Tucker Carlson, you’re no Andrew Breitbart! - By Joan Walsh

[DonViejo]

Tucker Carlson, you’re no Andrew Breitbart!

A hyped-up scandal and a lame documentary remind us that the blogger’s showmanship is gone, but his hatred lives on

BY JOAN WALSH

Strangely, the night before the latest humiliation of The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson — by a Washington Post report that the Caller’s key source for its “scoop” that Sen. Robert Mendendez patronized prostitutes now says the Web site paid him to find women who would lie about it — I watched the documentary “Hating Breitbart,” a hagiographic 90 minutes of the late Andrew Breitbart ranting, vamping and raging for the admiring camera of his friend Andrew Marcus.

I wasn’t going to write about it, not because I hate Breitbart – I didn’t, and don’t – but because sadly, it’s kind of slight. It doesn’t do justice to its outsized subject, however much it worships him. But the Carlson news juxtaposed with the documentary reminded me how much more talented Breitbart was than the pale imitators he left behind – as well as how much his rage-fueled, by-any-means-necessary character assassination posing as journalism lives on, albeit ineptly.

I haven’t written about Breitbart since his sudden death over a year ago, at the too-young age of 43. We’d sparred online for years; to be honest, his rage scared me, a little. Technically, Breitbart dropped dead of heart failure, but I couldn’t shake the feeling he’d died of his consuming anger, and that I was somehow complicit. The title of “Hating Breitbart” refers to his enemies’ supposed hatred for him, but it would be more accurately titled “Breitbart Hating,” because it’s all about the titanic hate – of liberals, particularly in the media – that drove the right-wing would-be media mogul.

The film, and Breitbart, were feted last week at CPAC, with Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz toasting the late blogger as a “great and fearless leader.” (Promoters say the documentary will have a theater run in May.) It reminded me that Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all paused mid-campaign last year to eulogize the bombastic Breitbart when he died, a symbol of his power on the right. The CPAC party might turn out to have been a final right-wing Breitbart orgy – BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins detailed the way his empire is falling apart without him last fall, and that was before mini-star Dana Loesch sued his successors to get out of her contract — but the Daily Caller mess reminds us his legacy lives on.

-snip-

Full article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/tucker_carlson_you%E2%80%99re_no_andrew_breitbart/

[NC_Nurse]

1. This is a great piece. Breitbart was despicable, but ultimately not worth hating. That's what

did him in. I love Joan Walsh. Thanks...

[jybarz]

2. TWISTED MINDS

It's really baffling to understand how and why the GOP, Teabags, Conservatives have such twisted minds. They just constantly & continually lie, fabricate, steal, pretend, anti-everything good and many, many more examples of hard to explain insane behavior. They couldn't all have fallen on their head first when they were young, could they? Any Psychologist or Psychiatrist here in DU who can explain this?

[wilt the stilt]

3. I have always thought

that Breibart was a minor intellect and within his Jewish group he was the one everyone picked on for being stupid. This is why he hated liberals so much because he was getting back at his peer group growing up.

[hrmjustin]

4. How sad he is now on Fox and Friends on the weekend.

So sad!

[lame54]

5. I Hate Hate Haters...

[vinny9698]

6. There is a cottage industry attacking progessive ideas and demonizing progressives

This gig doesn't even require any formal education, college dropout is a plus for this job. It pays well.