Over the weekend, Breitbart.com associates unveiled a brand new website. Longtime Breitbart business partner, Larry Solov, wrote that this was what Andrew Breitbart “dreamed and planned” before his sudden death last week. Solov says, “Andrew’s battle – our battle – has only just begun.”

But that isn’t all that has begun. It seems there is a strange online phenomenon, an explosion of Breitbart grief porn happening one click, one avatar at a time.

The battle, at least on the newly unveiled Breitbart.com, begins with a piece posthumously filed by Breitbart titled “The Vetting.” Just weeks before he died, Breitbart warned that he would lead the charge to vet President Obama and warned that he had videos. In this latest piece, Breitbart exposes that Obama took part in a panel that occurred following a Chicago production of a play called “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky.” While it seems a thin start to the vetting the website promises, you can bet that there’s always something brewing in the Breitbart camp.

To us, that’s the legacy of Breitbart. You never knew what was going to happen next. Each story and stunt seemed more outrageous than the last. We’re happy to just leave it at that.

But, others want to take it further. Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi infamously called his remembrance of Breitbart “Death of a Douche.” Which led to Slate asking the question, “When Did Douche Become an Insult?” Have we really gotten there in the Breitbart debate? Does Slate really need to go that far off the map to keep the Breitbart topic alive? And this came after allowing writer Matt Yglesias to gloat over his death on Twitter.

Twitter isn’t any more sane when it comes to Breitbart’s death, but it is telling. While co-workers and friends offered up remembrances of the man and relayed personal stories, there was a bizarre race to prove who knew Andrew best. There is an online movement for people to change their Twitter avatars to pictures of Breitbart. It appeared to begin with The Daily Caller‘s Jim Treacher, whose avatar is Breitbart on that yellow-hued piece of toast. (Can we just say how weird it is to scroll through Twitter and see dozens of Breitbart faces in various poses and frames staring back at us?)

There’s even a hash tag called #armyofandrews trying to convince the masses to change up their picture. Pundits were racing to see who could get the best picture of them with Breitbart as their avatar. Big Journalism Editor and CNN Contributor Dana Loesch quickly (and rightfully, he was, after all, her boss) changed her avatar to a picture of her and Breitbart. Actor Adam Baldwin, a contributor to Big Hollywood and a conservative pundit, also changed his avatar to an image of him and Breitbart. Over the weekend, he tweeted this out as a message from beyond.

“Goodbye Fellow Patriots. Keep Up the Good Fight.” – twitpic.com/8s0dab

— Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) March 4, 2012

Other online conservatives followed suit. Like @KamaainaInOC, who posted this picture of her and Breitbart… Read more

LAT reports that George W. Bush impersonator Steve Bridges is dead at the age of 48.

He appeared alongside Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2006. The LA County coroner’s office plans to conduct an autopsy as it is doing for conservative publisher and author Andrew Breitbart, who died late last week at age 43. Also of “natural causes.”

Read the report on LAT‘s blog here.

BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti was in our mediabistroTV studio today for an upcoming Media Beat interview and he shared his thoughts on Andrew Breitbart, who died Thursday morning. Peretti worked with Breitbart in launching The Huffington Post.

“It’s easy for internet commenters to say, you now, ‘It’s good he’s dead and look at all the damage he’s done,’” Peretti said. “But it’s harder when you’ve met someone to feel that way.”

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow mbTV on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

In what is likely the most poetic reaction to Slate‘s Matt Yglesias‘s distasteful comments on Andrew Breitbart on the day he died, The Weekly Standard‘s Matt Labash declares him a “prick” in a late-night story that is making the rounds.

The focus of the story is hardly Yglesias. But the lines are a comical aside. He wrote: “(Well done, Matt! Perhaps you could pass your thoughtful sentiments on to his fatherless children, since they likely don’t follow you on Twitter. Prick.)”

In this story, Labash takes the reader on a journey — into a bar with Breitbart, on a trip to Chicago and on a plane with the conservative pied piper. The plane ride is a telling anecdote. Labash thinks he might get sleep on the plane ride back from Chicago. No such luck — Breitbart finagles it so that seatmates can swap and he and Labash can spend some quality time together. Rather, Breitbart could perform a one-man act and Labash could enjoy the show.

The end is eerie. Once in baggage claim, Labash asks if he can read a poem at his memorial service. Breitbart agrees to allow it. An excerpt:

Several years ago, when Breitbart was in the middle of one skirmish or another – I don’t even remember which one – I told him that I didn’t know whether I should encourage him, but that he made me laugh, as always. I asked him when someone finally shot him, “Can I read a poem at your memorial service? ”

“I think I should stop,” he admitted of his latest caper. “But it’s so fun and the hate mail is something to behold….And of course you can read my favorite poem, William Carlos William’s ‘Little Red Wheelbarrow’ at my wake.”

As some in the Twittersphere  may have noticed yesterday, BigGov’s Andrew Breitbart and Current TV’s David Shuster were locked in a battle of wills over an aspect of former USDA Georgia official Shirley Sherrod‘s lawsuit against Breitbart. At issue is …well, both men vehemently disagree on what the issue is. Shuster says it’s whether a judge smacked Breitbart down for missing a court deadline. Breitbart says it’s Shuster’s claim that Breitbart missed a deadline and that he should fire his lawyers. Some 24 hours later, even after a full night’s sleep, the Twitter battle hasn’t ceased.

Breitbart says Shuster’s random attacks against him come about every six months. “Unless he gets in my face, I don’t know he’s alive,” Breitbart explained, subtly cracking on Shuster’s new post at Current TV. While hosting “The Bill Press Show” this morning, Shuster called Breitbart personally “nice” but in the same breath declared him “crazy.” He also said, “All Andrew Breitbart can do is throw up a cloud of indignation. He wants people to never think he has done anything wrong. It’s sick — it’s a sick pathology.”

But Breitbart says Shuster also suffers from a sickness — lying. “He’s lying, he’s been caught lying,” Breitbart told FBDC in a phone interview. “He’s now taunting me with something that certifiably wrong…now he knows that he can go to his sycophants. If he says Breitbart raped somebody they will say Breitbart raped somebody. He’s diverting attention from his false declarative sentence that my team missed a deadline. I was very specific in what I knew that what he was writing was wrong. Now he’s worried he’s going to have to eat crow and so he is creating subterfuge with confusion. He wasn’t staking a claim on what the judge said 24 hours ago. He’s trying to walk back from his bad reporting. He’s always wrong.”

What exactly is Shuster wrong about? Breitbart says it’s Shuster’s defiant claim that Breitbart missed a court deadline. Shuster: “Hey @AndrewBreitbart, you lost the bet. Apologize. Here’s the judge’s ruling. http://tinyurl.com/89xrlp2 Fire your lawyers for missing deadline.” He also wrote: “Furthermore, @AndrewBreitbart, given the terrible briefs and malfeasance your lawyers have shown thus far, u should fire them.” Shuster, in a phone interview, insists he’s right and that Breitbart is avoiding the truth. “He’s weaseling out,” Shuster told FBDC in a phone interview. “He doesn’t understand a question mark. I understand he wants to make this about everything …the fact of the matter is he’s unwilling to acknowledge that he has done anything wrong. The more ways he can confuse his own followers the better for him. I get it, he’s just not being honest.”

Who started it: Shuster. He charged that Breitbart needs to fire his attorneys in the case with Sherrod after he claimed, according to a court doc, that Breitbart was late in filing documents. Here’s a sampling of the back and forth. Shuster: “Hey @andrewbreitbart you should settle with Sherrod and fire your lawyers. Your team missed a motion to dismiss deadline? Ouch.” Breitbart: “@DavidShuster Speaking of firing lawyers, remember when you broke your MSNBC contract by filming a CNN pilot? Ouch indeed.” …Shuster: “Breitbart’s motion to dismiss, filed April 18, 2011, was filed two weeks after the deadline to file the motion.” You @AndrewBreitbart can talk about ‘liars’ all day long. The fact is the judge ruled against you and said you missed a filing deadline.” Breitbart: “Take the bet then. What are you afraid of? You’re pushing a falsehood & you are now aware of it. Scared of the truth? Cat got your fired-by-every-cable-news-network tongue?”

By the end of yesterday’s nastiness, Breitbart waged a bet and Shuster appeared to accept it. Shuster continuously declared Breitbart wrong and insisted that he concede. Breitbart, meanwhile,  requested that FishbowlDC be the arbiter of the bet — as in WE will enforce the outcome. And we’re not going to lie — we love this idea. Whoever loses must agree to the terms of the wager.

Terms of the bet…

Read more

When Al Gore hired Keith Olbermann to anchor his primetime line-up, he knew he was getting a bomb-thrower more than a newsman. Just how much more, he might not have known.

On Monday, Current’s Chief News Officer created an uproar when he and guest Markos Moulitsas joked about alleged rapes at Occupy Wall Street protests. This is always a dumb move. He later doubled-down on the stupid when he tweeted “No Occupy rapes, no cover-up, no apology, no retraction…” and accused BigGov’s Andrew Breitbart of creating the whole thing in an attempt to discredit the protests.

When Big Journalism Contributor Lee Stranahan complied all the rape and sexual assault stories about Occupy in one post for the world to see, you’d think that would’ve been the end of it. But Olbermann’s ego won’t allow anyone to have the last word on anything, so he “debunked” each one, one by one.

Unfortunately for Keith, the Breitbart websites are not the silent, wallflower types even if their writing is sometimes abominable.

In his “debunking,” Olbermann changed his tune from “No Occupy rapes” to “Because almost none of the allegations are of rape and most of this list are duplicated…” to “2 stories duplicated” to “Occupy MEMBERS were victims.” That’s quite a journey in just one day, especially without ever acknowledging his position completely changed.

Even still, where he ended up, that the victims and not the perpetrators were the only Occupy people involved in these rapes and sexual assaults, isn’t the truth. After Olbermann’s “debunking, Stranahan was back a few hours later with a section by section debunking of what Olbermann said. Keith then went silent, maybe to bed, maybe to play with his baseball cards, or maybe to Stuart Smalley in the mirror to calm his nerves.

On a final note, Olbermann tweeted, “Here’s a wager: @DLoesch (Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism) and @AndrewBreitbart will NOT post the video of tonight’s debunking.” They did. No terms were offered, but here’s a wager: Olbermann won’t admit they made a fool of him.

Somewhere between Washington and New York lives FNC’s Sean Hannity‘s Twitter alias, who goes by the handle, SHannitysHair. Hair, the name I usually call him, showed up for CPAC last week and was, in some respects, the bell of the ball. He signed in as Theron Cal, a racist white hater, as a joke and a way to hide his real identity. He somehow secured a media badge, a mysterious feat, but not so surprising at the exquisitely disorganized CPAC where wifi working was a fantasy.

Speaking of which, somehow when a Twitter personality shows up in real life, it can have an elusive, surreal quality. Like is this even real? On Thursday night, Hair and I exchanged several pleasant Direct Messages on Twitter and we agreed to meet the next day inside the hotel. When Friday came it took him several hours to return a message. I panicked, thinking, is this guy even real? Online you imprint everything you think a person is, what they look like, sound like, and everything you want a person to be. In real life? There was BigGov’s Andrew Breitbart complimenting him for his tweets. Who “he” is remains a mystery — he never shares his real identity. “I’m surprised at how well known I am,” he said. “Coming to CPAC this week, I met Breitbart yesterday and Dana Loesch and they were very much aware of me. And the fact that little old me, they’re aware of me? Breitbart even said, ‘I love your tweets.’ To me, that’s a thrill.”

To be sure, Hair felt overwhelmed by all who wanted to meet him in the flesh. “I’m freaking nobody,” he told me, reiterating his sentiment. “I guess on Twitter I’m somebody.” In the end, he gave us the “exclusive” interview on Bloggers Row — others were vying for it. We can’t show you what he looks like because he wouldn’t allow us to photograph him. Suffice it say, he’s not the 20-something we thought he might be. His hair is thick and silver. His demeanor is exceedingly normal.

Even so, Hannity in real life hasn’t always been jazzed about this guy — who claims to be an ordinary, conservative, married, father and employee who has taken a fancy to Hannity’s hair. In fact, at one point, when Hannity wasn’t manning his own Twitter account, whoever was blocked Hair. But three weeks ago that all changed. Now that Hannity is tweeting for himself, Hair is unblocked and on the loose. His Twitter count holds steady at 5,100 followers. We sat down with him to comb for more details.

When and how did you start tweeting by the handle SHannitysHair? About a year and a half ago. I have my own personal Twitter account it and used it to talk mainly about sports. When I inserted politics into the discussion, people started attacking me. I learned whoa, I might not want to talk politics on this account. We might agree on sports, but politics is a whole other animal. So I started Sean Hannity’s Hair. I just wanted to come up with a unique handle. At the the time, Blagojavich was in the news and I was very close to creating Blago’s hair. I knew he wouldn’t have staying power so I chose Hannity’s Hair. I am a huge fan of his, always have been. It’s rare that I ever disagree with anything he says. We’re about the same age, actually. He’s a few months older than me and we just have a lot of things in common. I also consider myself a Reagan conservative.

Why the hair thing? He has unique hair. He often gets teased about whether it’s real or not. If hairs could tweet…it’s clearly one of the things he has been teased about, whether his hair is real or not. So I figured why not?

The Hair hasn’t always been received well. Tell me about that…

Read more

I returned for Day 2 of CPAC on Friday because – A) I hate myself, B) I was paid to, C) I had nothing better to do, or D) all of the above. There is no wrong answer.

It wasn’t all that bad, to be honest. Here’s the best (it’s all relative) of what I saw.

Coolest Celebrity – Allen Covert. Who is Allen Covert, you ask? If you’ve ever seen an Adam Sandler movie, you’ve seen Allen. He’s also the star of “Grandma’s Boy,” the video game and weed loving comedy from a few years ago. (It’s very funny, check it out on DVD.) Very unassuming, very nice, very funny and very short.

Uncoolest Celebrity – Callista Gingrich’s hair. OK, that’s mean, and unfortunately, true. But there really weren’t many celebs running around today, and Callista’s hair IS something to behold. Victoria Jackson was spotted, but this category has the word “celebrity” in the title, and she doesn’t qualify.

The “Everywhere” Guy – Dave Weigel. Slate’s blogger was everywhere today. Every time I turned around he was in my face. So much so that I checked behind the toilet when I closed the door in the stall. For the record, he wasn’t there. At one point I saw him wandering around with an open laptop, as if he was trying to type and walk simultaneously. He even found time to attend the reception for Fred Karger, fringe presidential hopeful. That he even knows who Karger is shows that he was absolutely everywhere today. Now that I think of it, I probably should’ve looked closer behind that stall.

The “I’m Here, Please Notice Me” Guy. The winner of this category wasn’t there today (I could tell by the lack of cheap cigar stench and frightened looks on the faces of women), but he took to Facebook to defend his winning this yesterday. Former TWT Editorial Page Editor Richard Miniter, last spotted looking desperate to be recognized in the lobby bar, wrote of his award, “…one has to pass through the bar to get to the hotel restaurant. And I was stopped by several people…” That’s simply not true, there are several ways around the bar, and none require pirouetting in the middle of it. I await his acceptance speech for this award as soon as this pops up in the Google alert he clearly has on his name. Editor’s note: As we’ve previously noted on this site, all domestic violence claims made by former political aide Italia Federici against Minister were dismissed in a court of law. Federici pleaded guilty in June 2007 to tax evasion and obstructing the United States Senate investigation into the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. She got four years probation.

Biggest Entourage – Author and Conservative Commentator Ann Coulter. The tall, slender bomb-thrower marched through the blogger’s lounge, radio row and the book signing area with quite an entourage. But, unlike many of the self-important crowd around town, Ann’s gaggle wasn’t Turtle, Johnny Drama and “E,” it was security. And she needed it. Believe it or not, Ann has a lot of people who don’t like her much. Not many of them attend CPAC, but it only takes one.

Smallest Entourage – Grover Norquist. The bearded brain of the anti-tax crowd would have won the “Everywhere” Guy award, but he didn’t show up to Fred Karger’s party. Short of that, he was everywhere else, and usually by himself or with just one staffer. I’m not sure anyone talked to more reporters, bloggers, podcasters and random dudes who just wanted to say “hi” than Grover.

Most Rousing Speech – BigGov’s Andrew Breitbart. Anyone who says “bullshit” from the podium at CPAC and gets a standing ovation for it is a personal hero. But simply dropping a “bovine turd” wasn’t the only time he brought the crowd to their feet, it was just the last of many standing ovations Breitbart got for a speech that took shots at the media, the President, Democrats in general and the “Occupy” crowd. Even admitting he had been so distracted that he hadn’t showered, while gross, got the amped-up crowd going.

Least Rousing Speech – Radio personality Laura Ingraham. Some people in the crowd liked it, but they probably also believe she’s a nice, friendly person. Canned speech, “meh” delivery and you have a big whiff.

Don’t stop reading now. More awards after the jump…

Read more

Give Andrew Breitbart a plate of spare ribs and a goblet of red wine and he’s yours for as long as you want him. In fact, he’ll stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning telling you what he thinks about a whole host of things on his mind. Hey, if we’re going to do that, can we at least have some ribs and wine too?

For now, it’s 8 p.m. on Wednesday night — CPAC eve — and Breitbart, a publisher who runs six websites, is just getting warmed up. He’s at home at “The Embassy” (the townhouse he and his business partner, Larry, call “home” in Washington) for a book party on digital kids books that focus on family values like hard work and patriotism. Larry is a little freaked out about by my miniature blue notebook and pen but soon enough he gets over it. No one is talking about those kiddie books. Certainly not Breitbart.

He’s chilling in the parlor in a masculine rich brown leather armchair. His exquisite mop of gray curls sets off nicely against his attire, a pale blue button down, faded blue jeans and dark loafers, and his eyes, a crystalline blue.

For starters, Breitbart in person is not Breitbart online. He dominates every room he enters with his emotional and physical presence, but he’s warm and hospitable — and quite the goofball. He knows the perception is off. “All these bastards in media who meet me like me because they know I won’t lie,” he says. But not all like him, not even on the right, and he knows it. Hence the bodyguard he’ll have as he attends CPAC this week. He doesn’t like to think about danger too much. He jokingly mentions weapons he carries that include a “bazooka, a dog feces catapult and horse urine balloons.” He gives a nod to his publicist on the dog feces line and makes sure she thinks it’s funny. At two or three junctures in our conversation, he prefaces what he is about to say by declaring that THIS will be the most shocking thing I hear from him all night. In those moments, I brace myself for news that he once ate a live chicken including the beak and then he inevitably tells me something comparatively benign.

But Breitbart, even at his least shocking, is anything but benign…

Read more

Quotes of the Day

Reader irritated by Breitbart mention

“Why would anyone with a brain care what Breitbarf is doing?” — Anonymous reader to FishbowlDC Monday after we ran news of his attendance at a digital book launch party last night.

Wentworth gets pre-interview anxiety

“On @piersmorgan tonight. A little scared. My armpits are sweaty.” — Comedian Ali Wentworth, wife of ABC “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos.

Reporting woes

“This is a first: Couldn’t get a comment from a press person b/c they left early to beat the weather.” — DCist Editor Martin Austermuhle.

Anonymous tipster writes in…“At this point you with Politico you have to wonder if they even have women’s restrooms.” (The writer is referring to the slew of female departures within the past year, the latest of which is Sara Libby to TPM.) A few minutes later, the tipster wrote back suggesting, “You should request a photo of a women’s restroom at Politico! I mean, what if they have to go outside to Chipotle or something?”

She got her gun

“I can’t put my gun down. Love it.” — TWT Senior Opinion Writer Emily Miller, shown here proudly traveling by Metro with her new gun.

What song has been rolling around in NBC Congressional Correspondent Luke Russert‘s head for the past week? Listen here.

Spotted at Andrew Breitbart‘s Capitol Hill townhouse last night: GOP political consultant Jason Roe. Tanned. Rested. In town from San Diego to attend CPAC. Breitbart was also there. Among other things, he had high praise for CNN’s Dana Bash, ribs and red wine. But more on that character later…