But a few things:

• He demonstrated you can build a mini-media empire from scratch and rage. Not an easy task without tons of cash. Breitbart was a privileged kid who blew an inheritance living in New York City, but later built his site from the ground up, running it out of his basement. That’s still a decent-sized risk to take.
• Breitbart let his haters be his motivators — see his twitter feed. He retweeted nearly every insult slung at him, making that individual look stupid. He took glee in being hated. About slinging insults at him — he’ll probably haunt the living fuck out of each and every person who does so just to giggle at them in the shower.
• He was capable of civil conversation with people on the left. I had a compelling exchange with him on Twitter this summer about people threatening violence or wishing ill will just so he’d shut up. I can empathize. While the majority of my readers and I think I’m right, same goes for him and his readers. 
• His last tweet read: “I called you a putz cause I thought you were being intentionally disingenuous. If not I apologize.” That somehow seems to sum him up.
• I will recognize the damage he did to political discourse, and condemn that, but I’m not going to dance on the man’s grave. He’s not even in the ground yet, and the celebration I’ve seen is a titch stomach-turning. Breitbart leaves behind a wife and four young children. No matter what you think of the man himself, he was still their father and I imagine they at least liked him, if not loved him. However, I’m not going to pretend he was a venerable figure. As Breitbart said after Ted Kennedy died, “Why do you grant a BULLY [sic] special status after his death?” I don’t. But I won’t celebrate someone dying, either. That’s a low to which I’ll rarely ever sink, and one he did on multiple occasions. I want to be better than that — besides, 43 is much too young to die.

So rest in peace, you magnificent asshole. And I mean that with all due respect.

(Source: cognitivedissonance)