My Brief Encounter With Andrew Breitbart

TAMNY: ROMNEY'S AMERICAN CENTURY IS UNAMERICAN
GEITHNER PENS ANOTHER RIDICULOUS OP/ED

LIKE MILLIONS OF OTHER INTERNET JUNKIES THIS MORNING, I found myself in speechless shock when I logged onto my computer to see the headline on Drudge: Andrew Breitbart Dies At 43.

Of course we all know  death can happen to any of us any time, yet Andrew's apparent death was almost impossible to grasp. It was his energy, aggressiveness, x-ray focus and total commitment to grinding the axe of the left's cultural fascism---yes, redundant--that made him seem invincible.

As I went through the motions  back in Nashville after two weeks in Arizona, I thought about Andrew and his unexpected death all day. 

The touching write-ups from the conservative side of the Internet have only just begun and I daresay   the best thing I can do as a blogger is to link to the best of the best of them.
However, because I met Andrew briefly about a two-and-a-half years ago at the Heritage Foundation in D.C. during the evening premier of the anti-global warming documentary Not Evil, Just Wrong,  I thought I'd share a few details of that encounter.  Nothing earth-shaking, just one of many that this interesting man had in the course of a day:

It was October 2009 and I and my gallant D.C. escort arrived at the bone-crushing wine-cheese reception outside Lehmer Hall at Heritage on upper Mass Avenue where the documentary debunking much of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth was soon to be premiers.  Conservatives were swarming everywhere as wine flowed and influential people pressed in to have important conversations with whomever they could.

Andrew Breitbart was to be the moderator of a panel discussion after the film was shown.

After ten minutes fighting the  crowds,  the man I was with---normally a convivial social butterfly in the Harvard alum/NW Washington inner circles to which he was accustomed, bent over  and confided to me there was no one he cared to talk here to nor anyone who cared to talk to him....and wondered if we could go into the peace-and-quiet of the auditorium and get a good seat so we could get this evening underway.

I was happy with this suggestion---as I took a last sip of  red wine.


When we walked into the auditorium, we were the only ones there and took our seats and began to chat.

Exactly WHY were we here? What is all this commotion about?  he said, loving to tease me  and my conservative politics... While I was instructing him to sit back,  relax and not say an unkind word to anyone,  Andrew Breitbart strode in, down the aisle beside us.

He was dressed in a blue oxford shirt, navy jacket with no tie and looked very similar to the photo above.  He carried a glass of white wine. I turned to my companion and told him  that was Andrew Breitbart our host for the evening.

Who is Andrew Breitbart? I told him I'd brief  him again later. Then Andrew spoke to me and I s stood up to chat briefly with him.  It was a fun moment....

*********

ANDREW AND I CHATTED in the still empty auditorium for several minutes before his young assistant came running in.  I congratulated him on Big Hollywood and the great under-cover, investigative work he was doing.  He told me he had even bigger plans for Big Government, Big Environment etc, etc. just to name a few of his big ideas and he would need lots of new sources and writers.

I told him I was a small-time blogger who had written some for Pajamas Media.  Then I turned to a subject near-and-dear to my heart: The story no one was adequately covering in my opinion----how the big investment banks, like Goldman Sachs, were quietly taking over the big environmental/conservation organizations like The Nature Conservancy (where I had formerly served on the national Board of Governors).  They were doing this,  I told Andrew, to line themselves up ahead of the investment curve to obtain the most valuable carbon offsets in the world so they could buy and sell them---after lobbying for mandatory legislation making carbon the new dollar bill. This would line up the Hank Paulsons/Al Gores of the world  become wealthy beyond all human imagination.

That was why so many investment banks in New York supported Obama:  The believed a liberal president would advance the cause of global warming and the need to pass more laws to regulate all greenhouse gases. The effect of this would be a monumental new tax burden on the middle class, making the Goldmans of the world richer and the rest of us poorer.

Andrew listened intently to everything I said then asked me if I had a card I would give him.  I said I didn't have one on me. He then most graciously asked me if I wanted his cell phone number so I could call and give him more tips.

I thought for a second and declined.  Andrew, I promise if I ever need to get in touch with you,  I'll tap my sources at Pajamas and let you know immediately.

With that we wound up our conversation and said our farewells.  I took my seat and Breitbart went on to brilliantly moderate the evening premier to a standing room only crowd.

As I sat with my companion, mulling over my conversation with Andrew, I realized I had honestly lost any ambition to be a bigger-time writer, investigative reporter or blogger on the  conservative side of the Internet.  His calling and destiny was much more high-profile and strident than I aspired to at my age.  After all, I had a new grandson in Manhattan I was rushing off to see and another on the way.  My time priorities were changing, but I was very glad that Andrew Breitbart was in the world and working as hard and intently as he was.

I am very saddened by his sudden death, and pray for his wife and children and all the close colleagues he left behind in total shock.  It's a big, big hole he's left the conservative movement with. It's a gaping hole that won't easily or quickly be filled anytime soon.