lewis lapham
This Week in Abramoff
Remind us to ask Kim Eisler about these.
The Good:
These emails make Jack sound like a very good lobbyist. Dogged and tireless!
The Bad
Unrelated Tangent
When the fuck did harpers.org become a blog? Can you make that go away, please? Lapham would’ve never allowed this. You’re not gonna turn Franklin Foer on us, are ya, Hodge? We’re watching you.
New Emails Illustrate Abramoff’s Doggedness [Newsweek]
The Making of a Lobbyist [Harper’s]
READ MORE: apartheid, crime, emails, harper’s, jack abramoff, lewis lapham, lobbying, lobbyists, scandal, south africa
Lewis Lapham Is a Dreamboat
We have to admit (and we’ve admitted it before), we have a total crush on Lewis Lapham. Something about patrician radical-leftist patrician blue-blood ivy league types… he’s so ’60s! Oh, we’d trade a hundred Cindy Sheehans and Markos Moulitsas Zunigas for a couple more Laphams and Vidals! And his profile in today’s Post — featuring classic bitchy in-fighting in the form of sallies from Michael Kinsley and Kurt Anderson which Lapham, sadly, doesn’t return — shows just why we love him. Here’s his story about a job interview at the CIA in the ’50s.
“The first question was: If you were standing at the 13th tee at the National Golf Links in Southampton, which club would you use?”
He exhales a stream of smoke. “Now, it so happened that I’d played that golf course and knew the hole. It’s a short hole, so if you said ‘driver,’ you’d be wrong… . I said 7-iron, and I got it right.”
[…]
“The second question was: You’re coming in on the final tack at the Hay Harbor on Fishers Island in the late afternoon — what tack do you take? I don’t remember what the answer was, but I got it right because I had sailed at Fishers Island.”
[…]
“The third question was: They mentioned the name of a girl who was known on the Ivy League circuit for being a ravenous nymphomaniac. And the question was: Does she wear a slip?”
He takes another drag, emits another cloud. “I didn’t know, because I’d never had carnal knowledge of the young lady. I explained that I’d heard rumors of French silk and Belgian lace but I couldn’t vouch for my sources.”
At that point he walked out of the interview, he says, disgusted with the know-it-all smugness of his CIA interrogators. “I said, ‘Gentlemen, I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time. Goodbye and good luck.’ “
Would Franklin “Punch Me In the Face, Please” Foer tell a story half that awesome, let alone while chainsmoking and speaking in a classy New England ruling class accent (and he’s from fucking California or something, isn’t he? Who cares!)? No, no he wouldn’t. He’d be drinking fucking herbal tea and talking about the relationship between blogs and the political establishment or something.
READ MORE: CIA, Media, awesome stories, foers, franklin foer, harper’s, lewis lapham, magazines
Gossip Roundup: O’Reilly’s ‘Good-Looking Blond’
• Reliable Source: Two lawmakers are injured during charity football game. [WP]
• Rush & Molloy: O’Reilly calls for “full-body search” of legal pundit: “You’re a good-looking girl. I mean, if you haven’t seen [Lis Wiehl] on TV, she’s a good-looking blond.”… Tom Brokaw: “This is a time when those of us who care about science and Darwin have to take a stand.” [NYDN]
• Liz Smith: Lewis Lapham: “I’ve arrived at the point where I would prefer to read Machiavelli than listen to Karl Rove.”… Bill Clinton: “I always figure when somebody goes after your motives, they’re on their last leg, because they actually think you’re doing something good that’s gonna have good consequences. Attacking somebody’s motives is the last refuge of somebody who’s on the short end of the stick.” [NYP]
READ MORE: Personalities, bill clinton, bill o’reilly, football, intelligent design, karl rove, lewis lapham, lis wiehl, tom brokaw