I’ve never followed New York City politics much, but the discussion of Ed Koch put me in mind of this fascinating New York magazine piece on Eric Breindel, a neocon heroin addict who trashed “homeless people, poor people, gay people, the mentally ill, single mothers” in his New York Post column in the 80s and 90s.
Everyone’s in this piece: Pat Moynihan (Breindel sucked up to him while at college and became one of his staffers — remember Saint Pat was tight with neocons back in the day), Jim Cramer (who beat Breindel out to become editor of the Harvard Crimson), Rupert Murdoch (whom Breindel convinced to support Giuliani in the 1993 mayor race), Arianna Huffington (who used to lunch with him), Katharine Graham’s granddaughter Lally (whom Breindel married), Roger Ailes, Barbara Walters, Charlie Rose (all at his funeral).
schrodinger's cat
The MSM is certainly an inbred lot, like European royalty of yore.
The Dangerman
This would explain quite a lot.
I’m probably repeating from posts in dead threads, but we’ve finally hit peak wingnut (Nazi’s = sense). I wonder how many Jewish voters took notice?
shortstop
And I guess that I just don’t know.
PeakVT
Never heard of Breindel before, but this list of clowns is one of his legacies.
Doug Galt
@PeakVT:
That is cruel. Even a neocon heroin addict deserves better than that.
Steeplejack
@Doug Galt:
Fix’d? Not sure what you were going for there.
WereBear
Small circles, indeed. And I am familiar with NY lunching.
Really, sticking up for the Nazis? At long last, have they no shame?
Bokonon
I think you want to say that Breindel “sucked [up] to Moyniahn while [Breindel] was in college”.
Please … just change that. Quickly. While Pat would probably be very amused by the typo, it certainly creates a bad implication.
BGinCHI
Everyone in that second paragraph has their name in Satan’s book. Or iPad, or whatever he uses.
liberal
IIRC, she dated Alexander Cockburn, strangely enough.
WereBear
@BGinCHI: I am convinced Satan uses an Android.
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
I’m thinking he’s a Microsoft guy (hey, wouldn’t you be pissed, too, if you got locked into Zune).
Violet
A passed out Pat Moynihan brought to by Breindel polishing his knob? Ick.
PeakVT
@Doug Galt: A heroin addict certainly does. But after reading a couple pages of his obit, I think that collection of mendacious hacks is entirely appropriate for Breindel.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes they are. It’s sad they are the gatekeepers of what passes as news. I wish I could we we deserve better, but I’m not sure that’s true. I wish we had better newspeople.
Citizen Alan
That’s a whole lot of electrons wasted on a story that could have been summed up as “Charming Neocon Sociopath Dead at 42.”
WereBear
@Citizen Alan: The one good thing about that headline; my own life, thus far, beats the pants off that one!
I’ll take what I can get.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of MSM hacks, did anyone catch Jeffrey Brown’s interview of Al Gore? It was hostile, Brown grilled Al Gore, it was an unfriendly and an adversarial interview. I have never seen anyone else get that treatment on snooze hour before.
schrodinger's cat
@Citizen Alan: Sounds like a male and more sophisticated version of Sarah Palin. The neo-cons sure seem like a gullible lot, will fall for anyone purty who speaks nice to them.
BGinCHI
@WereBear: Let’s leave Mitt Romney out of this.
BGinCHI
@The Dangerman: Bill Gates is Satan?
I’m not denying it’s a possibility.
NonyNony
There’s an image that I will never get out of my head now.
@Violet:
Yes. That’s the image.
Bulworth
@Citizen Alan: Yeah.
And this:
I probably should have stopped reading there. We’re told later in the piece that he “stood for something”. Sure. He stood for sticking it to the most vulnerable members of society.
Good riddance.
BGinCHI
@Bulworth: I thought the obit just could have been:
Asshole dies. Funeral rotten with assholes.
WereBear
It would explain so much.
kindness
I never read the Post, was out of NY by 77 so much of this is out of my range. I grew up around many kids just like him though. It’s sad he was such an asshole after getting clean.
Such is life I guess.
DougJ
@Steeplejack:
Thanks
Sly
@schrodinger’s cat:
To get an entry-level job in “elite” journalism, you’re going to have to live in New York or Washington, D.C. for three to six months while on an unpaid internship. The New York Times offers a paid summer internship, and NBC News recently announced that they’re going to start offering them, but they’re the outliers.
Not many can afford to live in a major metropolitan area with no income for upwards of half a year and, what’s more, no guarantee of a full-time job when the internship is completed. A significant chunk of those who can’t are going to be legacy hires.
On an important side note; think of all the groups to which these positions are accessible, and the kind of person who is the target consumer for “elite” journalism starts becoming very clear.
Boots Day
If I recall, Breindel was also a protege of Martin Peretz at Harvard.
He supposedly used to tell girls, “You just slept with the first Jewish president.” Too bad he died, or he would have been the first junkie president too.
Valdivia
too late to the thread but Lally got around. She had a thing with Bibi at some point.
dr. bloor
Ugh. Thanks for that. I had successfully repressed any memories of Breindel’s existence…now I get a heaping helping of Pricks in the Media Past as well as the ongoing dose of Pricks in the Media Present.
Jay S
@WereBear: If that’s the case why does *nix have daemons while Windows have services?
Mike in NC
@PeakVT: Sort of forgot about Michael Kelly. He became a big Bush fan after 9/11 and eagerly covered the invasion of Iraq, where he died in a traffic mishap.
Spaghetti Lee
Hmm…conservative asshole, drug addict, died young…did he reincarnate as Andrew Breitbart?
Jay S
@Jay S: Android is a Linux derivative that has its deamons as well.
Doug Galt
@Mike in NC:
Kelly’s the worst.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
From the NY Mag piece:
On Satan’s social calendar perhaps. With all their contacts in his ipad
@Boots Day: Yup, and unsurprisingly:
Will
Brendel did the local NY political shows on Sunday mornings, his voice which the article describes as “tremulous” was very distinctive. reminded me of someone during a bad Katherine Hepburn.
The article also reminded me of Papa Cuomo helping Murdoch getting his license to run the Post again, typical Democrat always playing the frog to the Republican scorpion and always being surprised when they get stung
woodyNYC
How am I doing?
arguingwithsignposts
@Sly:
There are a surprising number of paid internships in NYC and DC. But your point is close to the truth. It’s also amazing how many in the elite media are members of the Harvard/Yale good old boys axis, extended out a few schools.
Sly
@arguingwithsignposts:
Probably because a lot of the entry-level gigs of major publications used to be only offered to Ivy League graduates, and a lot of the ones who got into the business at an early age based on that criteria are still there.
am
Good article to share, finally got through reading. Useful reminder of how things work.