RUSH: There’s a movie that is premiering this weekend, that starts tonight, called Hating Breitbart. It’s biographical, but it’s also infotainment about Andrew Breitbart, who was a really committed conservative warrior. This guy was leading the charge on the Internet and other places. He was walking into plays with cameras and exposing liberals and Democrats for who they are. He died prematurely from a heart attack. I cannot tell you how beloved Andrew Breitbart was.
When Andrew Breitbart passed away, much of the conservative movement mourned — and particularly what I would call the young conservative brigade. I mean, he was a hero to them. He was a hero to everybody that knew him. He was indefatigable. He was constantly on the go. He had energy that was enviable. He was always upbeat and laughing and smiling, but he was loaded for bear, and he was fearless. They’ve made a movie about him, and they’ve made a movie about efforts to discredit him.
Andrew Breitbart is always going to be very close to my heart because he became a conservative, in part, because of me, and he told me the story. He was from Brentwood, California — a liberal hotbed, a Los Angeles suburb. His father-in-law’s the comedian, Orson Bean, and Orson Bean is a conservative and has been for a while. Andrew married his daughter. While they were dating and so forth, Andrew’s over at Orson Bean’s house, and he happens to see my book, my first book, The Way Things Ought to Be.
It was in Bean’s library on his desk, and Andrew goes nuts. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe that you’ve got a book by this guy. This guy’s a racist. He’s an extremist! I can’t believe it.” And Orson said, “You know what, Andrew? You ought to take this for the weekend and read it.” Now, Andrew told me this story numerous times. I interviewed him for the Limbaugh Letter. He recounted this story during that interview.
He was always eager for me to know this. But Orson Bean gave Breitbart, who was to be his son-in-law, a copy of the book and said, “You take it home and read it.” Andrew Breitbart took the book home and read it, and that began his transformation from Brentwood, California, default Southern California liberal, to an ignited (chuckles) conservative warrior. I’ve always been very proud of the fact that I played some role in Andrew Breitbart becoming what he became.
Anyway, a lot of people have worked very hard on this movie called Hating Breitbart, and it opens all over the country today. It’s had some previews. It’s exceptionally well done, and people who’ve seen it are very moved by it, ’cause he’s very missed. I don’t know. When Andrew Breitbart died, some of you probably asked, “Who’s Andrew Breitbart?” You’d heard the name and so forth, but then you had the TV on, and everybody was talking about him.
For example, everybody at Fox counted him as their best friend. It was incredible, the number of people that he ended up knowing, that he ended up coming into contact with, that he touched. Greg Gutfeld loved him, for example, host of Red Eye on Fox. He devoted, I think, a week worth of shows to the memory of Breitbart, ’cause he was motivational, inspirational, fearless, and so forth. I wanted to mention the movie that these people had produced about his life and his enemies that does open today.