Posted on 08/27/2004 10:35:48 PM PDT by nerdgirl
Douglas Brinkley is the William Ginsburg of the Kennedy death circus. Before the crash, the boyish, gap-toothed Brinkley was known primarily as a Michael Beschloss-in-waiting, a telegenic historian fielding calls from the cable news networks. Now the University of New Orleans professor has parlayed a contributing editorship at George and a friendship with Kennedy into a job as a necropublicist. Between Saturday and Tuesday, Brinkley appeared on MSNBC, Late Edition, Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Dateline, Today (twice), and NPR (twice). He also penned columns about his relationship with Kennedy for Newsweek and the New York Times, and was quoted everywhere else ink touches paper.
According to the Washington Post, Brinkley cut a $10,000 deal with NBC for a week of exclusive Kennedy commentary, but then agreed to provide it pro bono. Editors at George are reportedly so annoyed about Brinkley's death punditry that they have dropped him from the masthead.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
ah sorry I meant Douglas - name typo there!
A DUMBA*S
A DUMBA*S
The guy seems like a publicity hound to me - although I must say his book has come in handy as a lightening rod for the vets! This Slate article testifies a bit to his character & history - a bit of a slimy wannabe if you ask me. He's probably secretly delighted that this Kerry ordeal has made him nearly as famous as he's always wanted to be.
Thank God you corrected yourself! I was starting to feel really, r-e-a-l-l-y, old.
Ya sorry I am a terrible proofreader. Meant to write Douglas though!! I don't think you can correct a post heading once you submit it. Will take more time to review next time :)
One way you can do it is report yourself to the moderator for "abuse".
They're usually quite helpful and can change the thread title for you.
David Brinkley on Clinton's Re-election:
""We all look forward with great pleasure to four years full of wit, poetry, music, love and affection," he said, "plus more goddam nonsense... "he has not a creative bone in his body. Therefore he's a bore, and will always be a bore . ."
ORIGINAL TITLE -> Douglas Brinkley: John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner.
Oh ok so I'm supposed to put only the actual title in a heading for a post? Have not posted too many articles, mainly just replies. I wanted to let people know that this older article can be useful because it has a lot of background info on him.
If you change the title a search won't find the article, and it may get posted...and posted...and posted...
If you need to comment within the title, add your comment in ()'s or []'s. For example:
Douglas Brinkley: John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner [What a brownnoser!]
That makes sense. I guess since this was one I had to hunt for in Google, and is 5 years old...I figured it wouldn't seem as relevant with the original title. Thanks for the good advice though.
Yeah, that's the rule.
It's very helpful for avoiding duplicate posts and searching for threads in the FR archives.
Your innocent change is no big concern.
And you can usually ADD minor changes to the original title for clarification.
The major taboo to be avoided is radically changing the title to something completely different.
Some fanatics try doing that all the time to scream their own opinion as a headline when they should really just be making their comments in the "your comments" box. Those are a pain in the neck, because then you wind up with the same article posted 50 different times by 50 different people with 50 different titles. That's no good.
You're welcome. In that case something like
Douglas Brinkley: John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner [Old, but relevant.]
would work.
Great thanks very much to both of you for the input. Freepers are the best!
FYI: I ran into this guy when he was still at Hofstra. He was giving a speech on a "road trip" book he wrote. I wasn't impressed at the time.
"Brinkley abhors the narrow academic history that has dominated universities. He scorns scholarly monographs and favors a democratic, populist history."
" "His name-dropping is almost pathological," says one friend. In my conversation with Brinkley, he touched on a dozen famous politicians and artists he knows."
"Brinkley has won the public but has not wowed the academy. Some of his colleagues' dismay is simply jealousy of his entrepreneurship, but some is more substantive. His books read like good journalism--and that's no insult--but they are not great history. "He has made no analytical contribution at all," says one Ivy League historian who professes to like Brinkley."
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