, 1998, http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2003/01/16/20030116_014732_ml.htm.
11. “Storm over Lewinsky ‘Stalker’ Claim,” BBC News, February 8, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/clinton_under_fire/latest_news/274792.stm.
12. Associated Press, “Lewinsky ‘Stalker’ Label Tied to Blumenthal,” Toledo Blade, February 7, 1999.
13. Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 371.
14. Christopher Hitchens, “Thinking Like an Apparatchick,” Atlantic, July–August 2003.
15. Gabriel García Márquez, “Why My Friend Bill Had to Lie,” Guardian (UK), January 30, 1999.
16. Richard Goldstein, “Sexual McCarthyism: Lurid Revelations, Crude Moralizing, Perjury Traps: They All Echo America’s Darkest Days,” Village Voice, September 29, 1998.
17. Kathy Kiely, “The Prez Sleuth Terry Lenzner Made a Name Exposing Dirty Tricksters. But Now This Ex–New Yorker Is Accused of Being One,” New York Daily News, March 8, 1998.
18. John M. Broder, “White House and Starr Clash on Subpoenas,” New York Times, February 25, 1998.
19. Ann Coulter, “Between Consenting Adulteries: Bill Clinton’s Bimbo M.O.,” Human Events, February 6, 1998.
20. Jonathan Broder and Harry Jaffe, “Clinton’s Sexual Scorched-Earth Plan,” Salon.com, August 5, 1998, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/08/05news.html.
21. David Talbot, “ ‘This Hypocrite Broke Up My Family,’ ” Salon.com, September 16, 1998, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/cov_16newsb.html.
22. “Why We Ran the Henry Hyde Story,” editorial, Salon.com, September 16, 1998, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/16newsc.html.
23. Larry Flynt, Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth (New York: Kensington Books, 2004), 13–14.
24. Ibid., 16.
25. David Neiwert, “Lives of the Republicans, Part Two,” Salon.com, September 16, 1998, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/16news.html.
26. Jason Vest, “Secret Lives of the Republicans, Part One,” Salon.com, September 11, 1998, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/11newsb.html.
27. Darrell M. West, The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 100.
28. Dan Savage, “Stalking Gary Bauer,” Salon.com, January 25, 2000, http://dir.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/01/25/bauer/index.html.
29. “The Firestorm over ‘Stalking Gary Bauer,’ ” editorial, Salon.com, January 29, 2000, http://dir.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/01/29/savage_reaction/index.html.
Chapter 5: The Democrat-Media Complex Strikes Back
1. Kevin Sack, “The 43rd President: After the Vote—A Special
Report,” New York Times, December 15, 2000.
2. Richard S. Dunham, “Who Says Bush Has a Mandate? Bush,” BusinessWeek.com, February 20, 2001, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2001/nf20010220_680.htm.
3. “What Mr. Bush Can Do,” editorial, New York Times, December 15, 2000.
4. Ann Coulter, Slander (New York: Crown Publishers, 2002), 33–34.
5. Maureen Dowd, “Liberties; Mexico Likes Us!,” New York Times, May 6, 2001.
6. Howard Fineman, “A President Finds His True Voice,” Newsweek, September 24, 2001, http://www.newsweek.com/2001/09/23/a-president-finds-his-true-voice.html.
7. Richard L. Berke, “A Nation Challenged: The Democrats; Bush Winning Gore Backers’ High Praises,” New York Times, October 20, 2001.
8. Laura Ingraham, Shut Up and Sing (Washington: Regnery, 2003), 77–78.
9. Greg Pierce, Washington Times, January 23, 2003, available at http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-939012/Marching-orders.html.
10. Ingraham, Shut Up and Sing, 77–83.
11. Bernard Zuel, “Lights, Camera, Take Action: Sarandon Rallies the Arts,” Sydney Morning Herald, November 19, 2002.
12. Jay Stone, “Sundance Still Relevant,” Vancouver Sun, January 21, 2003.
13. Tim Robbins, “A Chill Wind Is Blowing in This Nation…,” CommonDreams.org, April 15, 2003, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm.
14. Sean Penn, “An Open Letter to the President of the United States of America: Advertisement,” Washington Post, October 18, 2002.
15. Dinesh D’Souza, The Enemy At Home (New York: Broadway Books, 2007), 50.
16. Andrew Sullivan, “Why Is This Race Even Close?” Salon.com, November 6, 2000, http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2000/11/06/bush.
17. Andrew Sullivan, “Stand By Our Man,” Salon.com, September 18, 2001, http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2001/09/18/bush.
18. Andrew Sullivan, “War Is Declared,” The Daily Dish, TheAtlantic.com, February 24, 2004, http://sullivanarchives.theatlantic.com/index.php.dish_inc-archives.2004_02_22_dish_archive.html.
19. Rob Reiner, “Where Have You Gone, Woodward & Bernstein?” HuffingtonPost.com, May 10, 2005, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-reiner/where-have-you-gone-woodw_b_579.html.
Chapter 6: Breakthrough
1. Theodore Roosevelt, “Who Is a Progressive?” April 1912, available at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1199.
2. Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” 1910, available at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=501.
3. Quoted in Thomas E. Woods, 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask (New York: Crown Forum, 2007), 138.
4. Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 75.
5. Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 78.
6. Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 86.
7. As quoted in Chilton Williamson, The Conservative Bookshelf (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 2005), 296.
8. Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Continuum, 2002), 207.
9. Ibid., 218–19.
10. As quoted in Patrick Buchanan, The Death of the West (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001), 86.
11. Adam Cohen, “What’s Hot on This BBC Podcast? The Siege of Munster (1534–35),” New York Times, February 17, 2010.
12. Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge, 1984), 241.
13. Ibid., 145–46.
14. Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-Governing Character Structure (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 77–78, 111, 184.
15. Thomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 112, 458.
16. Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry (London: Routledge, 2003), 99.
17. Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change (New York: Broadway Books, 2007), 175.
18. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), 81, 226.
19. Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 46–47.
20. Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 95–137.
21. Mao Zedong, “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?” May 1963. Pamphlet, Foreign Languages Press, 1966, 3 pages.
22. Harry Chatten Boyte and Nancy N. Kari, Building America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 102.
23. “Essay: Radical Saul Alinsky: Prophet of Power to the People,” Time, March 2, 1970.
24. Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1989).
25. Ibid., xiii, xvi, xxi.
26. Ibid., xix.
27. Ibid., xxiv–xxv.
28. Ibid., 4.
29. Ibid., 21.
30. Ibid., 9–10.
31. Ibid., 6.
32. Ibid., 17.
33. Ibid., 33.
34. Ibid., 60.
35. Ibid., 136–138.
36. Ibid., 139.
Chapter 7: Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries
1. Real Time with Bill Maher, March 13, 2009, HBO.
2. Jack Cashill, “Who Wrote Dreams from My Father?” American Thinker, October 9, 2008, www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html.
Chapter 8: The Abu Ghraib of the Great Society
1. Andrew Breitbart, “Couric Should Look in Mirror,” Washington Times, September 7, 2009.
2. “ACORN Fires 2 Employees After Hidden Camera Stunt,” WBALTV.com, September 10, 2009, http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20841755/detail.html.
3. Jake Tapper, “Census Severs Relationship with ACORN,” ABCNews.com, September 11, 2009, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/census-severs-relationship-with-acorn.html.
4. “Congress Votes to Strip ACORN of Federal Funding,” FoxNews.com, September 15, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/17/congress-votes-strip-acorn-federal-funding/.
5. “Issa Releases Investigative Report Finding ACORN Still Alive and Well,” Republicans.oversight.house.gov, April 1, 2010.
Chapter 9: Tea Party Protector
1. “Fear or Loathing: Democrats Raise Specter of Swastikas to Cancel Town Meetings,” FoxNews.com, August 6, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/06/fear-loathing-democrats-raise-specter-swastikas-cancel-town-halls/.
2. Andrew Breitbart, “2010: A Race Odyssey—Disproving a Negative for Cash Prizes or, How the Civil Rights Movement Jumped the Shark,” BigGovernment.com, March 25, 2010, http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/03/25/2010-a-race-odyssey-disproving-a-negative-for-cash-prizes-or-how-the-civil-rights-movement-jumped-the-shark/.
Epilogue: Looking Ahead
1. Greg Sargent, “Source: ABC’s Newsroom Upset with Decision to Tap Andrew Breitbart,” The Plum Line, WashingtonPost.com, October 30, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/10/source_abcs_newsroom_upset_wit.html.
2. Matt Gertz, “Failing Upward: Breitbart to Be Featured in ABC’s 2010 Election Coverage,” MediaMatters.org, October 29, 2010, http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010290035.
3. Oliver Burkeman, “US Midterms Diary: John McCain’s Penthouse Put-Down,” Guardian (UK), November 1, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/midterms-diary-mccain-reid-palin.
4. Michael Calderone, “Breitbart, ABC News Spar over His Election Night Role,” The Upshot, Yahoo.com, November 1, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101101/el_yblog_upshot/breitbart-abc-news-spar-over-election-night-role.
*Tom Wolfe famously wrote about this elitist poseurism in Radical Chic &
Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, which, if you haven’t read it, is a must.
*You might recall one of James’s college stunts. To highlight the Kafkaesque extremes of political correctness Rutgers had descended into, James, of Irish descent, decided to complain to the college administration about the serving of Lucky Charms cereal in the school cafeteria. The school agreed, pulling the “offensive” cereal with that “degrading” leprechaun on the box from its shelves.
*It’s the same mistake any start-up Internet or New Media company makes—to say to the audience, “We want you to come here and we want you to stay here,” as though you’re the only site on the Internet. With a singular, potentially viral product like a video, the far better strategy is—to quote another famous salesman—“Spread the wealth around.”
*Talk about an apostate to the left—Patrick’s former partner is Shepard Fairey, the guy who designed the Obama “Hope” poster.
*The Wall Street Journal summed up Harshbarger’s behavior in that infamous case when Amirault was released after nearly two decades in prison: “Along the way, the law was stood on its head. The rules of evidence were changed to accommodate the prosecution; the burden of proof was put on the accused. Four- and five-year-olds were coached to say what adults wanted to hear. One of the reasons behind the district attorney’s decision last week not to oppose Mr. Amirault’s release on parole was that in order to have him classified as a ‘sexually dangerous person’ there would have had to be a virtual retrial of the entire Amirault case. The DA had to have been deterred by the prospect of parading into a courtroom with the incredible fantasies extracted from Mr. Amirault’s alleged victims—about secret rooms, magic drinks, animal butchery, assaults by a bad clown. Then District Attorney Scott Harshbarger had offered them as ‘proof’ of the Amiraults’ guilt.”
Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World! Page 25