Report: Blumenthal Attacks Michael Kelly (RIP)

Washington Post ^ | 4/15/03 | Lloyd Grove

[tellw]

Sidney Blumenthal, One for the Books [original title]

• The long-awaited, 800-page White House memoirs of former Bill Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal will hit bookstores May 20 -- a thwack accompanied by a drumroll of publicity and serialization.

But the buzz around town is that "The Clinton Wars" will contain an unflattering portrait of Blumenthal's nemesis Michael Kelly, whose life was celebrated last Friday in an emotional Washington memorial service.

The 46-year-old Kelly, a Washington Post columnist and Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large, was killed in Iraq on April 3 -- too late for Blumenthal to revise or soften his book in light of Kelly's death.

Publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux -- which paid Blumenthal a reported $650,000 advance -- refused to disclose details of any Kelly passages. "The book is embargoed," Senior Vice President Jeff Seroy told us, "and you'll find out what's in it when it's published."

[tellw]

Someone will leak the book to Drudge beforehand I bet.

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[skeeter]

Who's this ninny Sid Blumenthal? Sounds like the the proverbial 98 lb weakling.

[Larry Lucido]

Publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux -- which paid Blumenthal a reported $650,000 advance

Money well spent, I'm sure.
/sarcasm

[OldFriend]

Can't imagine reading 800 pages of bullship from anyone connected to the bubba administration.

[Zebra]

Someone will leak the book to Drudge beforehand I bet.

Sidney was one of the sleazier Clinton enablers, a smarmy liar who was a first rate leaker and media feed. Hopefully someone will leak on the book, as that is all it will be fit for.

[AmishDude]

They don't even have the good taste to pull the book and remove or rewrite those passages. How ghoulish!

[martin_fierro]

Sidney Blumenthal is effete scum.

Now if someone could just come up with a photo of his bumbling soul mate, Cody Shearer.

[Tacis]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand anyone buying anything that one of Willie's sewer dwellers wrote. You know it will contain nothing but self-serving lies. Willie's colleagues have the same regard for the truth as the Iraqi propaganda minister, al-Sahhaf, and should be treated accordingly.

These guys will write exactly as they did when Willie was getting a lewinski on our time, when he was swelling technology to the Chinese, and selling Presidential pardons on eBay. All the good people who tried to stop/reveal Willie's filth and corruption will be trashed. Why would any normal person pay for stuff like that, or, even read it.

[mabelkitty]

Talk about bad timing...

This moron will be strung up.

[mabelkitty]

He's the only liberal Jew left.

[x1stcav]

Sydney couldn't begin to compare to a talent like Mike Kelly. IMHO, Blumenthal is a mediocre writer at best.

He should think about a new career. Maybe the law? Maybe slander/libel law?

Maybe a could do a followup book on his lawsuit against Drudge.

[RooRoobird14]

I suppose all those people who bought "Stupid White Men" will read this piece of trash.

[Hatteras]

Chances are that unless Drudge reports on any Michael Kelly passages, not too many people would know about them. But in Sidney's defense, he shouldn't stop the release because an adversary dies. People die all the time and to stop the book or rewrite the chapter is to censor the truth (or atleast, the truth as Sidney sees it.)

I think the removal of the World Trade Center from movies and videos filmed before September 11th, 2001 is an abomination and I want history to tell the truth about Bill Clinton long after he's dead and buried.

[MizSterious]

I hope his book lands on the remainder table within weeks of release.

[wtc911]

There are legions of liberal Jews left. Just take a walk around Manhattan's West or East side, or Forest Hills, Hollis Hills in Queens, or Great Neck on LI....they are definitely not a vanishing breed.

[HumanaeVitae]

Eric Alterman is still around...

[vollmond]

Wasn't Michael Kelly one of the many reporters dragged into the lawsuit Sid filed against Drudge? The one he settled with a payment to Drudge's lawyer for travel expenses? I seem to recall a few scathing articles about how Blumnthal's lawyers were treating people during depositions, and I think at least one of them came from Michael Kelly. I could be wrong about this, though.

[mabelkitty]

I never gave New York the consideration of intelligence, and I don't consider them "American".

I'm saying as an American electorate, he is a dying breed.

[Congressman Billybob]

Any book by Squid Blumenthal will, of course, be chock full of lies. If he has passages savaging the late, great Micheal Kelly, that will only be further proof that Squid is an infinitely small human being, compared to those he savages.

Using Baghdad Bob as an example, why didn't members of the American press open their eyes and realize that Squid was a world-class liar, early on? The rumor he planted that Monica was "stalking" Billyjeff Clinton was right up there with the best of Baghdad Bob. Just a moment of thought would reveal that NO ONE could STALK a President except, perhaps, a member of the Secret Service until removed from service.

The entire Clinton entourage is like a pus-filled boil on the butt of the body politic that has not yet been fully lanced. But I don't want to be too harsh, here.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up on UPI, and FR, "I Believe" (1957-2003)

Latest book(let), "to Restore Trust in America."