March 19, 2013

The meltdown of Ben Shapiro. What’s in Breitbart kid’s ‘closet’?

Ben Shapiro, the editor-at-large wunderkind at Breitbart.com, guest-hosted for the Hugh Hewitt radio show on the day of the Chuck Hagel’s confirmation as defense secretary in late February. The Hagel news really tipped the teeter-totter for Shapiro, burning a few more cards out of a deck that was already missing several face cards. This video distills eight minutes from the three hour program, eight minutes of prime frustration, projection, hectoring, complaining, accusation and moral posturing, all delivered in Shapiro’s rapid-fire nasal whine.

Shapiro suggested that Hamas was “handing out candy in Gaza” to celebrate the Hagel nomination, bluntly tried to smear Hagel as “an open anti-Semitic guy,” a “defense secretary for Islamists,” an “anti-Semite” who is “the worst nominee…in American history” and, for good measure, bleated that Obama is a “jerk,” “bully” and “morally deficient human being” who has “come out of the closet” in terms of pretending to care about people. Meanwhile, in Shapiro’s world, “Mitt Romney…is legitimately one of the most honorable men, maybe the most honorable man, ever to run for high office in this country” and Noam Chomsky “is not really Jewish,” is “Jewish in name only.” He simultaneously accuses everyone but the man in the mirror of being “whiny” and doing “smear jobs.”

In the middle of the tirade, Shapiro’s self-awareness bloats to the point where he can ask “How can (Obama) possibly say this with a straight face?” and to end with this: “Democrats, they live in a world of unreality. They live in magic unicorn land…They don’t deal with reality. It’s up to us to deal with reality.”

Shapiro’s high-energy angst, his fevered finger-pointing at “moral deficiency” and other faults of those who “don’t deal with reality” is eerily reminiscent of the long line of disgraced fire-and-brimstone evangelists, from Jimmy Swaggart romping with prostitutes to Ted Haggard doing meth with his gay masseuse, who work so hard to hide the fact that they are guilty of all the sins they preach against. How long until Shapiro cracks?