Free Republic

Wall Street bids adieu to famed Lazard dealmaker: Bruce Wasserstein died at age 61 after being hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat....the exact cause could not be determined. A Brooklyn native, Wasserstein amassed a fortune of about $2.3B doling out merger advice to players Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman. According to former Lazard banker, William Cohan, author of "The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres," Wasserstein made more money from investment banking than anyone else on Wall Street. "While everyone else was fighting the Vietnam War, he was studying English takeover law at Cambridge." Lazard Deputy Chairman Jeffrey Rosen...

NEW YORK – Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of Lazard Ltd., has died, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, which cited sources familiar with the matter

Endeavor Agency's Ari Emanuel talks several times a day to his brother, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who is masterminding the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's midterm elections. There's a well-reported piece on Rahm in today's Washington Post (Fighting For The Spoils) that mentions Ari. "They all play to win, those Emanuel boys. Rahm (left) is the middle son of three. His big brother, Ezekiel, is a Harvard oncologist and bioethicist. Younger brother Ari (below) is a high-flying agent in Los Angeles. He made news recently as the only major agent to publicly call for an industrywide shunning of Mel Gibson following...

The implosion of the Democratic Party. Plus Tom Shales's snobbery and a tribute to Wendy Wasserstein. Thursday, February 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. The president's State of the Union Address will be little noted and not long remembered. There was a sense that he was talking at, not to, the country. He asserted more than he persuaded, and he chose to redeclare his beliefs rather than argue for them in any depth. If you believe, as he does, that the No. 1 priority for the American government at this point in history is to lead an international movement for political democracy,...