Andrew Breitbart: Admittedly Petty, Shameless Narcissist, Scared to Go After Gawker

Snarly mainstream media hater, mainstream media pundit Andrew Breitbart -- the guy formerly known Matt Drudge's water boy -- has been making quite the ruckus lately! Most recently, he yelled at people who yelled at him at the conservative power powwow CPAC, because -- obviously -- political thinkers = political screamers. He was hailed as a hero especially by himself. Awesome. Now, he's talking more smack as The Atlantic's given him a space to share his favorite reads with the world.

Shockingly, The Secret and Eat, Pray, Love somehow didn't make the cut. Guess who did.

I use Google Alert for my name to start fights with people in comment sections or on Twitter. It's clear that Keith Olbermann's strategy to get noticed was to attack people above him. I have precisely the opposite strategy: to go after the mosquitoes that bite my ankles. I'm not sure it's a good business model but I'm a petty enough man to indulge them.

On one hand, at least he can admit it. Everyone and their mother has a Google Alert set up on their name. Most people are just intelligent enough to not engage them, especially people who sometimes regard political discussion with a modicum of tact. Not Breitbart. Dude'll take table scraps. Funny enough, he'll probably see this one too, in which case:

Andrew, after a long day of passing around the peace pipe and figuring out which right-wing power figurehead we're going to set our collectively intense, rigid, staunch, extremist political agenda and sights on, we've decided to...just call you a pussy. So, on behalf of the long-haired, acid-addicted, Communist, Jewish Media Conspiracy (also: union members!) here at the Village Voice, here. Now you're certified:

Pussy.

Mostly because he's scared to go after Gawker, whom he hates. Probably because he's scared. Which is because he's a pussy. And not just because we called him one.

Breitbart notes himself how the infamous Manhattan media blog (and my former gig) don't discriminate when it comes to picking their writing subjects, which is why he hates them, apparently. It's not that they're too biased for him. It's that they're not biased enough for him.

The Gawker enterprise is absolutely hideous to me. It just seems mindless and joyless. The Nick Denton model is everybody is worthy of being relentlessly ankle-bitten no matter what their offense. It's so contemptuously petty with writers like Appletini party boy Alex Pareene. It would be fun to go after him. They're just reinforcing the boring New York, Manhattan, liberal, predictable narrative. My God.

No, this is contemptibly petty. A press outlet without an agenda is something he'll never actually be able to grasp, because his entire livelihood is predicated on infotainment disguised as news, because watching people scream has never failed to be entertaining (hence, the longevity of Jerry Springer).

Essentially, Breitbart thinks it'd be fun to take on Gawker, but has yet to, because -- let's be honest -- he basically can't. The best shots he's been able to take so far are insubstantial, bizarre, weird taunts that call the homoerotic nature of his psychosis and sexuality into question. Like noting that they're powered by "men-with-vaginas" and utilize something called "Journo Nitro-Lube." Which even he can't explain. Also, he came up with a nickname for bearded Milwaukee's Best drinker and Gawker politics writer Alex Pareene: Appletini Partyboy. Which is actually kind of funny, because Pareene's anything but. It sticks well. Gawker publisher Nick Denton doesn't get it, either, but Breitbart has yet to come up with anything more substantial than that. He's armed with a Google Alert and a huge grill with which to scream at his sharpest critics, but at what point will he make a sincere effort to actually try to rake them over the coals? Good money says Gawker fires first.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]