David Ehrenstein comments on this year's recipient of the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Journalism, or Smacky, as it is less commonly known.
Breindel (rhymes with grating nasal whine-del) was known and loved by all New Yorkers to whom he sucked up. In addition to his work at the New York Post, Breindel was the original host of Faux News Watch.
I'm surprised the Smacky didn't go to Rush Limbaugh this year, given the similarity of their tastes.
The Post described Breindel's values as "love of America and its democratic institutions, and bearing witness to the evils of totalitarianism." And Breindel didn't just preach those values, he lived them. To wit:
In the early months of 1983, after receiving a high-level security clearance from the FBI, Breindel went to work as Senator Moynihan's aide on the Senate Intelligence Committee. For someone interested in a career in government, it was a dream job. But on May 16, only eight weeks after he started, Breindel was arrested in the parking lot of a Washington, D.C., motel for buying five bags of heroin from an undercover cop. Two and a half grams for $150. The arrest report said he had tracks on his arms. He was a junkie.
...
After a period of rehabilitation, for his body, his psyche, and his reputation, Breindel signed on at the Post's editorial page in 1986. And immediately, he came out shooting bullets. Homeless people, poor people, gay people, the mentally ill, single mothers. All were subjected to Breindel's uncharitable lashings. There were never even subtle shadings in his writing that indicated he was someone who knew what it was like to stumble, to give in to temptation, or simply to suffer from some common human failing.
No wonder he loved America.
(And there's only One Degree of Separation between him and George Will!)
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