We've been hearing right blogistan fulminate for a week that Andrew Brietbart was preparing to drop a bombshell on President Obama up until the moment he died. The bombshell has now dropped and the only thing it proves is that Breitbart was a lying shill to the end.
Oh, how the wingers were frothing at the mouth after Breibart's CPAC appearance last month. While most Americans knew only that Breitbart went on an alcohol-fueled, invective-laced, lying rant about the Occupy movement during his CPAC sojourn, the right wing media bubble was in a lather over his promise to destroy Obama's chances for re-election with a newly-unearthed video.
Here's how he described it at the time: “I’ve got video from his college days that show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008 – the videos are going to come out." (If you must see the quote from its source, you may click here ) Breibart further announced that the explosive video would be released on March 1st.
Breibart's unexpected death apparently threw off plans to put out the supposedly destructive video. It has been released now, and, as has been diaried elsewhere, it's footage of State Senator Obama attending a play in Chicago in 1998. Oh, but the play is about Saul Alinsky -- and Obama took part in a panel discussion about it! Game, set and match, according to the wingnuts.
This, it would seem, is the video that triggered an endless paranoid blather about Breitbart's death perhaps not being the result of "natural causes". (For the record, the cause of death has not yet been determined, even after an autopsy.) Right wing blowhard (junior grade) Michael Savage plainly raised the prospect Breitbart had been killed to keep the "destructive" video of Obama from becoming public. (“I pray it was natural causes, but we’ll never know the truth.” (Warning: the link leads to black hole of crazy, WND.) The wingnut site Infowars was no less florid:
In a stunning coincidence, It appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
But wait, there's more:
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to appreciate the downright weirdness of Breitbart predicting a major event to occur on March 1st, only for him to end up dying on that very date.
Perhaps not, but it helps.
May I suggest a somewhat different interpretation of Breitbart's apocalyptic rhetoric? It's one based on the very information gleaned from the wingnut echo chamber. Consider:
Breitbart spent his final hour in a bar near his home called the Brentwood sipping red wine and talking politics. After leaving the bar at around 11:30pm, Breitbart began to walk home before apparently suffering a fatal heart
I've choked down enough of the rightwing eulogies for Breitbart to know that this little tidbit is rarely mentioned. Instead, we hear about his passion, his bravery, his convictions, his fearless disregard for "liberal authority". We don't hear much about his drinking.
And yet, he was demonstrably drinking in the moments leading up to his unhinged verbal assault on Occupy protesters. He was also drinking in 2009 when he very publicly made obscene gestures at students protesting slavery, genocide and the use of child soldiers in Africa. During a 2011 C-SPAN appearance, he refused to discuss his "current relationship with alcohol". The question was posed following reports that Breitbart had made a drunken fool of himself at a cocktail party a few weeks earlier.
Given this history, perhaps it is unsurprising that his apologists don't want to acknowledge that he was drinking on the night he died. Yet he was. He was walking home from a bar -- at midnight -- when he collapsed. (One also notes that his eulogists don't mention that he was at a bar, rather than at home with his family, when they rhapsodize about his sterling qualities as a father.)
Add these facts to what is now plain about Breibart's supposed "gotcha" video of President Obama. The video is a nothing-burger. Breitbart had sold it as proof Obama was unfit to hold office, hinting strongly that it showed him as some sort of domestic terrorist during his college days. Instead, it depicts a state senator attending and talking about a play. Had Breibart lived to release the video on schedule, March 1st, he would have been exposed -- yet again -- as a liar and a fraud. He was already reeling from the Shirley Sherrod lawsuit, which he was losing. His CPAC appearance was notable for his disgusting and inexcusable public behavior, which far overshadowed any promotional mileage he might have gotten from his "Obama tape" pronouncements. Indeed, his drunken tirade may have increased the pressure to produce something jaw-dropping and sensational. But as March 1st approached, Breibart knew he couldn't deliver.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to appreciate the downright weirdness of Breitbart predicting a major event to occur on March 1st, only for him to end up dying on that very date.
Conspiracy theorist? No. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come to a different conclusion. Breitbart was tarnished by his CPAC antics and he needed a spectacular comeback. He also knew he didn't have one. Even so Breibart boasted, “Wait til they see what happens March 1st.” Is it delving too deeply into speculation to conclude that Breibart may have made that boast because he knew that what actually happened on March 1st was going to happen? Did he foresee, perhaps even plan, his own death?
To quote Michael Savage, "[W]e'll never know for sure." At the moment, the cause of his death remains unknown, pending toxicology results.
For those who decry any speculation that Breibart may have killed himself, please understand I'm not suggesting that is what happened. But I am pointing out that suicide is at least as likely a scenario as the assassination accusations clogging the right blogosphere's arteries right now.