Life: Imagine the Potential is the second release of CatholicVote.org’s national new media campaign, “Life: Imagine the Potential.” I’ll excuse them for forgetting me, another adoption success story.

If anyone ever wanted to deconstruct my politics, he or she need look no further than my idyllic upbringing and the choice that one someone made back in the late 1960s.

And happy anniversary to my parents Arlene and Gerry Breitbart who on May 19th celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary.

Thank you for everything. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

In this day of polarized politics, it’s incumbent on good citizens to be vigorously truthful. Even in the heat of battle, partisans should own up to their mistakes. Rectifying errors builds credibility. Honest self-criticism ensures a healthy debate and a healthier democracy.

OK, fine. I messed up.

Late last month, my wife, Susie, and I took a day trip to Shutters, an elegant, white-veneered hotel along the ritzy Santa Monica shoreline. It’s a special-occasion place, and we went there to take in a rare parental reprieve.

We went to the hotel’s second-floor veranda overlooking the Pacific and ordered spinach-and-artichoke dip and two margaritas. Except for a mild wind, the day was perfect for checking out seagulls and passers-by on the boardwalk below.

Santa Monica is an upscale part of Los Angeles, and Shutters is a pricey joint. But the nearby pier-cum-amusement-park and its spacious public beach is a multifaceted, people-watching experience. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

Here we go again. The latest poster conservative for political-correctness-run-amok in a country careening downhill on left-wing, Democratic cruise control is Republican congresswoman Virginia Foxx.

Mrs. Foxx’s impropriety: The thought crime of arguing against “hate crime” laws by pointing out that Matthew Shepard – the tragic icon attached to the legislation – represents a salient argument against enacting them.

Mr. Shepard, the gay Wyoming teenager robbed and savagely beaten to death by drug-addled thugs in 1998, is the emotionally charged posthumous force behind the movement to pass hate crime laws. He got that way after a relentless, decade long mainstream media, Madison Avenue and Hollywood propaganda campaign to make his death a symbol of just-beneath-the-surface sadistic intolerance toward homosexuals. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

Greetings, from a poolside cabana at a trendy boutique hotel in Santa Monica. Oh, how I love these overpriced overnight stays. The sleek designs. The ambient music. The uniformly attractive and stylishly dressed young staffs. The plush beds with sheets of an absurdly high thread count. Weird faucets and weirder sinks. I bask in the attention to detail. W is my favorite letter. Philippe Starck is a personal hero.

As a realist, I’ve built into my mindset that the majority heterosexual population is less than exclusively responsible for creating this and countless other high-end consumer and artistic experiences. Plus, I have a ton of wonderful gay friends – even ones “married” and with children. If gay activists created “A Day Without a Gay” (as they promoted Dec. 10 of last year), I’d be the first to cry “uncle” – even before Cher. So, accordingly, I make philosophical and political accommodations. I’m – as the MTV generation says – “gay-friendly.”

But lately, color me “gay perturbed.” “Gay-friendly,” a term once manifestly redundant, now seems a glaring contradiction. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

On April 15, I joined hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans across the nation at the tax day “tea party” protests. I wasn’t told to go there by Fox News or by billionaires or millionaires. But what if I had?

The mainstream media and the Democratic Party – one and the same these days – spent much of the last week furiously attacking the grass-roots tea party protest movement as somehow illegitimate – or worse.

Days before the uniformly peaceful and patriotic gatherings took place, Homeland Security czar Janet Napolitano conveniently issued a bizarre report slandering military veterans and assorted right-leaning groups as racist, homegrown terrorism threats.

News anchors resorted to prime-time “tea-bagging” jokes in frequent attempts to mock the participants’ grievances. On Keith Olbermann’s hate crime of a show on MSNBC, Janeane Garofalo fused two memes to declare tens of thousands of Americans as “tea-bagging rednecks.” (more…)

I’ve just come back from the Orange County Tea Party where Big Hollywood contributors Gary Graham, Orson Bean and I addressed the crowd.  It was a breathtaking experience with upwards of 2,000 people in attendance who were, much to the media’s disappointment, civil and and well behaved. This was the ultimate middle-class-Costco-shopper protest…not the work of wealthy millionaires like scaredy-cat Nancy Pelosi would like you to think.  There were no scary skeleton costumes, no Subcomandante Marcos banana-republic-revolutionary vibe, just a diverse crowd of everyday Americans, Democrats and Republicans, gathered to push back an arrogant and increasingly oppressive government.

Yet CNN Correspondent Susan Roesgen (a reporter, not a commentator), came into the Chicago rally with a clear agenda to use code words to harass and harangue peaceful protestors:

What a pathetic display. Susan Roesgen is the devil and if she’s not fired for her mean-spirited display, CNN deserves to fall deeper than 4th place in the cable news rating.

The subtext of my speech–which we intend to post here once we have the video–was that the media is the problem because they ignore and marginalize these tea parties and those Americans who have made them such a success, and I can offer no better evidence than that video of Susan Roesgen, which I saw afterward. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

On Tuesday night I was bestowed the honor of being ridiculed on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. The segment in which I was featured had Mr. Stewart mocking those of us who dare criticize the new president. In the era of Obama, mainstream American political humor is now officially on the defensive.

Stewart lumped me with Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican — a cross section of people you might expect to be critical of an administration implementing very liberal policies in a very short time.

The “joke” was that these right-wing zealots weren’t giving the new president enough time, that the previous president did worse things, and that I, in particular, was ridiculous for blaming the president for “St. Patrick’s Day” becoming “Potato Day” at my kids’ public school. (Yes, the name change took place. No, I did not blame President Obama — specifically.) (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

A digital war has broken out, and the conservative movement is losing. Read the comment sections of right-leaning blogs, news sites and social forums, and the evidence is there in ugly abundance. Internet hooligans are spewing their talking points to thwart the dissent of the newly-out-of-power.

We must not let that go unanswered.

Uninvited Democratic activists are on a mission to demoralize the enemy – us. They want to ensure that President Obama is not subject to the same coordinated, facts-be-damned, multimedia takedown they employed over eight long years to destroy the presidency – and the humanity – of George W. Bush. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

America is in a crisis of its own making.

Not only are we realizing that our banking system and our core infrastructure are broken, and that our primary checks and balances (Congress, the media, etc.) are corrupt, but we are also coming to grips with the fact that we did not inherit our forefathers’ or even our fathers intestinal fortitude.

Signs of our collective weakness emerged after 9/11 when only part of the American population took seriously that we were at war with an evil and motivated enemy determined to destroy our way of life. Since then, al Qaeda has refused to quit despite debilitating losses. (more…)

Meeting Ron Silver humbled me. Never have I been more wrong in assessing a person before knowing him.

Until I met him, he was just another Hollywood liberal loud mouth.

Yes, he was an award-winning actor and prolific film star. And, yes, he had strong political opinions. (The net sum of his positions added up to no partisan’s delight.)

But Ron Silver was also astoundingly intelligent. Ask anyone who knew him. He spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and Spanish to go with having a Master’s Degree in Chinese History.

These facets combined to make Silver a most compelling public person, a natural leader and the type of man who automatically commanded respect and admiration no matter the social or vocational circumstance. (more…)

To view video of Andrew Breitbart on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” taped Friday, March 13, 2009 click here.

This week’s Washington Times column:

Pretty much everyone I respect in media and politics recommended I not go on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.” But on Friday night, I defied that wisdom and had the time of my life.

I sparred with Mr. Maher, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson and a MoveOn.org audience from hell that booed my sentences before they were completed. Unfortunately, my wife and in-laws, who watched from the green room, were not as enamored with the experience as I was.

Since the salad days of ABC’s “Politically Incorrect,” which minted countless right-wing pundits and best-selling authors, conservatives have rightly assessed the HBO version of the Maher show as R-rated and shockingly hostile to their worldview. So most opt out.

I totally see why. But I think that’s exactly the wrong strategy.

(more…)

YouTube McCotter on Red eye

This week’s Washington Times column:

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. | After spending two weeks on something akin to a fact-finding mission in depressed New York and depleted Washington, D.C., I found no answers to our nation’s mounting ills. I discovered that there is much to be angry about and unlimited reasons for deep concern. But on the evening after my return, the stars aligned on the outskirts of Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and for a brief moment I felt safe again in America.

On Saturday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the second annual “Celebration of Freedom Gala.” We joined more than 1,000 others who, like us, were electrified to honor 43 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients. We also gave our thanks to former first lady Nancy Reagan, war hero and actor Charles Durning, and Gen. David H. Petraeus. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

The mood at the Omni Shoreham Hotel late Saturday afternoon was off the electrical meter when Rush Limbaugh took center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Hundreds of revelers packed the Regency Ballroom and hundreds more filled overflow rooms, hallways and stairways to watch on wide-screen TVs. It was a rare and much-anticipated public appearance of the man so powerful that President Obama singled him out for destruction in his administration’s first days.

Conservative pundits, party leaders and movement bigwigs took special care to position themselves close by so they could hang on every word of the only person who actually could accomplish what the three-day conference was all about – jump-starting the flagging conservative cause. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

As CPAC begins in the nation´s capital later this week, the conservative movement has much to contemplate as it attempts to reestablish itself as a dominant force in American political life.

Actually, “relevance” may be a more reasonable short-term goal.

The timing of the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference could not be better suited for evaluating the strategies of the standard bearers of free markets and limited government as free-spending and nanny statist Obamaism runs amok with nary a media check or a legislative balance. (more…)

Good night, friends.

Is Zac Efron the new Jared Leto?

Thanks, Susie.

Bollywood was rocked late last year when Muslim extremists coordinated a deadly attack on India’s movie capital. Nearly 200 innocent people died. Yet with Slumdog Millionaire taking all these awards no one brings up this very recent impactful global event that is most certainly tied to decades of similarly heinous coordinated attacks on innocent civilians.

Yet Hollywood is silent tonight.

Like it was silent when filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was killed in 2004.

Ignoring the heinous behavioral traits of ascendant radical Islam — while isolating in the most parochial and partisan ways the wrongs in America — is the primary reason why for the last 7 1/2 years many of us neo-cons and ne’erdowells on the right have picked on Hollywood, and especially the Oscars.

When you join us in our fight against real evil, we will go back to indulging you on your big night your inconsistencies and eccentricities that tend to be naturally worked out in vital democracies like ours.

What’s that thing on Will Smith’s lapel?

I did it. Mommy, I did it. I actually did it.