You know, as someone who just recently lost her husband suddenly at a similarly young age, the idea that people I love and respect could be callous about the loss of a man who had a family that loved him, just because they didn't agree with his methods and politics, is disappointing. We're better than that. The discourse is never going to change if someone doesn't make the effort to rise above.

I did not agree with his politics nor his treatment of people with whom he disagreed, but I know exactly how his widow is feeling right now. My heart breaks for her and their children, because she has lost her partner and their 4 children have lost their father. I wouldn't wish this kind of pain on my worst enemy. May they experience the kind of love and support that I have. They'll need it.

Tom, it doesn't surprise me that they want you back. But, I'm glad you're not going.

Okra is also yummy steamed. There is less slime. Although, I will admit, I get a hankering for the slime on occassion. It's a comfort food for me.

I think people have been pretty even-handed about saying it's got to be hard for his loved ones, and that they feel bad for them. But the rest of his impact on the world--it's just cold hard fact to say they're not mourning that.

I have precisely zero opinion on the man. He's never made my radar, partially deliberately. People who love him are in pain. People he had a negative impact on are in less. It was his choice to have a negative impact on them, and it seems like he was okay with the choice, deliberate even. So I don't know if he's the sort who'd want crocodile tears, or just people moving on.

I've never heard of Andrew Breitbart, but I gather he was not well liked by most people here? So when I saw someone on Facebook post, "RIP Andrew Breitbart. You fought vigorously and happily for the conservative cause, and I will be forever grateful," and his mother comment, "What a shocker! My first thought was on how he was such a courageous warrier," I couldn't tell at first whether they were being sarcastic. But they weren't.

Maria,

I understand and I mean no disrespect, but for me my ambivalence is not about politics. He intended (and did) HARM towards people with whom he disagreed and he was very dishonest about it all. He was also racist. Virulently so.

I'm not glad he is dead and I share Shirley Sherrod's sentiments. But he was a very odious person.

That's all I will say further on the matter.

Maria, you are right: I am justly chastened. His family deserves our sympathy and support, regardless of his own behavior.

P-C, Breitbart is the guy who picked up & distributed the faked videos that took down ACORN, the misleading videos that embarrassed NPR into firing their CEO, and the misleading video clip that got Shirley Sherrod at USDA fired. Sherrod had actually filed a defamation suit against Breitbart, IIRC. He dealt in lies and entrapment, and used vicious, foul language about his perceived enemies.

He was a no-holds-barred right-wing populist who, so far as I can tell, never had a good thing to say about any elected Democrat. And he did a lot of damage: ACORN no longer exists.

TPM had a remarkably even-handed obit [link]

Man, he was only my sister-in-law's age.

If you've got to go young (none of you are allowed), suddenly with no knowledge of what's happening to you (which it sounds from the obit is what happened here, so either a massive heart attack or a stroke like the one that killed one of my best friends seems likely) is probably the way you'd want to go. Sympathy to his family, though.

As I said, I feel sorry for his family for losing someone so young.

I would feel differently about Breitbart if he had fought the good fight by revealing the truth, however unpleasant.

I have my lunch omelet! Precisely as described last night.

I'm not defending him in any way. I hated how he twisted the truth and manipulated lies to his own end. I think politics will be better without his influence, but do I think the world is a better place without him? I may have previously, but not anymore. The loss of a human life is the loss of a human life and it changes the fabric of the world.

I am just really raw about this right now