The Man in the Arena: Remembering Andrew Breitbart

Today marks one year since I was awakened by a phone call from a friend calling to tell me that Andrew Breitbart had died at 43, far too young. 

Not only had I been lucky enough to get to know Andrew over the last year of his life, he was a huge influence for so many of my friends. In this wonderful world of bloggers, tea party movement organizers, investigative journalists, and other conservative activists in which I have traveled in these past few years, Andrew was our coach, our troop leader, our favorite troublemaker...but most of all, he was our friend. 

And so today, like it was last year, is tough because I am saddened by so many of the beautiful and poignant memories of Andrew shared by so many people I know (his face is a constant presence in my Facebook and Twitter feeds once again this week), but at the same time there is comfort in seeing so many people sharing a deep affection for this great man.

RIP Neil Armstrong: 1930 - 2012

Hero.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969, passed away earlier today at the age of 82.

His family released a moving statement to the media, which I've excerpted below:

Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend...

Tribute to Andrew Breitbart at #BlogConCLT

I'm at BlogCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we just had a special screening of the new Stephen Bannon film, Occupy Unmasked, which features a lot of footage of Andrew Breitbart.

After the film, Jim Jamitis (@anthropocon on Twitter) presented Dana Loesch, Brandon Darby, Larry O'Connor, and John Nolte with a portrait he created as a tribute to Andrew for the Breitbart offices.

What a perfect way to honor the man...with his own words:

Big Patriotism

Just wanted to share this excellent portrait of Andrew Breitbart, created by Dale Toons:

Tweet of the Day

Andrew Breitbart, father of four, friend to many, and inspiration to countless more, was laid to rest today in California.

Big Journalism Editor Dana Loesch sent out a simple tweet a few hours ago with just "#war" as the only text and this photo:

Breitbart in 140 or less

Image by Bosch Fawstin

I wrote a post about Andrew Breitbart's untimely passing yesterday. I didn't know him as well as some others, who had these amazing personal stories to share about him, so I wanted to gather as many links as I could find. It  is a great tribute to him that there are so many people out there whom he personally affected.

(Note: I'll probably do one or two more updates, so if your post isn't yet included, please post it as a comment or send it to me on twitter @rumpfshaker.)


Andrew was a creature of social media if there ever was one, and many people took to Twitter yesterday to share their memories of him. Accordingly, it seemed fitting to do one final post in his honor with a collection of tweets.

So, here is Andrew Breitbart, in 140 characters or less...

We have lost a giant: RIP Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012) [UPDATED to include lots of links]

Today, we have lost a giant.

I received a phone call this morning with some incredibly sad news: that Andrew Breitbart had passed away.

I had gotten to know Andrew over the past year, and I am so sorry that more of you will never get to know what a warm, kindhearted, wonderful man he was.

He was incredibly generous with his time, and loved to sit and chat with anyone who wanted to get more involved in politics. Over the next few days you are going to hear many, many stories from conservative bloggers and activists who he personally encouraged (I've linked to some below - if you'd like your post linked, please post it in the comments or email it to me). The word I keep hearing this morning about him is "fighter," and he truly was.