Topic category:  Depravity on the Left

Stop the presses! Sally Quinn not only told the world that she and her husband paid for the wedding dress of their son's bride to be, but actually admitted that she had made a mistake (as though reporting on the payment for the dress wasn't).

That's big news, because Ms. Quinn tends to find fault with others, not herself.

For example, see Wikipedia:

"We're Going To Make You a Star, an account by Sally Quinn of her time with the CBS Morning News. In this book she discusses the CBS failure and reflects on her adolescence and how it, among other things, led to her failure as a television news anchor.

"Sally Quinn grew up a general's daughter. She was acquainted with many diplomats and obtained a string of odd jobs around Washington, D.C. until she settled as a society reporter for the Washington Post. Quinn became notorious for her tough reviews. This is where the book begins but the real story is addressed after she is offered an anchor job for the CBS Morning News. She describes how reluctant she was about taking the job alongside Hughes Rudd and goes on to chronicle the failure of the show.

"Quinn disclaims any responsibility for being unprepared and blames CBS for all that went wrong during the short life of this incarnation of the CBS Morning News...."

Ms. Quinn's mea culpa in "Sally Quinn's The Party: No 'dueling' Bradlee weddings, just scheduling mistake" (February 18, 2010) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021805078.html?hpid=news-col-blog:) is priceless.

Ms. Quinn, 68, third wife of Benjamin Bradlee, 88, insisted that "[t]he unfortunate result of the dates being the same was an inadvertent mistake on [her] part."

Why is Ms. Quinn writing about this in the Washington Post (beside the article serving as a great vehicle for announcing that she and her husband had paid for their pregnant, prospective daughter-in-law's dress)?

To help others, of course.

Ms. Quinn: "I'm going to discuss a drama unfolding in our family, and I'm discussing it only because others have made it public and messy. It's a conflict that I hope readers can understand -- and avoid in their own lives."

That Ms. Quinn, always trying to help her readers, because, as Ms. Quinn wrote in her lead paragraph, "Everyone has a dysfunctional family."

Pray tell, what was that "inadvertent mistake"?

Ms. Quinn: "Greta, the daughter of my husband's son Ben Bradlee Jr. and ABC's Martha Raddatz, planned her wedding last fall and sent Save the Date cards. I gave ours to my husband to put the date on his calendar, and he did not. A warning to wives everywhere!"

Apparently Bradlee and Ms. Quinn keep separate calendars and she immediately decided SHE wouldn't be going to California on April 10, 2010 for the wedding of her husband's first grandchild and therefore did not put it on HER calendar, so the real fault lies with her careless or forgetful octogenarian husband and she's sweetly taking the blame for him.

Of course, it wasn't really all his fault: the church was to blame too.

Ms. Quinn: "Unfortunately, our church does not do weddings during Lent or Easter. The only date we could arrive on when both church and minister were available was April 10, and the next wasn't until after Memorial Day.

Why are Bradlee's son and granddaughter now both scheduled to be married on opposite coasts on the same day?

Granny-to-be-but-the-child-will-call-me-Mama-Sal Ms. Quinn reported to the world that Bradlee's son's wife-to-be is now expecting.

Ms. Quinn: "Quinn and Pary decided on Oct. 10, 2010, as their wedding date.... Then, in mid-January, we were thrilled to learn that Pary is pregnant, due Sept. 21, and decided to move up the date as quickly as possible."

Ms. Quinn claimed that the scheduling seemed serendipitious.

Ms. Quinn: "Frantically, I checked my calendar, my husband's, Greta's aunt's, and her cousins' -- everyone had the date free. Each gave the go-ahead. We were also lucky enough to find that the band we had booked was able to make the date change, as well as the photographer, the planner and the attendants.... It all seemed serendipitous, so we booked everyone and ordered the invitations."

Why Ms. Quinn checked Greta's aunt's calendar and her cousins' calendars, but not Greta's, Ms. Quinn did not say.

Ms. Quinn continued:

"Two weeks or so later, my husband's son learned of the new plan. Happily, we did not have a single overlapping guest. We had already decided not to go to the California nuptials. And, by then, it was too late to change the one in Washington. We decided to go ahead.

"It never occurred to any of us that my mistake would be a story, much less a gossip item that proved so upsetting to the two couples. Again, a so-called expert was completely wrong."

You betcha!

Ms. Quinn predictably closed with a declaration of the best of intentions and best wishes-- and a curious reference to "the mistakes of the[] older relatives" and the "fractured families" of the two couples to be:

"It never occurred to any of us that my mistake would be a story, much less a gossip item that proved so upsetting to the two couples. Again, a so-called expert was completely wrong.

"Anyone who has been a stepmother or a stepgrandmother will identify with the unintended impact -- the mistakes and misperceptions that were hardly meant to 'ruin Greta's day.' Greta is a caring and generous young woman, and so is her fiance, and we love her very much.

"We want this to be for both couples the most joyful, sacred day of their lives. There will be two beautiful brides, one with a growing family, and two handsome grooms. None of us want this day to be anything but meaningful and memorable for all of them. In fact, nothing would please us more than to celebrate the two happy couples together someday soon.

"I feel so sorry that all this happened. That I am responsible for the big mix-up is clear, but it is not deliberate. However, there are many lessons to be learned here. I can only hope and pray as these four begin their lives together that they don't repeat the mistakes of their older relatives. Family, for me, is the most important thing in life. I wish for them, too, that they will be able to take their own fractured families and make them whole once more."

An astute commenter at www.lucianne.com offered this appraisal of Ms. Quinn's article (including a brief explanation of Ms. Quinn's family-fracturing history for those to whom it's a mystery): "Unintentional Parody and Irony at its finest! This from a woman who's Number 1 rule of Etiquette is: When you go to work at the Post be sure to sleep with the Editor while he is still married and then marry him after his divorce and get your own column which is composed of nothing more than elitest sophomoric nonsense."

Another concerned commenter posted a link to a detailed article about Ms. Quinn that drew this response from a third commenter: "Thank you #19 for posting that EXCELLENT link! I urge EVERYONE to read it; send it out to all your friends. It's imperative that more people know from whence comes all these elitist attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin are coming from and why 'Hot' Sally Quinn, who got her job b/c she was hot, didn't know shorthand, and never wrote prior to her being hired by her powerful, married boss, Ben Bradlee, has no creds daring to go after Sarah Palin. Unlike Sally, Sarah earned her way to the top by hard work, sheer guts and determination. You go Sarah, and forget about all those snobby critics who live in HUGE GLASS HOUSES, daring to throw bricks!! Just keep smiling."

After Sarah Palin was chosen by Senator John McCain as his running mate, Ms. Quinn took center stage to charge, in essence, that Mrs. Palin was an unfit mother to Trig if she ran with McCain. (The claim that Mrs. Palin actually was Trig's grandmother had not been widely accepted.)

Here's the link to the article addressing Mrs. Quinn's homewrecking exploits: http://spectator.org/archives/2008/09/09/who-is-sally-quinn.

In it, Jeffrey Lord explained: "Sally Quinn, according to Ben [Bradlee], first came to his attention when she was 'introduced to me after [a Post executive] interviewed her for a job as secretary to the editorial page editor.' What did Bradlee, the powerful executive editor, think of Ms. Quinn and her professional abilities? 'I advised him against hiring her, and not just because she couldn't take shorthand. Speaking for myself, I suggested to Phil that anyone that attractive could make work difficult.' So, on the basis of her looks, Ms. Quinn was not hired because Mr. Bradlee believed he could not cope were she to be in his vicinity."

Lord continued by explaining how Ms. Quinn came to become Bradlee's third wife and Ms. Quinn's immoral attitude toward "the Washington Affair" ("For the mistress there is the pleasure of having and exerting power over a man who is powerful himself. For the wife there is the title, the social status and the money. And for the man himself, there is the satisfaction of having his needs met by two women. In the Washington Affair there is something for everyone.") and closed this way:

"Who is Sally Quinn? Someone who got her career in a decidedly different way than Sarah Palin.

"Who is Sarah Palin? Decidedly not Sally Quinn.

"Thank God."

In "Unapologetic Sally Quinn’s Holy Communion Abuse" (September 9, 2008) (www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=080909), I wrote: "It does not appear that Ms. Quinn treated the Russert funeral Mass as a photo op, but it does appear that she should have known that her reception of Communion at the Mass would be illicit and she should have refrained from receiving. Then she would not have embarrassed herself by her tasteless story about receiving and her subsequent silly self-justification trying to make a virtue of her disregard of the guidelines for the reception of Holy Communion by doing as she pleased."

Apparently Ms. Quinn's penchants for tastelessness and silly self-justification continue to get the best of her. She needs many more prayers.

The couple that DOESN'T have Ms. Quinn at their wedding is truly blessed.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.