In Memoriam

This is an unusual In Memoriam post for me -- usually I reserve these for those I will miss. Not in this case: Andrew Breitbart is dead at 43.

I won't go out of my way to speak ill of the dead -- there's no point, really. I despised his public persona and his tactics when he was alive, and I see no reason to change my opinion now. (Needless to say, I didn't know him personally, but I wonder if that would have changed my opinion of him. I do know people whose attitudes and methods I disdain, and I get along with them because in context, I have to. They are not friends.) So don't look for anything from me like Alyssa Rosenberg's comments, which read like a puff piece in the service of "even-handedness." The man was pernicious, a liar and demagogue, who did more damage in his brief career than most manage in their entire lives. His influence was, in my mind, a complete negative. (And for Rosenberg's commentary, to divorce the man as "showman and provocateur" from the ends to which those characteristics were enlisted misses the point.)

The problem is, that influence is not going to go away. Gaius Publius has noted that the conspiracy theories have already taken wing -- Obama had him killed.

I'm sure there are people who will miss him. David Atkins sums up my feelings pretty well.