John Podhoretz Exercises His Talent

By James Fulford on October 24, 2010 at 10:30am

Kathy Shaidle forwarded this with the note "Ya gotta admit, he managed a good column this one time."

Well, yes, John Podhoretz's latest column is a masterpiece of its kind, and that's not a sentence you'll see written often.

I'm sorry I called Kristin Davis a hooker
Columnist apologizes to governor hopeful
By John Podhoretz, New York Post
Last Updated: 6:54 AM, October 23, 2010

I apologize for calling gubernatorial candidate Kristin Davis a hooker in a column published in this paper on Tuesday. I offer this apology for calling Kristin Davis a hooker, after receiving an e-mailed press release declaring her intention to sue me for calling her a hooker.

She is not, the press release explains, a hooker. Nor has she ever been a hooker -- or at least, according to the press release, "there is no evidence whatsoever" that Davis was a hooker.

In the press release, her lawyer says, "Mr. Podhoretz cannot make irresponsible statements like calling my client a hooker."

I am sorry if I made an irresponsible statement calling Kristin Davis a hooker. I had wrongly assumed that the hooker business was like any other business in which ambitious go-getters with spunk rose through its ranks from rough-and-tumble frontline work to the more genteel managerial responsibilities that go with the hotly desired executive title of "madam."[More]

Yes, John Podhoretz may be objectionable in many ways, and he's not the man his father was, but if you have a requirement for piece of sustained obnoxiousness, then JPod will come through. (Ms. Davis has accepted Podhoretz's "apology.")

See “Lolita,” My Mother-in-Law, the Marquis de Sade, and Larry Flynt),Commentary Magazine, April 1997, by Podhoretz Senior  about the rise of pornography, and the decades-long process that led to New  York madam Kristin Davis running for governor, and her photo above appearing in a family newspaper. (Here, too, of course--I mean, I could have illustrated this with a photograph of John Podhoretz, but there's enough unhappiness in the world already.)