Andrew Sullivan is actually too kind when he says:
When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today's right-wing base.
Yes, the Economist was right. This is not about transparency, or hypocrisy. It's about power. And when you are Andrew Breitbart, power is all that matters. There is not a whit of thoughtfulness about this, not an iota of pretense that it might actually advance the conversation about how to deal with, say, a world still perilously close to a second Great Depression, a government that is bankrupt, two wars that have been or are being lost, an energy crisis that is also threatening our planet's ecosystem, and a media increasingly incapable of holding the powerful accountable.
Meanwhile, the GOP leaders, having done all they can to destroy a presidency by obstructing everything and anything he might do or have done to address the crippling problems bequeathed him by his predecessor, are now also waging a scorched earth battle to prevent the working poor from having any real access to affordable health insurance. This is what the right now is: no solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred.
When they don't hold the Presidency, this vitriolic streak of hatred within the veins of conservatism can't control itself and so it's unleashed on us all very openly. Andrew Breitbart is a hatchetman in a long line of hatchetmen for the right wing. They have existed before the 'I Jerk,' and they will exist long after he's gone. I know every time one of them appears and acts so despicable it seems like it's the first time anybody could be such a subhuman. Usually guys like Breitbart attack minorities and the poor, but he has some cash in his pocket now and technology is much different than it used to be so he's hoping to destroy lives of journos.
The conservative movement has always been about this type of politics. It's nothing new. People need to pick up books and read about a thing called history. It's not very pretty (movement conservatism) and politics has had an ugly side to it for centuries. While I was doing research for Over The Cliff, I came across information that truly disgusted me. I've been promoting our new book because I believe we capture the latest chapter of right-wing thuggery that has befallen America, the real victim of conservative hit men, but if you can pick up Rick Perlstein's great book about Barry Goldwater called Before The Storm you will not believe what you read. History just keeps repeating itself. Here's an example of the disgusting behavior of conservatives back in the days after Nixon went down in defeat to John Kennedy and Goldwater was becoming the rising right wing star. And I'll just say this: 'Remember the Dark Ages of Newburgh" via Chapter 7: Stories of Orange Country:
I hope you can read the graphics. It's just a small sample of what Perlstein uncovered in his wonderful book.
