Jimmy Breslin Accused of Faking Interview

A.P. ^ | April 07, 2004 | KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

NEW YORK - The head of a conservative lobbying group accused Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin of making up quotes attributed to him in Wednesday's column.

The newspaper's editor said Breslin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, told him the quotes came from a 1992 interview, and that it would have been better if the columnist had made that clear.

The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition (news - web sites), said he has "never met Jimmy Breslin, never had the conversation described in his column today and never said those sentences to anyone in my life."

In the column, Breslin wrote, "'Homosexuals are dangerous,' Sheldon assured me one day. ... 'They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.'"

Sheldon, speaking by telephone from Anaheim, Calif., said he has never said anything of the kind.

"I don't agree that homosexuals come to someone's door and kidnap their children, and I've never said that," he said.

He said the column, in which Breslin refers to him as "a fruitcake," is intended "to demonize me."

The editor of the New York edition of Newsday, Les Payne, said Breslin told him the conversation with Sheldon took place at the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992.

"He told me that he interviewed him and they had a give-and-take," Payne said.

Breslin did not immediately respond to a request for an interview placed through the newspaper.

Breslin quoted Sheldon, whom he called "the little minister," about homosexuality and pornography in an Aug. 18, 1992, column from the GOP convention.

The quotes from 1992 and from Wednesday are not the same, but Breslin said there was a larger exchange, Payne said.

Sheldon said he was at the convention but does not recall speaking to Breslin.

He said he had sent a telegram of complaint to Newsday. Payne said the newspaper would respond to Sheldon's complaint, but he didn't say how.

Breslin did not mention in Wednesday's column that he was quoting a conversation from 1992. Asked if that should have been made clear, Payne said, "I think our readers should be let in on the time frame, sure."

Breslin won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for distinguished commentary writing and has written several books. He also had a late-night television show, "Jimmy Breslin's People," which lasted just 13 weeks in 1986.

The Traditional Values Coalition, founded in 1980, describes itself as the largest church lobby in the United States. Its mission is to "restore America's cultural heritage" by opposing gay rights, abortion rights and the teaching of evolution in public schools, among other issues.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

It is well understood that homosexuals do proselytize. Breslin is a real flake and a fake!

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[Servant of the 9]

25 years ago Breslin's brain went on ahead to find a resting spot for Teddy Kennedy's. The drunken ruin of a man who occasionally had a flash of real wit.

So9

[hinckley buzzard]

Breslin has been a crank for decades. He is a dissolute alcoholic East Coast liberal who would normally be expected to make it up as he went along, in the Robert Woodward-Janet Cooke school of journalism.

Haven't read him for years, but he used to be known for long, drooling run-on sentences-- that passed for style in the east coast backwaters of the sixties. I'm surprised, frankly, to see he's still alive.

[Old Professer]

Lying and license are often confused.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Breslin won a Pulitzer Prize

...which rendered the PUlitzer as meaningless as the Nobel (especially after one was given to arafart).

[Paul Atreides]

This reminds me of the hatchet job miniseries about Ronald and Nancy Reagan, in which Ronnie was supposed to have said that AIDS was a punishment of homosexuals, from God. Trouble is, it was never said. Yet, if some liberal "feels" that it was said, then it becomes truth.

[jocon307]

"He said he had sent a telegram of complaint to Newsday"

A telegram, can you still send those?

Btw, Les Payne has been known as More Payne, round here.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

A couple of years ago Breslin was our keynote speaker for professional organization that I belong to.

The first part of his speach was kind of funny and I was envious that he had lasted so long in the business.

Then he got serious and ranted about how George W Bush murdered everyone in the WTC. The audience grew silent. Jaws dropped.

I walked out. I walked out on the mighty Jimmy Breslin and 4000 people and it felt fantastic.

[cyncooper]

Payne said the newspaper would respond to Sheldon's complaint, but he didn't say how.

I suggest firing the deceitful hatemonger Breslin.

[Congressman Billybob]

Columnists who lie in writing up their columns need to be savaged for their journalistic sins. And the bigger they are, the more they need to take the fall. (Why is it that the names Dowd and Krugman just popped into my mind?)

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Please do it now.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

There will probably be some kind of apology/retraction next to the ad for 'Macy's Winter Clearance Sale Days'.

[beckett]

Breslin has been filled with hateful bile for quite a few years now. When I read him in my youth he wasn't nearly as bad. The misrepresentation in this column is typical of the stuff he writes nowadays.

[Viking2002]

A washed up liberal hack fabricating the truth? I'm shocked! Shocked, I Tell you!

NOT.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

And I'm sure his crank comments were never discussed by the major rags.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Here is a review of the speech.......

THE PRESS
S.F. Conference
Jimmy Breslin tweaks journalists
N.Y. columnist laments 'boring' writing, liquor-free lifestyles

Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, June 2, 2002


Jimmy Breslin is full of it.

Charm and insight. Rants and irreverence.

The legendary 71-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, speaking in San Francisco on Saturday, took aim at the FBI, the Catholic Church, President Bush and abstemious living. He even dared to say, speaking from experience, that not all grandparents like children.

And like an apostate in a room of believers, he said, "There's a lot of boring writing" out there these days. He was speaking to writers and editors.

More than 1,000 of the world's top snoops and scribes had gathered for an investigative reporting convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. They listened to riotous and rambling tales from the most ink-stained of all.

Breslin, with thick boomerang brows, tortoise shell glasses perched low on his nose and a raconteur's raspy voice, didn't disappoint. His body shuffles, but his mind races.

He writes three columns a week for Newsday and is out promoting yet another book, "The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez." The book is about a Mexican immigrant who dreamed of building a respectable life in New York but met an ignominious death at a construction site. Pure Breslin, it's angry, opinionated, breezy and backed by solid reporting.

Breslin misses the days when newsrooms hummed with noise and nervous energy.

Today's newsrooms are too quiet, he said. No one smokes or drinks. It's all too boring, he said.

One of his mottoes is: "The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover."

"Now you don't have saloons," he said. "We used to go there to talk about the stories, what was coming up. Now, people go to the health club after work. Even worse, they go straight home."

Breslin, an elegant and eloquent grumbler if ever there was one, was a copy boy, sportswriter and then columnist.

His stories, which span decades, could be grouped into themes. One of his most unforgettable pieces was on John F. Kennedy's funeral. Standing in a sea of reporters, knowing everyone was going to write the same story, Breslin left the pack. He wrote about a $3 an hour laborer who dug the president's grave.

Last week, Breslin witnessed another funeral, as New York said goodbye to the last girder to be taken away from ground zero.

True to style, Breslin refused to feign reverence he didn't feel. He was in New York on Sept. 11 and covered the attack, but considered the ceremonial goodbye to a beam to be bogus.

"Newspapers and television are making a living out of this (event)," he said. "I wish they'd give it up; it bothers me. The event happened on a Tuesday. The next Monday, everyone was back at work. It's bulls-- to say that it changed things forever."

He reserved his more pointed barbs for the FBI and President Bush.

"The FBI fell down on the job," Breslin said. "You can't make a case they didn't know."

Then, causing some to squirm in their seats or roll their eyes, he added, "Why didn't they bother? New York is a town with Jews, blacks, Puerto Ricans. Washington didn't care. I don't think George Bush knows what Brooklyn looks like."

Breslin, a lifetime Catholic who has pounced on the subject of pedophile priests, likened the church to the FBI. Both spend an inordinate amount of time and money covering up the truth, he said.

At the end of the session, he asked for questions. In a room filled with hundreds of journalists, not one of them spoke up. Only after considerable nudging did a few pose questions.

Breslin remarked, "We have free speech but everyone is afraid to use it."

[Tacis]

What is amazing here is that any one would mention this. The old left-wing media weasels are usually untouchable. Next thing you know, someone will be revealing the fakery and dishonesty of Woodward and Bernstein. That they can still conceal the identity (if he ever really existed) of Deepthroat is beyond belief.

[Ann Archy]

Jimmy Breslin is a Democrat...he LIES...that's their HALLMARK!!

[TASMANIANRED]

How many liberal mouth pieces does this make in the past 12 months that have been caught just making up the news.

Blair, Kelly, Breslin, another wannabe at the NY Slime...
Clark and his book. The anti gun book that made up records and was hailed by liberals everywhere.

They have become so adept at rewriting history that they are now trying to rewrite the present.