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Just Who Is Douglas Brinkley?
Slate ^ | July 23, 1999 | David Plotz

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 ...


TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: author; bio; davidbrinkley; dougbrinkley; kerry; kerrybiographer; sbv; tourofduty
This is an old article but has a lot of good info about who this Brinkley guy is, shedding plenty of light on what his current motivations may be.
1 posted on 08/27/2004 10:35:48 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl

ah sorry I meant Douglas - name typo there!


2 posted on 08/27/2004 10:37:15 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl
Who is David Brinkley?

A DUMBA*S

3 posted on 08/27/2004 10:42:39 PM PDT by FesterUSMC
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To: FesterUSMC
Douglas Brinkley is also...

A DUMBA*S

4 posted on 08/27/2004 10:43:43 PM PDT by FesterUSMC
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To: FesterUSMC

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.


5 posted on 08/27/2004 10:48:38 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl
ah sorry I meant Douglas - name typo there!

Thank God you corrected yourself! I was starting to feel really, r-e-a-l-l-y, old.

6 posted on 08/27/2004 10:51:57 PM PDT by ArmstedFragg
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To: ArmstedFragg

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 :)


7 posted on 08/27/2004 10:54:26 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl
I don't think you can correct a post heading once you submit it.

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.

8 posted on 08/27/2004 11:00:06 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: nerdgirl

9 posted on 08/27/2004 11:00:46 PM PDT by IncPen (Every Word From Kerry's Mouth is a Dishonorable Discharge)
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To: nerdgirl

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 . ."

10 posted on 08/27/2004 11:03:42 PM PDT by 11th_VA (While Kerry lied, good men died ...)
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To: Admin Moderator

ORIGINAL TITLE -> Douglas Brinkley: John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner.


11 posted on 08/27/2004 11:13:47 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (RKBA Lord High Pun-dit [a.k.a. Chief Torturer])
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To: Slings and Arrows

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.


12 posted on 08/27/2004 11:15:54 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl
Oh ok so I'm supposed to put only the actual title in a heading for a post?

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!]

13 posted on 08/27/2004 11:21:29 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (RKBA Lord High Pun-dit [a.k.a. Chief Torturer])
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To: Slings and Arrows

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.


14 posted on 08/27/2004 11:28:19 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: nerdgirl
I'm supposed to put only the actual title in a heading for a post?

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.

15 posted on 08/27/2004 11:29:01 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: nerdgirl

You're welcome. In that case something like

Douglas Brinkley: John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner [Old, but relevant.]

would work.


16 posted on 08/27/2004 11:29:53 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (RKBA Lord High Pun-dit [a.k.a. Chief Torturer])
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To: Willie Green

Great thanks very much to both of you for the input. Freepers are the best!


17 posted on 08/27/2004 11:38:05 PM PDT by nerdgirl
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To: cyborg

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.


18 posted on 08/28/2004 12:50:10 AM PDT by Clemenza
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To: nerdgirl

"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."



Sounds like he still has the same difficiencies.

Five minutes "analysis" of Kerry's conflicting stories, and a look at original records other than Kerry's hand picked items & "diary" (now shown to have been 'reconstructed' much later, rather than written at the time) used in 'Tour of Duty' and he would have written "Tour of Doodie" instead.

Shameless.


19 posted on 08/28/2004 1:03:04 AM PDT by ApplegateRanch (The world needs more horses, and fewer Jackasses!)
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