Dakota Beacon

 One year after his death, Andrew Breitbart continues to cheer  conservatives and stun the mainstream media. Breitbart was a dedicated  liberal-turned-conservative. As such, Andrew aggressively and successfully  carried the conservative message forward with vigor and tenacity.
 
 So, who was Andrew Breitbart? First and foremost, he was an  avowed enemy of the mainstream media. He argued that anyone with a laptop  could redirect public dialog. And so he did with his website creations of  Big Government, Big Journalism, Big Hollywood and more. All may be found
 under Breitbart.com.
 
 Son-in-law of actor and comedian Orson Bean, Andrew grew up in  West Los Angeles, a bastion of liberalism. He was one of two adopted  children raised by a Santa Monica restaurateur.
 
 Sometime in the early 1990s, Andrew experienced a dramatic  epiphany as a result of his probing questions about the liberal orthodox  environment in which he had been raised. The conclusions he reached  shattered all his preconceived liberal notions.
 
 It started in 1991 with the Senate hearings on Clarence Thomas'  nomination to the US Supreme Court. He considered the extremist Democrat  opposition to Thomas' appointment mean-spirited and extremely unfair. That  was a first step. There were others. His father-in-law gave him a copy of
 Rush Limbaugh's New York Times best seller "The Way Things Ought to Be"  which had a profound effect on Andrew's thinking. He also worked with Matt  Drudge to produce the Drudge Report website.
 
 Of his many positive character traits, an intense focus on, and  commitment to, the things he believed in served him well. Andrew loved  public combat with liberals and used the internet to expose political
 scandal, media bias and shoddy mainstream journalism. Here are three of his  famous exploits.
 
 Who can forget the 2009 hidden camera video that spelled doom  for ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)?  James O'Keefe,  portraying a pimp, escorted his "prostitute" to an ACORN office looking for  ways to scam the system. ACORN employees accommodated the two giving them  advice on taxes, misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children (underage prostitute). In the end, the disgraced ACORN organization fired  employees, lost its federal funding and was eventually disbanded.
 
 The fall of former liberal Democrat Congressman Anthony Weiner  had Breitbart's finger prints all over it. Weiner, now running for Mayor of  New York City, was forced to resign from Congress amidst a sexting scandal.  On May 27, 2011, Weiner sent photos of his private parts via his government
 Twitter account to a 21-year-old Seattle co-ed. On June 8 Brietbart was on  Sirius XM radio with co-hosts Opie and Anthony (not Weiner) where he showed  them the Weiner photo. Breitbart said he would not post it on his website  (which he did not). Opie and Anthony, however, took a picture of Breitbart's
 cell phone photo and the picture ended up on Gawker.com. Anthony Weiner  continued to deny the story to Congress and his wife, Huma Abedin, longtime  aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton. He maintained that his account had been  hacked. Weiner finally confessed and resigned from Congress. We will see if
 the voters of New York City "forgive" him.
 
 A third example of Breitbart's work occurred when he exposed  USDA Shirley Sherrod as a racist. Sherrod (a black woman) worked as Georgia's  state rural development director under Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack until she was ousted in July 2010. Breitbart posted a video clip on his
 website of Sherrod telling an NAACP group that she was reluctant to help a  white farmer save his farm. Sherrod went on to help the farmer anyway and  used the incident to illustrate "racial healing." In context, Sherrod was  discussing the Pigford case of the mythical multitude of black farmers who
 were poised to receive a huge federal payout on the basis of past racism and  bigotry. Sherrod and her husband were included in the $1 billion payout.
 
 Andrew's passing came much too soon and surprised all who knew  him. On March 1, 2012, at the age of 43, he died after collapsing during a  walk near his Brentwood home. People who had spoken with him a few hours  before said he sounded fine. Yes, there had been some reports in previous  months of health issues. But his imminent death was never indicated.
 
 True to form, many liberal extremists and leftists in the  blogosphere took advantage of Andrew's death to render some of the vilest  and most hateful postings about him on Twitter and sites such as Slate.com.  This is a testament as to just how effective Breitbart was in his war on  liberalism.
 
 The film "Hating Breitbart" commemorating his life and work was  released October 19, 2012, seven months after his death.
 
 Andrew Breitbart's legacy lives on through Breitbart.com, his  organization and people he trained. To quote Andrew from a 2010 interview,  "I do what I do because the mainstream media chooses not to do it. The game  of the left controlling the narrative.is ending."
 
 
 
 Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or
 bnt@midstatetel.com.