In the basement of his home the day after Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, the late Andrew Breitbart launched his Big empire with Big Hollywood, and one of the first people he invited to join our merry little team as a contributor was Meghan McCain. I know this for a fact because I traded emails with Ms. McCain so she could join our live-blog of that year’s Academy Awards. — which she did. This reality doesn’t quite compute with her inference last night on MSNBC that hateful extremists like Andrew Breitbart are part of the reason she feels unwelcome in the Republican party.
Andrew not only welcomed Ms. McCain, he admired the fact that she was a young, engaged right-of-center person who “got” popular culture. This is why he tried to bring her into the Big Hollywood fold from the start. Not only that, but it’s important to remember that this invitation came in the wake of John McCain’s 2008 loss, before his daughter’s status in the media was amplified by her perches at the Daily Beast and MSNBC.
Is Ms. McCain seriously suggesting that this Andrew Breitbart would marginalize anyone over same-sex marriage?
Moreover, because Andrew loathed in-fighting (unless he was attacked), and while many other conservatives hit back at Ms. McCain for her regular undermining insults directed towards the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and conservatives in general — the Bigs pretty much left her alone. It was important to Andrew that we keep, as he put it, the waters warm for all right-of-center types. That’s the opposite of exclusionary and intolerance.
Maybe Ms, McCain forgot this. Maybe she didn’t but was looking for a hot talking point to shout out on MSNBC. Either way, she owes Andrew, and by extension, his family, an apology.
On a personal note, I don’t dislike Megan McCain because of her politics, I simply choose to dislike her back. There’s a difference between the two, and I trust I’m not alone. She’s the one who fired the first shots at her own on the pages of the Daily Beast and on MSNBC, and in many cases in the most selfish way imaginable: by feeding and encouraging the media’s dishonest narratives about the right — especially when it came to Sarah Palin and a burgeoning Tea Party.
As she did last night, Ms. McCain can cry on MSNBC’s shoulders about being a martyr to moderate Republicanism all she wants, even as she ignores the fact that there are plenty of moderate Republicans secure in the fold — including the new leader of our party, Mitt Romney.
Like many conservatives, I have plenty of affection for people who share Ms. McCain’s politics and even those who are to the left of her.
Ms. McCain’s problem isn’t her politics or her stance on same-sex marriage, her problem is that she’s not a very nice person.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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