I thought it might be a good time to point out some curious edits to Andrew Breitbart's recent book 'Righteous Indignation.'
I happen to have one of the Advance Readers Copies shipped out to reviewers by the publisher months ago. There were some very interesting changes made before the final version currently moldering on bookstore shelves was released. It seems that Breitbart has a rather negative attitude towards Jews. Indeed, he expresses the desire to go back in time and finish off the job Hitler started.
Yes, he really wrote that. Join me below the fold for details...
Breitbart is the classic unreliable narrator. Throughout the book, he believes he is showing a certain reality through his anecdotes, but because he presents himself with such a sense of persecution, exaggeration and self-aggrandization, he in fact is showing the opposite.
He devotes endless pages to portraying himself as the triumphant hero of insignificant battles. He endlessly and desperately tries to pump up his image through the reflected glory of name-dropped B-level Hollywood stars. His whining and ranting betray such a persecution complex that it becomes almost embarrassing to read.
Now I love the technique of the unreliable narrator as much as the next guy, but Breitbart’s editors really should have clued him into the fact that while it's an interesting technique in fiction, it's a REALLY BAD TECHNIQUE FOR NONFICTION. His editors did at least rescue him from one of his worst inadvertent self-revelations, but the original text pre-edit can be found in the advance readers copy.
One of the main themes Breitbart pushes in his book is this:
The left does not win its battles in debate. It doesn’t have to. In the twenty-first century, media are everything. The left wins because it controls the narrative.
And the way the left controls the narrative, according to Breitbart, is that they control the media and they control Hollywood. Hmmm...that sounds vaguely familiar...what other group has often been accused of controlling the media and Hollywood?
Here's what Breitbart has to say after offering up a potted history of leftist philosophy in early 20th century Europe:
Again, where am I going with all of this philosophical jabberwocky? Well, all of these boring and bleating philosophers might have faded into oblivion as so many Marxist theorists have, but the rise of Adolf Hitler prevented that. With Hitler's rise, they had to flee (virtually all of them--Horkheimer, Marcuse, Adorno, Fromm--were of Jewish descent). And they had no place to go.
Except the United States.
Yeah, that's right. If only Hitler had been a bit quicker about it, America might have been saved from the polluting influence of those damn Marxist Jews!
Two pages later, Breitbart has this to say about those philosophers:
If I could go back in a time machine, I would go back to strangle these malcontents.
Yes, Breitbart wished he could go back in time and finish the job that Hitler botched. Except OOPS! I guess his editor thought that was a bit, ummm, indelicate. The quote above is what Breitbart originally wrote, as it appears in the Advance Readers Copy. Here's how the passage was edited for the final published version:
If I could go back in a time machine, I would go back to kick these malcontents in their shins.
Did I say strangle? No, obviously what I meant to say was kick them in their shins. Silly me!
To be fair, some of Breitbart's best friends are Jews. Or at least some of the people he admires are. He speaks favorably of Irving Kristol and Joe Lieberman. He longs for the days when people like Abbie Hoffman and Lenny Bruce were fearless in sticking it to the man.
Only thing is, he doesn't specifically identify any of those people as Jewish, as he does those philosophical nemeses noted above. And he also goes out of his way to identify as Jewish one other person he paints as an enemy of all that is good:
Let's start by noting who Saul Alinsky was. Alinsky was an avowed communist dedicated to installing communism in America from the inside, using the most clever tactical means he could devise. He was born in 1909 in Chicago to Jewish parents, and like his Frankfurt School counterparts, he quickly migrated towards Marx. [my emphasis]
Oh, except OOPS! Once again, that is how Breitbart originally wrote it and as it appears in the advance readers copy. But once again, his editors helpfully stepped in and deleted this gratuitous reference to Alinsky's heritage. In the final version of the book, the phrase reads "[H}e was born in 1909 in Chicago." The "Jewish parents" have vanished.
One more curious example. Near the end of the book, Breitbart goes all false modesty in the following passage, and out of all the possible analogies available to him, chooses one that is rather bizarre:
At the end of the day, I know I'm not an aspiring political pundit, that I don't consider my voice any greater than my neighbor's voice, that my opinion on gay marriage is no more important than that of someone who is gay and is in a committed relationship, and that my thoughts on marijuana legalization are no more important than those of an orthodox Jew who has a deep problem with illegal drugs.
OK, what corner of his mind did he pull that idea from?
Now I'm not trying to paint Breitbart as some sort of raving anti-Semitic neo-Nazi. All I'm saying is that, when left to his own devices, the Unreliable Narrator that is the writer Andrew Breitbart seems to toss up rather frequently some unconscious antipathy towards the Jews.
Maybe he just has some personal issues to work through. According to his Wikipedia entry, Breitbart was adopted by a Jewish family, but that he is ethnically Irish by birth.
So fine, Andrew, if you have some family issues to work though, please discuss them with the psychotherapist of your choice.
But do us all a favor and don't impose your bullshit on the rest of us.