When Saul Alinsky died I don't recall the mainstream media making a big deal of it. If Abbie Hoffman had died in 1972, I doubt anyone in the mainstream media would have cared. I wasn't told to feel sad when Gadhafi got what was coming to him, or when they hung Saddam Hussein.
But Andrew Breitbart was a "publisher." And that makes his death, at 43, a day of national mourning.
That's the way it is in journalism. You don't get to change things if you're a writer. Or an editor. You do get to change things if you're a publisher. And you don't need any ethics to do so, either. Journalism operates according to the golden rule – he who has the gold makes the rules.
No one ever asked where Breitbart was getting his money. They just asked if his checks bounced and, if they didn't, sit right down here next to Morty Zuckerman, Rupert Murdoch and Mr. Sulzberger, could you move down a seat so Breitbart can get his tookis in there, thank you very much.
This is, and has been, the big lie of the American media, of the journalism “profession” itself. It always was a clown show, an entertainment, not a “profession” at all. Anyone can get in if they have table stakes.
Exhibit A. Breitbart.
So when I heard Breitbart had farted his last fart, dieing in an Elvis-like way, I did what any self-respecting writer with a liberal inclination should do. I took a bike ride. A nice long one. I'm 57, and I got back-and-forth to Stone Mountain Park, 25 miles in total, in a little over 2 hours. That's my revenge.
I'm alive to write this, and Breitbart is dead.
There's that much justice in the world.
