He’ll likely be remembered as a political figure, but I don’t recall Andrew Breitbart ever mentioning electoral politics. It bored him. He cared about culture and music and people, and in many meals together over the years that’s what he talked about, invariably at high volume with hand gestures.
Andrew was among the most fully engaged people I’ve ever known, and absolutely one of the funniest. In a car on the way to dinner with Bill Ayers in Chicago last month, he launched into a soliloquy [topic redacted for readers under 18] so unrelentingly hilarious I thought I might black out from oxygen deprivation. When was the last time you laughed that hard? I did every single time I was with him.
He was also decent as hell, a loyal friend in a business with too few of them. Andrew was one of the first people we called for advice when we decided to start The Daily Caller. He wrote a piece for us the day we launched. If we were competitors, he never acted like it.
Andrew was a great performer of course, but I never got the sense that he was a natural extrovert. He pushed himself. He was utterly ballsy that way, willing to do things that scared him. Last year he showed up at an Occupy Wall Street protest on rollerblades. Within minutes, through pure aggression and fast talking, he’d taken command of the crowd. The protest ended when Andrew led the obedient mob to a local chain restaurant for lunch.
Andrew loved a good prank above all. It’s hard to think of a higher compliment.
Yesterday I found myself on a plane across the aisle in the first class cabin from Michael Moore, who was looking miserable with a takeout pizza on his lap. I immediately texted Andrew, mostly because I couldn’t resist. His response: “Give him the phone and say Breitbart wants to say hi.” He couldn’t resist either.
The plane took off before I could set up the conversation. It would have been a riot. Hard to believe that’s the last I’ll hear from Breitbart.
He really was a great guy. There aren’t many.
