This morning, along with the news of Andrew’s terribly untimely passing, I see that Glenn Beck is stating that Andrew is the responsible party in their division. I’m sure Glenn Beck has his side of the story, but I’m going to tell Andrew’s side of it, because Andrew isn’t around to tell it himself.
And honestly, I can’t say that he would, because it goes beyond personal disagreements and animosities, and it touches on the welfare of people whom he didn’t want to hurt.
I had a unique position from which to judge these events due to the accident of having worked for Scott Baker and Liz Stephans at the B-Cast as a researcher. When they were just starting out, I helped a little from Protein Wisdom to put them in the eye of the right blogosphere, and when I lost my teaching job with St. Michael’s in Vermont they were kind enough to offer me part-time work helping to gather up stories and line up guests to the program. And for that I am grateful.
Gradually, though, they came to collaborate with Glenn Beck, Scott supplying a lot of the insights regarding Obama’s Alinskyite past, links with SDS, the Chicago academic milieu out of which he emerged, ACORN and all the rest. My role began to diminish, and eventually I was let go on the eve of their announcing that they were going to work for Beck.
Andrew bought them out. He and Scott had been estranged for some time, anyway, and Larry O’Connor took over the gig of managing Breitbart TV. I had been hired, not under Breitbart per se, but Hot Metal Media, owned and operated by Scott and Liz.
The estrangement, according to Andrew, between him and Scott began over money. Scott had quit his several-hundred-thousand-a-year gig as anchor at a Pittsburgh television station. Liz had been working in television, too, as a production assistant, drawing a relatively small salary. Realizing the potential of the internet and Breitbart’s emerging Big sites, Scott wanted Andrew’s backing. The deal was, Andrew had to accept both Scott and Liz as partners in this portion of his enterprise, even though she appeared not to be bringing as much to the table. The real sticking point was salary: Andrew was unwilling to pay Scott anywhere near what he had been earning in TV. Contrary to what many seemed to believe, Andrew wasn’t made of money. He ran a tight ship, economically. He was looking for bang for the buck.
That, apparently, left a bad taste in Scott’s mouth. He had a big house in the suburbs, and children from two marriages. They had an uneasy compact, seldom speaking. During the time that I worked for Scott and Liz, I had asked on several occasions when James O’Keefe and other Breitbart folks were in the limelight, whether we shouldn’t invite Andrew on. I found the tepid reactions somewhat puzzling. Scott, meanwhile, finalized his second divorce and became engaged to Liz, though neither I nor any of the viewers of The B-Cast were aware of this. We just noticed the rock on her hand and wondered to whom she was engaged.
In the early days, when Scott had been looking to work for Andrew, he’d been very friendly. As he became a regular part of the Beck program, then still on Fox, he re-contacted Andrew and said that he was working to bring about a collaboration between Breitbart and Beck. Andrew said he was interested, but that he would like to negotiate with Beck directly, if that were the case. He recognized the scenario. Back when Scott had been trying to bring Liz in as well as himself as a collaborator with Breitbart, Andrew had said to him that he’d like to get to know Liz on a one-to-one basis if that were the case. Scott hadn’t seemed to like that.
Keep in mind, now, that what I’m presenting is on the basis of two phone conversations with Andrew, and that I may make Scott out to be a much bigger Svengali than in fact he was in these events. Andrew was groping for answers as to why Beck had seemed so willing to throw him under the bus over the way the Shirley Sherrod/Pigford incident had unfolded. At one point, he and Beck had been friendly, and he was trying to understand how things had gone so sour.
On several occasions early in their entente, Scott had informed Andrew that Liz’ dad had deep pockets, and that Andrew might consider him as an investor. I’m sure that this point will lead to a lot of recrimination, but as Andrew’s no longer around to tell his side of the story, I will have to do so for him. He later learned that Scott and Liz were essentially living off of Liz’ trust from her father, supporting his mortgage and the travels to visit his kids who were living in Florida with one of his ex-wives. This bothered him a great deal, as did the idea of a middle-aged, twice-married man with children scooping up a significantly younger bride who had in many respects become responsible for their welfare. Is that unfair? Perhaps, but it shows you that Andrew was trying to take a look at the big picture.
You’ll recall that when Breitbart released the first Sherrod tape, it showed her speaking before an NAACP audience who hooted their approval when she spoke of a white farmer whom Sherrod had originally declined to help, on the basis that he should seek help from ‘his own kind.’ At the end of the clip, she stated that she’d reflected and decided to help, because this wasn’t a matter of race so much as it was one of income inequality. Beck ran originally with an edited version that cut out the denoument, then quickly reversed himself by joining the left in claiming that Andrew was the one who had edited and mischaracterized Sherrod’s address. Right or wrong, Andrew saw behind that the machinations of an alienated Scott Baker, and he had other sources who backed up his suspicion that Scott continued to harbor a grudge, one in particular who had worked closely with Scott and gotten to know Liz well after he’d gone over to Beck.
No matter what Beck may now say on the subject, it was his volt-face on Sherrod and his casting of the blame on Breitbart’s shoulders that was the original occasion of their falling out. And it seemed to other people, such as me, that once Beck established his GBTV and left Fox, he continued to attempt to define himself by contrast with Breitbart, even when one might expect that he’d be ideologically aligned. Personally, I think that that was a mistake, and this post is not about just what it was and is that Beck is trying to set himself up as, but the professions of innocence in the falling out ring hollow to me.
I have other information at second hand, that out of respect for the privacy of some of the involved I am not going to share. But in this matter of choosing sides, I am convinced that the estrangement doesn’t fall on Andrews’ large shoulders. He was gentler than some would have you believe. Posse et nolle, nobile: to have the power to do harm and to refrain from it is noble.
UPDATEx?: Newsbusters on Breitbart, Sherrod, and the MSM.
UPDATEx??: Many thanks to Maggie’s Notebook for the link.
UPDATEx???: Howard Kurtz and Suzanne Malveaux perpetuate lie about Breitbart on Sherrod:
UPDATEx????: Thanks to That Mr. G Guy. And many thanks to Zilla.
UPDATEx?????: Andrew’s new Bigger Bigs will unveil on Sunday.
UPDATE: Michelle has some of the ugly tweets in the wake of his death. More milk of liberal kindness here.
Visceral reflections from his friend Jonah Goldberg.
Matt Welch on Breitbart’s significance.
Among Andrew Breitbart’s many achievements: temporarily suspending the Twitter hostility over the Republican primaries.
Breitbart is dead. Breitbart lives.
He may have been the greatest genius I’ve ever met, with a keen, intuitive mind. Although he had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder — he had a freewheeling quality about him, and his schedule was quite improvisational – Breitbart was also capable of a laser-like focus on whatever subject captured his interest. There were times you’d be talking to him and, if that spark of passionate interest hit, his luminous blue eyes would glow with an intensity that was almost frightening.
Tucker Carlson, with whom Breitbart recently went to Bill Ayers’ for dinner.
“He did greater work than Woodward and Bernstein.”
Todd Starnes. The Anchoress has a reax round-up, from which I grabbed Da Techguy and Jimmie Bise. Vodkapundit, too. Dave Weigel. Tommy Christopher.
Another young fellow whom Andrew made the time for.
Great post from Dan Riehl. Another from Jonathan Last. CCR.
A mostly fair obit from the NYT.
Lots of great stuff at Ace’s, the best of which is the contrast with David Frum.
As I type this, Breitbart is more alive than David Frum has ever been.
Byron York. Fabulous round-up and reflections from Nice Deb.
PJTV: Andrew admired Bill Whittle greatly.
UPDATE (Joy): Welcome, Blaze readers.
UPDATE 3/3: Thanks to Stacy for the link. Another excellent remembrance, this one from Warner Todd Huston, and thanks for the link.
- Excited
- Angry
- Not as Angry
- Bored
- Indifferent
- Sad
Meanwhile, James Joyner and Outside the Beltway couldn’t hide their glee.
Tell me again why conservatives follow that pissant and his sycophant Doug Mataconis? Disgusting, despicable excuses for human beings.
I don’t believe that James Joyner would do so, considering his recent loss of his wife.
You can go to his site and decide for yourself.
I’ll leave it at that.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/speaking-ill-of-the-dead/
Yeah, I read it. And responded.
I’d like to think that it’s beneath James, at least. Teddy Kennedy was a scoundrel and a con man. I guess he ran a good congressional office, though.
James is just being honest about his severe disagreement with Andrew’s tactics. I can disagree with him, because I think we needed Andrew as a fighter–and yet still respect his insistence upon honesty.
He thinks Andrew left a negative legacy; I disagree. Andrew himself spoke in public of having a bit of a “temper.”
James is fine. And Andrew was a good man.
It seems that many of our “friends” on the left don’t understand the concept of, “de mortuis nil nisi bonum“…
But, you know, CIVILITY NOW!11!1! and such…
the professions of innocence in the falling out ring hollow to me.
This one?
I can only report what I observed as I watched the “feud” unroll in the public sphere. I do remember that Beck played the edited video on his radio show and railed against Sherrod’s apparent racism, and then later that same day, on TV, he chided Breitbart for posting a video that someone else edited, because that’s a good way to get yourself punked. And that Glenn didn’t mention that he himself had gotten “punked” only hours earlier.
I also remember that Andrew wanted Glenn to apologize for not coming clean about what he said on the radio show as opposed to the TV show, and Andrew claimed he’d visited Glenn’s offices in person to make the final request, only to be rebuffed.
I can only imagine that Glenn didn’t think he did anything wrong, and so “apologize for WHAT?” was his response. Ironically.
Andrew aired his side of the dispute rather vigorously, and then when Glenn “played the race card,” Andrew went right ahead and willfully misinterpreted the remark, wielding the same cudgel as a lefty would. I was pretty disappointed by that.
Glenn, for his part, did not respond to Andrew’s accusations. I don’t know if Glenn was actually taking the high road or if he just convinced himself that he was, but that’s where the “[Andrew] may have had one with me” remark comes from. From a public perspective, Breitbart was the one laying siege to Glenn, who declined to respond in kind. Or at all.
I’ve never seen Glenn as a thoroughly innocent party in all this. He should have owned up to his complicity in spreading the false narrative about Sherrod over the radio at the same time that he criticized Breitbart on TV. Undoubtedly, he was peeved that Breitbart hadn’t held off posting the edited video until he’d obtained the full version and verified the actual context of Sherrod’s remarks, which lead to Beck devoting considerable air time to bogus commentary.
But even the edited video gave a clue at the end that Sherrod was telling a conversion story rather than boasting about reverse racism. Glenn and his staff should have caught that. Glenn shouldn’t have blamed Breitbart.
I could never tell if Glenn was not responding to Andrew out of Christian sensibility or because his position wasn’t fully defensible and he knew it.
Nevertheless, I doubt that Glenn harbored or harbors ill will toward Breitbart or his enterprise, competitors though they were.
May breitbart.tv and GBTV both live long and prosper.
I agree with your assessment, and don’t believe that Glenn harbors ill will towards Andrew, but . . . to use a competitor’s death to revisit your version of a controversy in which you played a, frankly, treacherous role to save your own ass . . . that’s contemptible.
to use a competitor’s death to revisit your version of a controversy in which you played a, frankly, treacherous role to save your own ass… that’s contemptible.
I’m not absolutely sure that’s what he’s doing here. I’ll have to go back and listen to all of Glenn’s program from this morning to make sure, but I think he is addressing the feud to emphasize that whatever ill feelings Breitbart had expressed toward Glenn (very publicly expressed), Glenn did not reciprocate that feeling, and not because Glenn is such a great guy but because Breitbart was worthy of esteem, despite any disgustos they may have had.
Had Glenn wanted to have the last word in the feud, he might have added more details than “I tried to do what I felt was right” or characterized Breitbart not as someone who disagreed with him but as someone who opposed him.
I do remember from this morning’s radio show that Glenn said that Breitbart was definitely trying to put him out of business, but I didn’t infer that Glenn was imputing malicious intent: merely that Andrew was a tough competitor whose job it is to beat the other guy, because this is America and that’s what you do in the free market.
All I can say is that if Breitbart had wanted to put Glenn out of business, he wouldn’t have been so chary about this. But as for his attitude towards competitors, he went to dinner with Tucker Carlson at Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn’s place, for goodness sake. He felt there was plenty of room for everyone.
Breitbart was chary about Glenn’s involvement in the Sherrod thing?
That’s not how I remember it. I’d link to something related in the pub but it’s been down since the latest hacking.
No, not about that . . . about what he viewed as the background.
Misprision continues apace.
Good thing I’m in the middle of the interview process for a new tech-writing position, wherein I’m to convince my potential employer that I’m detail-oriented and can comprehend complex technical matters easily and quickly.
Which I merrily did with the typo in my resume.
Agreed.
As much as I may agree with Beck on issues, I’ve long had a suspicion that he “climbs over the bodies of his colleagues”; no pun intended. It’s just that it seems like he’s willing to use anything, or anybody, to increase his stature.
But we all have our Persian flaws…
OK, I went back and listened to Beck’s radio show, and the sequence of events is as follows: They do the first segment as straight-up politics, then go to commercial, then in the next segment report that they’ve just found out that Breitbart is dead, but they haven’t confirmed it. They go to commercial again soon afterwards.
Back from the commercial, the guys say that they’re positively stunned by the news, and within the next few minutes is when Glenn mentions the feud.
So he didn’t have much time to think about what to say about Andrew one way or another. He’s just vamping at this point, saying whatever comes into his head (par for the course in any case).
Even so, I can’t say for sure whether Glenn was trying to have the last word or acquit himself unfairly on the back of the unfortunate news. His motives might have been totally innocent.
Also, until I know Glenn’s side of the story, I’m not willing to pronounce Glenn guilty of clambering over the bodies of his competitors to get ahead.
I’d love to hear his side, and I don’t regard him as a corpse clamberer. Thanks for you efforts.
And I should mention that in Breitbart’s ‘edited’ version, Sherrod’s saving epiphany is included, while mentioning that that what Breitbart first posted was what he had at that moment. The continued ass-covering is what prompted me to make this public.
Thank you for writing this up Dan. It’s a highly decent thing to do.
Thanks, friend.
Dan – I second sdferr. Proud of you, Dan. Won’t win you any friends in this lifetime, but… who needs em?
As for Scott carrying on with Liz and living off her trust fund. Wow. Let me be the first to say, “scum bag”.
What part of walk the walk does a man like that not understand?
Thanks, Enoch. I know you’ve paid the price on occasion, too.
I have updated my morning story with a link to yours, Larry. It is important we continue to defuse the left’s lies about the Sherrod incident.
Oh, and here is a link to mine…
http://www.publiusforum.com/2012/03/01/rip-andrew-breibart/
Thanks, WTH, but I’m Dan. Not that there’s anything wrong with Larry.
Ha, yeah, that was my focussing on Larry. Oops. I have been in a stupid funk all day. Sorry for that.
That’s all right. I never know whether to call you Warner, Todd, or Warner Todd, so I just opt for WTH.
What sdferr and Enoch wrote – bravo Dan.
Great aggregation, too, on the passing of our Sam Adams
Thanks, Bob.
Check out Bob’s excellent remembrance.
Dan,
Thanks for posting this. I was always under the impression that Andrew was my (Down Range) kind of guy.
Now I’m starting to get a three degrees kind of feeling. You’re practically a celebrity, my man, but humble enough to converse with us low-down types;-)
So Keep Firing!!!
Means a lot to me, Danger—but Andrew really was a celebrity, and the kind that Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds are: big enough to give of themselves to people whom the next degree below wouldn’t bother with.
Yeah, I think you guys would have hit it off. Like you, like Rocketman, Andrew was a house angel and a street devil, and there’s a long tradition of Irish-derived who fit either into this category or its opposite. Fitting into this category is much to be preferred. He could thunder, but he always donned a kitteh suit before he did. He hissed at liars, and occasionally bit and scratched them.
I spoke to him only twice, and probably for under an hour each time. When he’d see something in his timeline that struck a chord, he’d direct tweet his telephone number. That meant he wanted to talk, and I’d call. But as so many other people report, I learned more about him, and he about me, in that time than reciprocally I did with many people I’d known for years.
At the root of it all was his love of family, perhaps because he was adopted. Oddly, I learned tonight that his biological father’s occupation was listed as folk singer! For Andrew, though, family was a very broad concept. I was family, and you were family by virtue of knowing me, and all he wanted was the best for his family. Other people knew him much better. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He just loved the truth better than he loved convenience.
Liz does have nice clavicles.
Thanks for the back story, Dan.
“James is fine.”
Really?
The man praises to the skies David Frum’s ghoulish attack on Brietbart, calls Breitbart’s impact “poisonous”…
… and he’s fine.
Really, Joy?
Really?
He didn’t agree with all of it, and he never “praised it to the skies.”
Frum is a jerk, but James is fine.
Andrew Breitbart tweeted what he thought of Ted Kennedy when he died, so I tweeted how I felt about Breitbart’s death: I AM TRULY GLAD ANDREW BREITBART IS DEAD !!!
And I’m quite sure that Andrew, wherever he is, regards that as a badge of honor.
And he ‘retweeted’ it, donchaknow.