The pompous diva
Posted on 02/25/2010 8:47:47 PM PST by STARWISE
Sally Quinn, whose first novel was titled “Regrets Only,” doesn’t have any second thoughts about writing of her “dysfunctional family” drama in The Washington Post last week.
“I have absolutely no regrets at all,” Quinn told POLITICO.
While Quinn isn’t sorry about writing it, others — from family members to online critics to the paper’s top editor — are.
Quinn said Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told her that if he’d seen it first, he wouldn’t have run the column explaining the “dueling weddings” of her son and stepson’s daughter and squabbles among family members. And now Brauchli has decided “The Party” — her irregularly appearing print column launched in November — is over.
But Quinn says she’s glad, because it was never intended to be a permanent column but, rather, to focus on holiday entertaining and “generosity of spirit” — the sort of spiritually inspired get-together that would also work in “On Faith,” the WashingtonPost.com site she co-moderates with Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham.
“As soon as the holidays were over, it wasn’t working for me,” Quinn said. “I wanted it to be about faith. I wanted it to be about rituals around food and various religious holidays. It became very sort of contrived. I was trying to call it ‘The Party’ and yet write in a way that had some kind of spiritual connotation to it.”
And Quinn’s already written the book on throwing parties — literally: It was titled “The Party.” In recent years, Quinn, a longtime writer for the Post’s Style section, has increasingly focused on religious issues, and yet “The Party” column was generating a different set of questions. A reader, she said, might ask, “‘Do you think it would be OK to serve lasagna to my wife’s boss at a dinner party?’ And that’s not the type of conversation I had in mind.”
Still, the conversation Quinn jumped into last Friday didn’t have much to do with the column’s original concept either. But Quinn says there had been some “extremely hurtful” stories and comments online about the nuptials of Quinn Bradlee, her son with former Post Editor Ben Bradlee, that compelled her to discuss the family’s squabbles in the Post.
“Everyone has a dysfunctional family,” Quinn wrote. “Ours is no exception.”
Initially, Quinn was hesitant to discuss why her son’s wedding had been moved to the same date in April as that of the daughter of Ben Bradlee Jr. — Bradlee’s son from a previous marriage — and his former wife, Martha Raddatz, a correspondent for ABC News. When Politics Daily first wrote about the “dueling weddings” last week, Quinn declined to discuss the issue in any detail.
In the column, Quinn took the blame for the mix-up, writing that she passed the “save the date” card for the second wedding to Bradlee but that neither put it on their calendars.
“I just felt like if I wrote this, I would take the heat off them,” she said. “And boy, did I ever.”
Indeed, criticism went directly to Quinn, mostly about the fact that she used her platform, which many writers would die for — a column in The Washington Post — to deal with family drama (while not reaching out to some of the family members involved).
Both Raddatz and Ben Bradlee Jr. contacted Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth on Friday to complain about Quinn’s column, something Quinn won’t discuss. “What I will not do is talk about the family,” she said, though she added that Quinn Bradlee’s wedding has been moved back to its original October date.
As for her critics, Quinn doesn’t seem bothered. “People then stopped focusing on [Quinn and his fiancée] and started focusing on me,” she said. “That’s fine. I’ve been there most of my life.”
Quinn, 68, who has spent about four decades with the Post, except for a stint at CBS, has long reigned over Georgetown society — making friends and enemies in the process.
She recalled that one Style editor said he didn’t want to take her on as a writer because she was “radioactive.” In the old days, however, she says that Bradlee wouldn’t have been happy if a column didn’t lead to some reader cancellations or dinner party debate.
“Ben’s motto when he was running the paper: ‘nothing but readers,’” Quinn said.
Quinn has had an on-and-off relationship with the Style section, which her edgy writing helped make famous during the 1970s and ’80s, but she has seemed happier with the new team of editors installed by Brauchli. At a holiday party at the home of one of those editors, Ned Martel, she told colleagues that “Style is back,” according to people who were at the party.
Some Style staffers interpreted Quinn’s remark as implying that Style is back because she was writing a column. Quinn says she was just being complimentary.
“I think that the new Style team is fantastic, and I think they really turned the section around,” she said Thursday. But as is often the case, her comments were interpreted in the worst possible way.
“That’s what I mean about me being ‘radioactive,’” she said.
Despite the demise of “The Party,” Quinn can still write for the print edition if she has an idea that editors like, but she plans to concentrate on “On Faith.”
“Sally produces a wonderful section of our online site, ‘On Faith,’ which drives a large amount of traffic to the Post and is rich with a lot of interesting, compelling content,” Brauchli told POLITICO, declining to give his own view of the controversial column.
But Quinn’s “On Faith” writing has not been immune from controversy. In June 2008, she ran afoul of the Catholic League and other critics for writing about taking Communion at Tim Russert’s funeral mass despite the fact that she’s not Roman Catholic.
“I have a wonderful porcelain dish in my office,” Quinn mentions. “It says, ‘Don’t play the game if you can’t take the pain.’”
The pompous diva
.
Ugh!
.
~~PING!
Boo Hoo ... look at how low and dirty
she was about her step-granddaughter’s
wedding. Whattawitch.
Written by two atheists! How appropriate. /s
Honestly, I don’t have time for this wretched, miserable woman. I mute my TV whenever I see her on BOR.
Greta, the daughter of my husband’s son Ben Bradlee Jr. and ABC’s Martha Raddatz, planned her wedding last fall
Quinn and Pary decided on Oct. 10, 2010, as their wedding date. Over Christmas, Greta’s mother and I came to an understanding that, because of existing tensions, it would be best for all if none of us attended Greta’s wedding. Then, in mid-January, we were thrilled to learn that Pary is pregnant, due Sept. 21, and decided to move up the date as quickly as possible.
Ain’t that the truth ...
Her middle initial should be O .. for
Opportunist .. for seducing Ben Bradlee
from his wife and family, grasping for
prominence at the WashPost, always jumping
at any chance to get her name and face out
there, and for being the mean, pushy mother
who even plays games with family and their
weddings for the prestige of THE elite locale
and social standing for HER and her son.
Total amoral twit.
The wedding of Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee’s son, Quinn Bradlee, to Georgetown yoga instructor Pary Williamson has been moved up by six months, from October to April 10.
“We found out that we have a little one coming on the way and Pary didn’t want to be a big mama walking down the aisle,” the father-to-be told me by phone from La Sammana, the posh Caribbean resort on St. Martins, where the four are on vacation. Asked if he’s excited by the prospect of fatherhood, Quinn said, “I am, very much so.” The wedding will be held at the Washington National Cathedral.
The new date has caused some family friction because it’s the same day as the long-planned California wedding of lawyer Greta Bradlee, who very much hoped her grandfather would be there. Ben’s firstborn grandchild (he has 10) and the first to marry, she is the daughter of journalist and author Ben Bradlee Jr. of Cambridge, Mass., and his former wife, Washington-based ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. Ben Jr. is the oldest of the three children the longtime executive editor of the Washington Post sired during his two pre-Sally marriages.
No, Ms. Quinn, they don't.
Trash with cash!
talk about falling out of an ugly tree and hitting every branch on the way down.
Well put ... LOL ..
Obama, Jr.??????
Let’s not forget that Sally got where she is by sleeping with the boss. She is now a condescending doyen of DC who time has passed.
golly she looks pretty good for 68!
Well .....
;)
well,
good genes
good surgery
good photoshopping
who knows,but I would get 30s/not 60s
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