Okay, so I picked a fight with Andrew Breitbart over his Big Hollywood blog and it turned into a big, ugly mess. While I still revile the blog's premise (Hollywood makes people liberal/stupid) and the opinions expressed over there, I should not have used personal attacks against Andrew to make my point.
I wrote in an earlier post that Andrew used to hang with a "rich/druggy crowd" in high school and often seemed high. Breitbart has commented repeatedly on this blog that this is false. I take him at his word, and have amended that post with a notation that Breitbart disputes my recollection.
More important, none of this germane to the debate. While I certainly grabbed people's attention, I took the low road. And I regret it.
What triggered my visceral response to Breitbart and his blog in the first place? I guess that when I connected the kid I knew in our privileged, predominantly white high school with the promoter of the me-first, screw-everybody-else-values of the internet right, I was stunned. What really pushed me over the edge, though, is the increasingly anti-Muslim bent on Big Hollywood. Although I realize that the Republican party as a whole is sort of devolving into fringe group united mainly by their animosity toward Arabs and "Muslins", bigotry really fucking bothers me.
So I lashed out. I took a cheap shot and started the net equivalent of a barroom brawl. And in the end I didn't like being in a personal war with some distant figure from my past.
So, Breitbart, while I still wholeheartedly disagree with the opinions expressed in your website, I am sorry I made it personal. That was an unnecessary distraction and a mistake that I won't repeat.
- Bryan
Holding On
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7 comments:
Bryan:
How on earth you capitulated to this thugary is beyond me.
For the record, I stand by what I said about Susie and the Viagra.
Have a nice day,
Tom Daschle
Bryan,
While I appreciate the caveat-filled sentiment, you were consistently (almost obsessively) anonymously attacking me WELL BEFORE Big Hollywood arrived on the scene.
The apology and the rationale only came AFTER your double cloaks of anonymity ('Nic Fit' and 'Bryan Wright') allowed for you the false courage to write untruthful and intentionally hurtful things about a guy who you used to be friendly with but now can't believe that 20 years removed doesn't share your core political beliefs.
(You being the artists --liberals -- in 'Rent' and I'm the mean landlord -- conservative -- that expects the back rent despite the kids' collective talents.)
Then you were discovered. And I became transformed into formerly "good and decent guy" and someone you listened to Prince with.
I would have been open to a call to discuss my political transformation. (I think it's a tale worthy of a book!) You may not have liked what you heard, but I've always had a good attitude about dissent. I need one: Almost all of our 'rich' Brentwood pals are on your ideological side.
To somehow rationalize that my site is anti-Muslim gives you a fig leaf (and the beginning of a new false line of attack.). As if you are valiantly defending the honor of Mohammed's great religion. It has NOTHING to do with the issue at hand. And it is the left's #1 trick in the playbook: Accuse enemy of bigotry (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) It serves as a rallying cry for others in your ideological ilk to jump in the fray to attack the isolated.
In a word: it's 'bullying'.
The thing is: I liked you a lot.
Went to see 'Bad Kitchen' play with many fellow classmates and never thought of you in the way that you obviously thought of yourself. A guy from the wrong side of the tracks at the Brentwood moneyfest. If you care to recall, I had multiple day jobs including delivering pizza at Maria's. So not everyone had the silver spoon that you recall.
(Perhaps you'll recall we Brentwood kids were like Deborah Foreman in 'Valley Girl' in the scene at the Hollywood club with the Plimsouls playing "A Million Miles Away.")
And as I recall everyone liked you a lot for the time you were there. So I'm flummoxed by your 20-year latent rage at your former high school.
And guess what, Brentwood's a lot richer than when you went there. And a helluva lot more liberal, too.
What would that book about, Andy? How, instead of being ashamed of your wealth, you chose to be ashamed of anyone who resented it -- like many other people in Southern California?
Would it be about your parasitic media career?
What has made your story that's so special that you would fixate on some loser from high school besmirching it just a bit... while you're on freakin' vacation!!!???
P.S. "I don't usually obsess about this stuff"...
Give me a break. It's all about you all the time.
Look, Breitbart, I didn't post anything because I was "discovered". I have made no real attempt to hide my identity on this site, even referring to myself by first name in many posts. I'm not exactly putting it out there to strangers, either, considering the level of rage coming through in the comments lately.
That said, the thing about us listening to Prince together was a joke. It, was, what do you call it? Oh, sarcasm.
Oh, and that thing you're doing where you host bigoted posts and then whine about people calling you a bigot is classic conservative victim playing. If you don't want people to call you a bigot, take all of that fucking Islamophobic shit off your site. Even in your comment, you can't help taking a stab at that "great religion". Get a grip, bro.
But thanks for coming and seeing my band, though.
Well written, Bryan. I've been critical myself, but I think this whole excercise has shown courage on your part. You're one guy, who never in fact hid anything from anybody, facing off against Andrew Breitbart's angry,self-rightous hoards. He's somehow painted you the coward -- I guess you can get pretty good at that kind of thing when you don't have to work and this is all you do. But he's hidden behind his numbers all along.
Feel pride not shame brother.
And keep up the good work.
oh please - why are you apologizing when Breitbart totally proved you're claim about him being a bully right?!? Keep the debate lowered, I say!
I think had Andrew actually done drugs in high school he would have turned out to be a better person or at least more entertaining than the complete self-important jackass that he sounds like from his comments.
seriously, what type of person thinks their political transformation is really worth a book? puleeze.
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