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Andrew Wept
You may recall the recent Hewitt v. Trump thread, where the silver-haired lickspittle of the Cocktail Circle Corps demanded that Donald The Brave tell him the atomic weight of Boron and other gotcha! questions. Trump, to his credit, noted that he would get up to speed on the periodic table, and know more about the elements than Hewitt ever would – possibly by finding the best scientists in the world, hiring them, liquifying their brains, and having the rich, brilliant slurry injected directly into his cerebral cortex.
In the comments, I noted that the outcry after the interview would result in Hewitt’s banishment from the ranks of True Conservatives, because he was elite, squishy, and no doubt part of a plan to resettle the entirety of Kansas with Mexican gang members on the orders of the Jewish Masons. (They secretly control the regular Masons.)
On cue, breitbart.com obliged with a piece: HUGH HEWITT, GOP DEBATE QUESTIONER, SIDES WITH ESTABLISHMENT, NOT VOTERS. The comments are … well, go read them, and you’ll be slapping your wallet to re-up for Ricochet. (Did you know Michael Medved is a Jew? He is.)
Disclosure: Hugh is a friend, and I am a regular guest on the show. I am also a daily listener for 15 years, during which time I enjoyed many appearances by a fellow who also held Hugh in warm regard. Guy by the name of Andrew. Hugh was a big booster of Andrew, and whenever he had a new project or made the news or just wanted to pop off, Hugh had him on.
I knew this Andrew too. A capital fellow. Last time I saw him was in my kitchen at the end of a party; he was the last to leave, and he was talking about the toll it all took. The man had endless fearless energy, and it never occurred to us that sometimes it must have been damned hard being Andrew. I miss him to this day, and I know, if he was still around, he’d be on Hugh’s show saying whatever he wanted to say, and if he said something that clashed with something Hugh said, Hewitt would say hold that thought and keep him over for the next segment.
Andrew left a brand. His heirs soil it. A good site, once. Now it’s a toll house on the edge of the fever swamp. I wish they’d change their name, but of course they won’t.
Without it, what would set them apart?
Image Credit: “Andrew Breitbart” by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Published in General
I edited my above comment-Kaus once called out Jennifer Rubin on this issue on one of their old podcasts. David Frum and (increasingly) Bill Kristol are pretty hardcore on immigration.
Fair enough, wmartin.
Jewishness entered the conversation because of the anti-semitism exhibited by the more goose-steppy of Trumps supporters. They have been hurling epithets at Jewish detractors of Trump recently.
James Lileks – If you had just written a post saying Breitbart had declined based on the things you had seen posted in the comments section, I wouldn’t have a problem with what you wrote. It’s the fact that you wanted to neutralize criticism of Hewitt’s interview by saying Breitbart has become a Stormfront front.
I don’t look at the comments section on Breitbart and don’t know if they have a moderator or not. NRO gets these type of neo-Nazi commenters, but quickly deletes them.
I’m not a Trump supporter, but I want the immigration laws enforced, and Hewitt’s Quiz Show-type interview was of the kind that Sarah Palin endured with Katie Couric and George W Bush did with a Boston TV station 1999 (Reporter to Bush: “Can you name the general who is in charge of Pakistan?”). To me, this indicates the interviewer is starting the interview with hostile intent.
You are a great writer and I do apologize for the tone of my initial post.
I have always found Hugh’s “Alger Hiss” questions to be absurd. I know quite a lot about the Hiss case but don’t think that is a good proxy for my general historical/political interest.
Or better yet, go to breitbart.com and look at the variety of articles on the site, many of which publicize negative information about Trump.
While you’re at it, take a look at the comments to the article referred to in the OP, which number in the thousands. I took about 15 minutes scrolling through them today around noon. There are many vociferously anti-Hewitt comments, a fair proportion of which are crudely expressed and reflect infantile and ill informed sentiments. But I saw very few that made any mention of Jews or someone’s Jewish heritage. So few, in fact, that I consider Lileks’ reference to Michael Medved to be clearly misleading.
You mean the policy he described during his interview with O’Reilly? The one that was reported on breitbart.com – the site that’s “over the moon” for Trump – last night?
Am I the only one who is comfortable with all the political right factions expressing themselves? No qualms here at all with Breitbart, his heirs, Hugh Hewitt, Lileks, Steyn, Coulter, Mona Charen, Ricochet, NRO, Trump or whatever other animal you care to name.
Americans are used to having Rush or Fox News broadcasting conservative views to the great unwashed. In the English-speaking world outside of America, its far less common. The London arm of Breitbart is I think doing an especially excellent job of shining a light on leftist hypocrisy in Eutopia. they often say things no one else dares to, even if they veer into tin-foil hat territory.
I wouldnt envy anyone who had that job. With the quantity of comments to filter on Breitbart, you are talking more hours of screen-staring time than most can fit into a working week.
By my reckoning they would need to section off at least 25% of additional screen space for Mature Asian dating ads to pay for it.
No problem! <hearty Ricochet goodwill handshake>
My memory may be failing but I think Couric asked Palin what newspapers she read and Palin couldn’t name a single one – not the Washington Post, not the NY Times, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal. Nothing. Nada. Now, I’m sure Palin has read many articles in these publications but it was a fairly innocuous “gotcha” question. Wait, here it is:
My wife & I were especially sad about the decline at Breitbart. John Nolte used to have his own website called “Dirty Harry’s Place.” It was great writing on his part, and the commenters were of exceptionally high quality. There was intelligent and civil discourse, bordering on what we find here.
We had hopes that the same commenters would follow him there. If any did, they were drowned in a sea of asininity.
We followed the various Breitbart areas for some time, but my interest suffered the death of a thousand cuts. There was the sheer quantity of posts that would clog my RSS reader every day. There was the fact that nearly half of them seemed to be of the “J-List Actress Says Something Insulting to Us” variety. There was the Winter Olympics when they would post the outcomes of events that had yet to appear on television in the title of the articles on the RSS feed. One thing after another piled up until I could stand it no longer. I deleted the feeds from my RSS reader, and haven’t looked back.
I miss Andrew. I don’t miss the site that still bears his name.
No one knows what Andrew Breitbart might think.
Ever listen to Andrew and Larry O’Connor’s interview with former Congressman B-1 Bob Dornan less than one month before Andrew Breitbart passed away?
Dornan got to trash Newt Gingrich as a fake conservative felon and praises Mitt Romney. Anyone who remembers Congressman Dornan who refused to vote for liberal John McCain might find this amusing.
http://www.dennismillerradio.com/b/No-Vote-in-November/-401613880437958971.html
Politics makes strange compatriots
Pigford, anyone?
From Hugh’s website:
I like the question, myself. The first book I read after my “dammit, I’m a conservative” moment was Witness. I started it thinking it would cure me – that I would see the error of my ways and accept the dogma that I found myself breaking free of.
Didn’t work.
For those of us who don’t listen to talk radio, what exactly is the question? And what is he getting at?
Brian Watt – With Palin, I should have referenced this interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News. As described by Charles Krauthammer:
“He asked Palin, ‘Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?’
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, ‘In what respect, Charlie?’
Sensing his ‘gotcha’ moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine ‘is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense’.
Wrong”
Krauthammer goes on to explain that he was the first to use the term, and it has had multiple meanings.
And tonight the site that is “over the moon” for Trump is covering his flip flop on Syrian refugees, with the comments predominantly critical of Trump.
But don’t let the facts interrupt the Lloyd Bentsen channeling session.
I guess the Jewish Masons are led by a guy named Jackie. Very clever guy. It explains a lot.
Trump was right about them being gotcha questions. None of the candidates know the names of a bunch of minor middle eastern chieftains, many of whom die with regularity only to be replaced by yet another Muhammad Mumble Mumble Someone (“Hey, did you hear? We killed the #3 *insert Jihadist Group Here* bigwig!” “Really? Again?”). Palin was right. They were Trivial Pursuit questions.
Derka Derka Mohammed Jihad.
I agree that Gibson was gotcha journalism. Palin had just had two of the most incredible weeks anyone could imagine, including hitting it out of the park at the convention. Nobody grilled Harry Truman like this a week after FDR picked him to replace Henry Wallace as Vice President in 1944.
The problem–come on and admit it, Palin fans–was the Katie Couric interviews. Palin was awful, and it’s harder to excuse or understand. Couric is not a hard interviewer and by then Palin had the time to get briefed.
That’s when most of the women I know switched from being interested to being hostile to Palin. Gibson was one thing; if she couldn’t even handle Couric (and she couldn’t), how was she supposed to handle Putin if something happened to McCain?
This should have been Trump’s answer to the question.
He could do well with a few well placed “America! Uh-huh!”. People would catch on right away. Unofficial slogan of the campaign.
Add Savage, Levin, Pam Geller, Dan Stein… to Kaus.
There are a few dynamics here.
First, if 100 people are screaming for open borders and one of them is a Jew, the anti-Semites will single him out.
Second, few people who support open borders actually attempt to make intellectual arguments for open borders (beyond the occasional drive-by platitude). The Boehner Chamber of Commerce-types do not have the brainpower to attempt. Members of the Church of Libertarianism are too stoned. That leaves a few commentators which probably concentrates Jewishness.
Third, among Jews there clearly is a bit of the mentality that by supporting open borders they are demonstrating their moral superiority over the goys who opposed Jewish immigration in the 20th century. My thought is this is more significant among leftist secular Jews who can’t rely on their own practice of Judaism to feel moral.
Fourth, but related to the first and third, many open borders Jews invoke their Jewishness and immigrant background in support of open borders. Hearing some Jewish commentator making absurd open-borders arguments in a smug New York accent could turn anyone into an anti-Semite.
It seems to me that there are a lot of general accusations here without specific citations.
Is there a current Republican candidate advocating open borders?
Is there a Jewish conservative commentator/pundit advocating open borders?
Does John Podhoretz advocate open borders?
Do writers or does the editorial board at NRO or the Weekly Standard advocate open borders?
Does comprehensive immigration reform = open borders?
Does comprehensive immigration reform = amnesty?
Does current immigration policy allow for the granting of residency (not immediate citizenship) to people of refugee status?
This is just getting pathetic.
Perhaps you just don’t know funny…?
(every comment about libertarianism does not have to be taken personally… unless you want to, of course…)
James,
I only read comments on Ricochet, so I won’t defend any commenters at all. I did read the piece, though, and it made some persuasive arguments about Hugh’s views on immigration. I notice you rip on the commenters and generally trash the site, but you did not address any of the substance of what was written in the piece itself.
To be extremely generous, this remark is ignorant conjecture wrapped in a straw man shrouded in paranoia.
I don’t know how representative of Trump support or the right leaning political movement this sentiment is, but it’s not a winning look, no matter what slogan gets printed on a hat to dress it up.
He seemed to be making a pretty thorough argument in a long comment.
Maybe I’m just tired of the constant libertarian = libertine stoners refrain from ignorant conservatives.