Andrew Breitbart Cant Be Fired - Road to the Middle Class

AS THE MAINSTREAM media synchronized their watches over the Shirley Sherrod affair, the object of their little trench raid was clear. Demonize Andrew Breitbart for the un-ethical publication of a video featuring Ms. Sherrod uttering racist remarks at an NAACP awards dinner.

You could see the strategy. The MSM wanted to discredit and demonize Breitbart so that he could be fired or marginalized, just like Rush Limbaugh was fired from ESPN for the thoughtcrime of suggesting that the media wanted Donovan McNabb to succeed as the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback because he was black.

But then I thought: Yeah, but who can fire Andrew Breitbart?

When Rush Limbaugh wanted to buy the St. Louis Rams the Ruling Elite trailed a few stories about his supposed racist remarks. They pressured the NFL and the NFL could pressure the syndicate to remove Rush.

But Andrew Breitbart? Can anyone fire him?

For that matter what about Rush? You can kick him off ESPN; you can kick him off the St. Louis Rams. You can even force Snapple drinks and the Florida oranges off his radio show. But “they” haven’t been able to fire him from his position as host of the Rush Limbaugh Program. The reason is, I suspect, that Rush’s show is not owned by a public corporation, but a private venture. Rush only has to keep the confidence of his partners, not the executive committee of the Ruling Class as a whole.

No doubt the same is true of Andrew Breitbart.

Here we see the late-dynasty stupidity of the Ruling Elite. A Ruling Elite that was up to the job would have co-opted or destroyed Limbaugh and Breitbart long ago.

Don’t think these conservative icons aren’t co-optable. Rush remarked on his radio show last week that he anticipated, when he moved to New York in 1988 and made talk radio into a national phenomenon, that he would get accepted into the social circles of the media elite.

But the invitation never came. Sorry old chap, not quite out of the top drawer.

Even Rush’s acceptance into the modest social circle of conservative media was a big deal for him. When Bill Buckley died, he spoke on his show about his first visit to Buckley’s New York home. He had his driver drive around the block before summoning up the courage to enter into Buckley’s lair.

This is the guy that fearlessly skewers liberals daily on the EIB Network’s fun, frolic, and serious discussions of the issues.

I suspect that Andrew Breitbart is even less biddable than Rush.

There is a generational pattern here. In Generation One, we had Buckley, the Catholic rich man’s son with a non-profit movement. In Generation Two we had Rush, the local WASP judge’s son and a for-profit enterprise. But Generation Three, with Drudge and Breitbart, is an outsider generation, a trouble-making insurgency. Drudge (born 1966) and Breitbart (born 1969) are both Jewish, and take their place in a conservative movement that is increasingly combative and increasingly led by Jews.

In Generation One conservatives fenced with the Ruling Class using foils, masks, jackets and breeches. In Generation Two, conservatives roamed in the talk radio hinterland around the Ruling Class’s NPR-fortified cities. Now, in Generation Three, conservatives move through the Internet as a fish swims in the sea.

In Generation One, conservatives wanted to be treated as part of the elite. So they were, grudgingly; Bill Buckley got his Firing Line show on PBS, and Milton Friedman got his Free to Choose. Generation Two never got past the TV Nazi. No PBS shows for them. Generation Three is different. It aims to get respect with hard-knuckle action in the mean streets of the Internet. That is what Andrew Breitbart is all about, as Kyle Wingfield recognizes:

Breitbart is clear about his desire to turn the tables on liberal media and activist groups. That’s why he went after ACORN, and why it makes sense that he’d set his sights higher than an obscure bureaucrat.

Breitbart aimed to play the race card right back in the face of the racist NAACP. While the media was busy getting its knickers in a twist about out-of-context quotes, Breitbart had managed to make fools of both the NAACP and the Obama administration.

Or maybe it’s just a coincidence that the Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index dipped to -20 over the weekend.

You can’t hurt Andrew Breitbart by playing the “out-of-context” card, the one that leads into a demand to have the conservative racist fired. In the kind of ball that Breitbart plays, there is no appealing to the friendly umpire or the CEO that fears a call from the White House.

Breitbart is BigGovernment.com. He is BigJournalism.com, and BigHollywood.com, and BigPeace.com. He’s not shilling for some Mr. Big, some right-wing George Soros.

Guess what, liberals. He can’t be fired.

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

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James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

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