March 2nd, 2012. Do you remember where you were?
I do. In fact, I remember that exact day vividly.
In a small Bed and Breakfast nestled behind train tracks in rural North Carolina, our TV blared. It was turned to Fox News, as always. While smoothing my brand-new navy scalloped J.Crew skirt, my eyes fixated on the television.
“Last night, Conservative activist, author and journalist Andrew Breitbart was pronounced dead at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center at the age of 43….”
I whipped around, facing the bathroom, where my mom was meticulously coating her eyelashes with mascara.
“Mom?” I asked, slowly setting down my hair straightener. “Who was Andrew Breitbart?”
She turned to look me, sighing. “Ali, you would have loved him. He was responsible for the whole Anthony Wiener scandal. And the ACORN scandal. He was a self-proclaimed citizen journalist. An incredible man, but many people hated him…..”
Thus began my fascination with Andrew Breitbart: author, commentator, publisher, journalist, social-media king and Conservative hero to all.
As a fellow Conservative with a passion for journalism, it was as if he was meant to be my role model from the start. I became intrigued with anything involving the fearless Andrew Breitbart.
Immediately, I followed his Twitter account, combing through his old tweets, admiring his courage, wit and amazing determination. I began to check his website multiple times a day. I searched for his interviews and speeches on YouTube, consuming hours of my time. I ordered his book, Righteous Indignation, on Amazon and officially declared my favorite part of the day when I could sit down and get lost in Breitbart’s thoughts.
Imagine, finding your role model, just days after he passed away. It’s devastating knowing that I’ll never have a chance to meet the man who’s taught me so much. However, I do know that Andrew Breitbart’s legacy will live through myself and the hundreds of lives he touched.
“You have enemies? Good, that means you stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Winston Churchill summed up the life of Andrew Breitbart perfectly in one simple quote. It was almost as if the former British Prime Minister had an intuition that one day, a feisty, Conservative Californian would come along and take America by storm.
One of Breitbart’s greatest missions in life was to fight against liberal bias in the media. Whether it was the media’s favorable coverage of Barack Obama in the 2008 election or their portrayal of the tea party as racist and homophobic bigots, Breitbart yearned to combat this misrepresentation of Conservatives by the media.
And people absolutely despised him for it. My mom warned me once: “people really don’t like Andrew Breitbart, Ali, so you can’t talk about him all the time.”
But here I am, writing this, ready to publish it to the internet. Basically the most public place, where anyone, can find anything about you.
But to me, it’s worth it. Because this is a risk I’m willing to take for my hero, Andrew Breitbart. His incredible drive and spirit motivate me to become a better person everyday.
Someday, I hope to be a political writer, commentator or speechwriter and it’s inevitable that I’ll have critics. But that just comes with the territory. And I’ll just take that criticism like Breitbart would have, with my head held high and a smile plastered across my face.
**Photo by Gage Skidmore; wikicommons.com