The Washington Dauphin
Anyone who doubts that there is a permanent establishment in political Washington, even something like royalty, has evidently never heard of 26-year-old Quinn Bradlee.
Young Bradlee is the offspring of Benjamin Bradlee, 87, former editor of the Washington Post, and Sally Quinn, the onetime Post Style section writer, now 68, who is married to Benjamin Bradlee and co-moderates (with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham) a blog called On Faith on the Post website.
So far as THE SCRAPBOOK can tell, the only distinction in Quinn Bradlee's life thus far is the fact that he suffers from Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome, a genetic disorder which can cause learning disabilities and required him to attend what he calls a "special school" in upstate New York. All of which is fine and, of course, entirely blameless--except that he has just published an autobiography, entitled A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures, which has been excerpted here and in Britain, and that he has been extensively interviewed, including on PBS by Judy Woodruff ("Some of the toughest parts of the book [are] when you write about not having friends. What has that been like? And how have you dealt with it?").
THE SCRAPBOOK doesn't know very much about young Bradlee's disorder, but it does know about Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee and suspects that the idea for A Different Life did not originate with Quinn Bradlee. As it happens, it was actually written by Jeff Himmelman, who helped Post reporter/editor Bob Woodward write his book about Alan Greenspan, and who is now finishing his authorized biography of Benjamin Bradlee. A Different Life has been published by PublicAffairs, which is run by Peter Osnos, who used to work for Benjamin Bradlee at the Post.
As readers might expect, the life of a 26-year-old is not especially remarkable, and the reflections of a 26-year-old on that life are even less remarkable. That is, except for the fact that, as the son of Sally Quinn and Benjamin Brad-lee, Quinn Bradlee has been witness to some memorable episodes.
THE SCRAPBOOK's favorite features a family vacation on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, where the 19-year-old Quinn loses his virginity in a brothel, and tells his father about it the next morning.
[A]ll of a sudden, my mother walked out onto the terrace. She asked what was going on and I told her. All hell broke loose. . . . The first thing she did was ask if I was joking. I think she was so stunned she didn't believe me. Then she asked whether I'd used a condom, which of course I had. When she found out I'd lost my virginity at a "house of ill repute," she went nuts. . . . She started to go on and on about how many people on the island had AIDS. She was making me upset, but she was making herself more upset. . . . My mother started to call every doctor she knew to tell them what had happened. My dad calls this "going to General Quarters"--an expression from the Navy that means getting the ship ready for battle. And, boy, was my mom on the warpath. She's a powerful woman.
The co-moderator of On Faith then marched her son back to the brothel, where she demanded that all the girls report immediately to a clinic to be tested for HIV infection.
"I don't think my mother was intentionally trying to embarrass me," he writes, "but I'd never been embarrassed like that before. I couldn't wait to leave St. Martin." You think?
To be sure, an incident such as this one is not likely to occur in every family--even a family vacationing on an exclusive Caribbean isle--but would most parents encourage their learning-disabled son to write about it, and arrange for publication?
"More than anything," writes Quinn Bradlee, "I want a girlfriend. . . . I seem to have the worst luck with women no matter how hard I try. I feel they're picking up some vibe from me that says I can't handle a relationship, or I'm not mature enough to be in a relationship. Whatever it is, I am apparently doing something wrong."
For which THE SCRAPBOOK can report that there is a happy ending. Last week it was announced that Quinn Bradlee is engaged to be married, after a whirlwind four-month courtship, to a young woman named Pary Williamson. Miss Williamson is a Washington, D.C., yoga instructor, and the two were introduced by one of her students, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Among Miss Williamson's clientele may be found David Gregory, host of NBC's Meet the Press, Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Journalism 101
It's a shame the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting has already been handed out. Had it not been, surely the critical coverage of the Obamas' walking hand-in-hand on the South Lawn would have merited consideration. Wrote the Associated Press: "After their motorcade arrived back at the White House, the first couple wanted a private stroll. Below an overcast sky Saturday, the Obamas clasped hands and made their way down the driveway of the White House South Lawn. They came back the same way, rounding out their 8-minute walk. . . . "
And then there was Philip -Rucker in the Washington Post, carefully monitoring President Obama and Vice President Biden's lunch last week among the commoners at a local Virginia burger joint. Rucker devoted 617 words to this momentous occasion, with such crucial details as:
The world's most powerful man, and the guy a heartbeat away, waited patiently in a single-file line as the lunch crowd gawked--and as two customers in front of them at the counter pondered the menu leisurely, apparently oblivious to whom they were holding up. Then it came time to order. Obama tilted his head to read the menu, but took a pass on Ray's specialty burgers, like the 'Let's Get It On,' or the $17.50 burger with foie gras and white truffle oil. Obama, customer No. 42, opted for something more simple: "Your basic cheddar cheeseburger, medium well." No ketchup, the president said, but lettuce and tomato. And: "Have you got a spicy mustard or somethin' like that? A Dijon mustard?"
Hard as it is to believe, the president of the United States ordered for himself. And then, even more shockingly, he opened his mouth and bit into the hamburger, chewed it several times, then swallowed. Amazingly, he repeated this process throughout the meal, which, as Rucker carefully notes, lasted 34 minutes. He also left a $5 tip.
Inexplicably, Rucker leaves out what the leader of the free world drank. We know Vice President Biden had a root beer. But what about the president? Or did he not drink? (We know he doesn't sweat.)
The two men split the bill, though the president did pay for the meals of the attending press corps. This may have something to do with the fawning coverage, though we are pretty sure the mainstream media would have been happy just to gaze at him eating.
Sentences We Didn't Finish
"It's almost impossible to think of Boston without the Globe. With its great universities and cultural institutions, the city thinks of itself as a modern-day Athens, the hub of the Universe. How could Boston exist without the erudite, patrician Globe, which so often . . . " (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, May 5).
Jack F. Kemp, 1935-2009
Besides the article by Newt Gingrich elsewhere in this issue, a number of obituaries of former congressman, cabinet member, and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp appeared on our website this week--by former Kemp colleagues Mary Brunette Cannon, David Smick, and John C. Weicher, and by Clark Durant and Fred Barnes. You can read them all (and much else!) at www.weeklystandard.com.