Over the past few days I have read many excellent tributes to Andrew Breitbart. They have helped me process my own feelings of loss surrounding his untimely death.
I did not know Andrew well, but I did have the pleasure of meeting him last July during Smart Girl Summit 2011 in St. Louis. He was lively and vivacious and spoke with energy and verve about his plans for the future. For those of us in the conservative movement whose activism has been driven and aided by blogs and social media, he was our Bill Buckley. He was a genius for the internet age, he showed us a muscular and fearless way of being conservative in great contrast to the flaccid and flagging Republican Party.
In watching the immediate response to his death, there seemed to be a desire to believe he had been assassinated. While that is not the case, I believe that impulse comes because we instinctively see him as a martyr and the normal path to such status requires an unnatural death.
Andrew Breitbart is a Martyr for Liberty. He did have a heart condition, but his death was hastened by the degree to which he wore himself ragged in fighting the left for our benefit. If he had stopped fighting he might have lived longer. But that was not his way, if he had done that, he would not have been Andrew Breitbart. He worked for our Liberty and Freedom until his heart burst.
He died that we might be free.
We must now pick up the standard and work to make sure that his death was not in vain.
This image was created as part of a tribute to Andrew Breitbart by iOwnTheWorld.com Follow the link for more information about the image and how to get shirts and stickers. Any profits off the sales will benefit the Breitbart family.
