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| Getty image - online at Yahoo News, here |
The Los Angeles County coroner's office will review the death of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who collapsed and died Thursday while taking a nighttime walk near his Westwood home.
Given his young age -- he was 43 -- and the unexpected manner in which he died, authorities will conduct an autopsy to help determine a specific cause of death.
Right wing speculation is reported:
Andrew Breitbart's unexpected death on Thursday has sparked a swift outpouring of grief and remembrances--but also the inevitable conspiracy theories about the timing of the outspoken conservative's demise.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Breitbart claimed he had damning videos of Barack Obama, and planned to release them before the general election.
"[We] are going to vet [Obama] from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008," Breitbart told the CPAC crowd.
Steve Bannon, producer of "The Undefeated" and a friend of Breitbart's, told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday that the tapes of Obama at Harvard do exist, and that they would be released "in a week or two."
The news quickly sent conservative bloggers--still shocked by Breitbart's sudden death--into a frenzy.
"In a stunning coincidence," Paul Joseph Watson wrote on InfoWars.com, "it appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign."
Conservative blogger Lawrence Sinclair referenced a conversation he had with Breitbart in Washington D.C. three weeks before. "Andrew said, 'Wait til they see what happens March first,'" Lawrence Sinclair wrote.
Sinclair also took issue with the wording of Breitbart's death announcement as it was posted on BigGovernment.com.
"Claims that Andrew died of 'natural causes' are the opinions of his attorney Joel Pollak and not the statements of any medical personnel from UCLA or the L.A. County Coroners office," he wrote. "L.A. Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Ed Winter says autopsy to be done tomorrow (Friday March 2, 2012) and no official cause of death has been determined."
But the coroner's office told Yahoo News on Thursday that it is unclear when the results of an autopsy would be released.
With conspiracy theory allegations floating around Sinclair's website, the comments escalated into more predictions of foul play.
"I do not believe Breitbart died from natural causes," one commenter on Sinclair's site wrote. "He died for speaking the truth...He probably should not have announced he had videos of BO's college days... I find it quite interesting that he died alone on a street. There will be an autopsy and they will decide on natural causes, but there is a way to induce a heart attack in human beings."
Wrote another commenter: "One thing is for sure. 43-year-old people don't die from 'natural causes.'"
[links in original omitted] The Yahoo post says more. My bet would be the man had too big a toot before a walk, but that's as speculative as the far right's guessing. It is all guesswork. That makes it more interesting.
Video showing perhaps Obama was something more like an actual hot head believing in social justice and less an establishment liberal when in school. Wow. Hot stuff. No wonder ...
And, for that matter, did Forrestal jump? A much better story because a much more accomplished man than Breitbart was involved, and the threads can still be argued as untied now, over half-a-century later.
Vincent Foster. Ron Brown's airplane. Mena. Who burned the Reichstag? WTC 7.
Now more of the lore. West coast style. Easy to headline in a provocative way. Yesterday's news? Depending on where you look?
That "Wait until March 1," business, and then on that day Matt Taibbi writing what some might think the best objective and definitive obit for what Breitbart was and what his life stood for. (Right wingers might disagree and prefer this.) BradBlog, here.
Again from Rolling Stone, a reminder in the righthand sidebar when today reading Taibbi's obit, that we have prematurely lost more important and more truly talented people than Andrew Breitbart. More innovative. Better entertainers. With pleasant, cultured and innocent venom-free souls, relatively speaking if not in an absolute sense.
____________UPDATE____________
MT did an okay job, but for that form of obit, as a true art form, refer to the master. The master interviewed, here. In deference to and respect for the master, MT should have headlined it,
"He was a schmuck."