Andrew Breitbart appeared on Bill Maher's Realtime panel on Friday. And, despite progressive fears of how he would perform, he completely bombed and then went into an immature meltdown. Read my blow by blow recap below the fold.
The lead-up to Breitbart going on was contentious. Color of Change urged people to call the show (as diaried here). Breitbart himself had just released more suspiciously edited videos.
Although I shared the concern of Breitbart going on Realtime, I never felt that anybody should be banned from going on the show. My only concern, especially with a prepared, aggressive person like Breitbart, was that the panel would be outmatched. When I heard that Republican strategist Mark McKinnon would be there, I felt that it was going to be a pile-on. Breitbart tends to bring up his cultish dishonest conspiracy theories that don't get any press outside of the Tea Party bubble (proving that the media is "biased"), and he usually gets no resistance. This time, that changed.
Bill Maher's show started with one of his best monologues in months, quoting Donald Trump's mythical reply to the charge by Obama that he's a carnival barker:
[Trump] said, "Carnival barkers are con men who trick people into watching a bunch of freaks and human oddities. I host the Celebrity Apprentice."
After an interview with Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, Maher moved to the panel. The beginning was chaos. From the start, former Air American and GritTV host Laura Flanders confronted Breitbart in the same aggressive manner he often does the media, and demanded that he apologize to Shirley Sherrod for Breitbart's smear job.
Crooks and Liars has put this segment up. Watch:
Maher's first good volley is here, where he takes Breitbart to task:
Breitbart: Do you want to hear the truth or are you just going to use your talking points?
Flanders: I don't have talking points.
Maher (dryly): Because Republicans never have talking points.
The irony is that Breitbart's spiel is his own talking points, which he has recently brought out on his book tour while talking to David Shuster and Martin Bashir, and which have been debunked by Media Matters. This is what Breitbart does, hoping that no one will question something that happened last year because they don't know the details off the cuff.
Breitbart is not afraid of going in the lion's den. He thrives off of liberal hate, and part of his machine is trying to coax that hate out; if that hate doesn't exist, he makes it up (see the whole fictitious riotous liberal protester meme he tried to propagate in Wisconsin). He's expecting the audience to boo him. But when he starts talking about Barack Obama's academic past in conspiratorial terms, asking what college courses and professors influenced Obama, outside of his Tea Party bubble it justs sounds crazy. Hearing this, the audience starts to laugh out loud. When he's done, this is all it takes from the Maher, the atheist host, to bring down the house:
Maher: Well, I took a Bible class in college.
And then Breitbart has a genuine hearty laugh. Maher's point that a class is not mind control is so true that he had to laugh. He tries to bring back the crazy, but he's down 14 points by now. If you were to watch the rest of the show, the damage has already been done. Breitbart refuses to make eye contact with Flanders here on out. And that's the obvious sign that she has got to him.
Breitbart starts to become more and more erratic. When Marr high fives McKinnon over their agreement that oil subsidies should be eliminated, Breitbart starts yelling and rubbing his nipples. Really.
After Maher shows a town hall clip from Think Progress featuring a woman complaining to a Republican representative that insurance companies are not going to honor vouchers from patients with pre-existing conditions, Breitbart claims that it was astroturfed.
Maher: But Andrew, no one was dressed as a pimp.
Breitbart (fumbling, speechless): That's a bon mot!
Now Breitbart is smiling, trying to bluff, but he's clearly losing on the panel. He isn't dominating like he's used to one-on-one with reporters. And he's running out of time. When Flanders and Maher are talking about the Ryan plan, it comes to this:
Maher: We're only fucking people younger than 55. We know it's a shitty plan...
Breitbart: Thats a metaphor!
Clearly, he's so consumed by his arrogance that he feels he has to bully his way to attention. He just starts interrupting and talking over people with nonsense. He tries to win people back when Maher says John Waters will be out later.
Breitbart: But I'm a pro-John Waters conservative.
Maher: And he's going to come out shortly and you can kiss him.
Zing. Time is running out. Maher always does a prop gag on the show, a fifth guest where the panel is shut off from most of the interview, and New Rules. When John Waters comes out, Breitbart thinks because he's a fan it will go better. It does not.
Breitbart: I don't mind being called a tea bagger, but Democrats have acted like Dirty Sanchez's over the last few years.
Waters: Are you a tea bag top or bottom?
The audience roars.
Breitbart starts to become more and more incoherent. When Flanders starts protesting that we have too many problems in this country to talk about Donald Trump's hair, Breitbart starts to speak over her:
Breitbart: Comedy show. Comedy show. Comedy show.
Over and over again. When Maher says that anyone can get elected, mentioning Ronald Reagan, Breitbart bizzarely starts to clap very loudly.
Maher: What?
Breitbart: I'm just clapping because he became the President when they said it would never happen.
Maher: And I'm saying it could happen with Trump, too. I don't put anything past the stupidity of this country.
And that's the last applause line. A short talk about Afghanistan, and on to New Rules. With a real opportunity to cause some damage on Real Time, Breitbart got upstaged by Waters and Maher and ended up just looking like that bully that thought he had the upper hand and instead just got body slammed.
Of the very little coverage Breitbart got, and since it was conservative, it was woefully off the mark. Fox linked to Mediate's page about the spat between Breitbart and Flanders, but added their own summation without comment with this headline:
Breitbart Dominates Maher on 'Real Time'
Newsbusters did their own spin, the predictable "What a liberal bitch Laura Flanders is." One of Breitbart's minions tries to rework what happened as well, but it's not even one of the top links on Breitbart's own Big Government site. So not a lot of coverage, even on the Right, which is pretty damning for a muckracker on a book tour.
In the end, perhaps Breitbart's fail won't matter. I don't think Breitbart had trouble sleeping that night. But looked at from the perspective of what progressives feared, Breitbart was effectively shut down by something that he doesn't possess and is fiercer than anything that he brings to the table: comedy.
And any laugh at Andrew Breitbart's expense is a good laugh. Especially for someone who is such a joke.
Update #1: It appears from early polling that it's unanimous: John Waters won the show!
Update #2: Thanks for the recs! Especially because to transcribe the quotes I had to listen to Breitbart over and over and over...