By all accounts, the Breitbart News CPAC party was a lavish affair wrapped in a lavish theme, which Daily Caller writer Betsy Rothstein saw as newsworthy, if only to flog the tawdry theme that it had an "orgy vibe."
In an email bearing the subject line, “The Breitbart party was the sickest shit ever,” a guest described it like this:
“It was like the party embodied the spirit of the man — too intense, too drunk, too virile, too extreme. There was such a vibe at this house, so un-Washington. It was sick and virile and intense and drunk and loud and horny in a way that seemed like a real tribute to the man himself. Everyone was good-looking, and young. It was slightly frat but definitely in the spirit of CPAC. Anything could happen at this party — a stabbing, an orgy, a tent revival, dancing, levitating, crying. One of the bathrooms has a glass door. It was very Eyes Wide Shut, Breitbart. It was really sinister. Hard to explain. It was like there was a full moon, but there wasn’t. Maybe there is always a full moon over Breitbart.”
Her article has a list of the Who's Who at the Breitbart bash, too. Louis Gohmert, Dave Weigel, and Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins were among them.
The Washington Post article was a bit more constrained, but offered this:
The venue, which was turned for the evening into an ostensible “speakeasy,” with vintage-costumed cigarette girls offering trays of candy and champagne doled out by bartenders dressed like flappers, is actually Breitbart News’ Washington headquarters, explained Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, taking in the packed house.
Reporters work out of a carriage house in the rear of the stately rowhouse, which is only steps away from the Supreme Court. The main house includes living quarters for some of the staff and, of course, room for parties like Friday’s.
Whose house is it, anyway? It turns out it's the home of an Egyptian national by the name of Mustafa Elgindy. Breitbart Unmasked:
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is famous for its parties, including Blog Bash. But only Breitbart News, LLC has a permanent venue for their party: “the embassy,” a $2 million home in Washington, DC. The address belongs to Mustafa Elgindy (spellings vary), a unique character in contemporary Egyptian politics. The website’s relationship to Elgindy offers some hints about the current direction, and perhaps even funding sources, of Breitbart News.
[...]
Elgindy is a former Egyptian parliamentarian who operates cruise boats on the Upper Nile with his brother. He is Muslim, but within the context of Egyptian politics his politics are rather liberal. In 2000, for example, Elgindy was behind an international “wealth redistribution” program in which tourism companies paid 1% of profits into local development plans. As a member of parliament in 2009, Elgindy pressed the Mubarak regime to implement orders by its Egyptian courts reinstating Al-Shaab, an opposition newspaper that it had closed down. He became prominent as an opposition leader by organizing popular demonstrations in Tahrir Square. A nominal independent, Elgindy has an on-again, off-again relationship with the New Wafd Party. He joined it during the early days of the 2011 revolution, then parted ways that October over the inclusion of former regime members on their parliamentary lists. In the January 2012 election, the secular Wafd finished a distant third behind the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Salafi Al Nour Party, both Islamist organizations. Clearly, there is not much room for men like Elgindy in Egypt’s fractious political scene.
So what could unite an iconoclastic Egyptian liberal with the right wing Breitbart News? The answer is simple: they both despise the Muslim Brotherhood. [Read the rest]
A look at Breitbart's coverage of Egyptian politics reveals more than a few "insider tips." You suppose their landlord provides them?
