Conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart, 43, dies
Targets included ACORN, lawmaker
LOS ANGELES – Andrew Breitbart, the pugnacious conservative Internet entrepreneur who took on the left and what he called the “media bully cabal” with a series of exposes that were explosive and sometimes flawed, died early Thursday after collapsing near his home in Westwood. He was 43.
According to his father-in-law, actor Orson Bean, Breitbart, a father of four, was out for a walk shortly after midnight when he apparently had a heart attack. Paramedics took Breitbart to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Bean said, but he could not be revived.
Breitbart could be harsh at times, but he also had a magnetic personality that even many of his adversaries found appealing. He was a hero to conservatives, especially those who embraced the tea-party movement, whom he passionately defended against charges of racism. To liberals, he was a reckless provocateur, blinkered by his late-blooming hatred of the left.
His biggest coup came last May, when he revealed that U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., had been sending salacious photographs to women online. Weiner first claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, then later admitted his misbehavior and apologized to Breitbart.
Breitbart recognized the power of the Internet early. Schooled at the feet of two other Los Angeles-based Internet sensations, Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington, he applied lessons gleaned while toiling in the background for them when he launched Breitbart.com.
The site evolved into several topical sub-sites focused on journalism, government and Hollywood, all aimed at promoting Breitbart’s war on the liberal agenda.
Breitbart launched his site in 2005. Four years later, he posted a series of undercover videos by a young conservative activist, James O’Keefe III.
The videos targeted the community group ACORN and showed O’Keefe and a female partner asking ACORN workers for financial advice for a business with underage prostitutes. Hailed by conservatives for exposing wasteful taxpayer spending and ripped by liberals as entrapment, the damage was fatal; Congress later cut off funding for ACORN.
Breitbart stumbled in the summer of 2010, when he posted a deceptively edited video purporting to show racist statements by an obscure African-American government official named Shirley Sherrod. Sherrod, whose story actually illustrated how she overcame feelings of racism to help a white farmer save his land, was fired. Embarrassed, the Agriculture Department offered her a new job. She sued Breitbart for defamation.