Sally Quinn thinks vice-president Dick Cheney should be forced out of office.
Do you know you Sally Quinn is? You should. She’s a big shot…a blue blood…even a king maker. Her father was Lt. Gen. William Wilson “Buffalo Bill” Quinn, a man that played a big role in creating the CIA and later commanded the Seventh Army in Germany during the 1960’s. Her mother was a well known socialite in Washington DC. After graduating from Smith College in 1963, Quinn became a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1978, Ms. Quinn married the then executive editor, Ben Bradlee, who had been a member of naval intelligence during WWII. Here’s a little more about Bradlee:
In 1952 Bradlee joined the staff of the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the [Paris] embassy’s propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the CIA throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American “cultural information” worldwide. While at the USIE Bradlee worked with E. Howard Hunt and Fred Friendly.
…Bradlee was officially employed by USIE until 1953, when he began working for Newsweek. While based in France, Bradlee divorced his first wife and married Antoinette Pinchot. At the time of the marriage, Antoinette’s sister, Mary Pinchot Meyer, was married to Cord Meyer, a key figure in Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program to influence the media.
Antoinette Bradlee was also a close friend of Cicely d’Autremont, who was married to James Jesus Angleton. Bradlee worked closely with Angleton in Paris. At the time Angleton was liaison for all Allied intelligence in Europe. His deputy was Richard Ober, a fellow student of Bradlee’s at Harvard University.
France eventually expelled Bradlee for conducting what they considered ‘intelligence activities’ in Algeria.
Bradlee and Quinn have some familiarity with messing with presidents that go astray. Bradlee oversaw the work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during Watergate. And Quinn went on a warpath against Bill Clinton after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was alleged. Harry Jaffe explained it at the time.
And then we have Sally Quinn, the self-appointed arbiter of Washington’s social scene. Since the White House scandal story broke in mid-January, Quinn has gabbed on the networks and cable channels, passing judgment on the president and hissing at first lady Hillary Rodman Clinton.
“If you consider the life of Bill Clinton,” she said on “60 Minutes,” “whenever he leaves the White House, he’s going to get on a plane, and where is he going to go?”
“What do you mean?” a baffled Mike Wallace asked.
“Well, he — he doesn’t even have a home,” she sniffed. “I mean, when you think about it, he’s homeless. I mean, they’ve lived in sort of government properties all their lives.”
What Quinn really means is that from her elitist perch, President Clinton is poor white trash — a homeless, rootless Bubba. No doubt this helps explains why he goes for women with big hair, and it allows Quinn to convince herself that he and Monica did unspeakable things in the Oval Office, even though there is as yet no proof.
But Quinn reveals her truly witchy ways when she talks about the first lady. She paints Hillary Clinton as a sad case, trapped in a lousy marriage, “floundering around in the last couple of years to try to find some project for herself.”
Actually, it could be said that Sally Quinn has been floundering around for the last couple of decades, when she failed first as a journalist, then as a novelist, before emerging as a hostess in a Washington society that even she admits is in its death throes. Which brings us to a central question: Who appointed Quinn as the mouthpiece for the permanent Washington establishment, if there is such an animal? A peek into Quinn’s motives reveals a hidden political agenda and the venom of a hostess scorned, and ultimately, an aging semi-journalist propped up by a cadre of media buddies, carping at the Clintons because they wouldn’t kiss her ring.
About kissing that ring.
According to society sources, Sally invited Hillary to a luncheon when the Clintons came to town in 1993. Sally stocked her guest list with her best buddies and prepared to usher the first lady into the capital’s social whirl. Apparently, Hillary didn’t accept. Miffed, Sally wrote a catty piece in the Post about Mrs. Clinton. Hillary made sure that Quinn rarely made it into the White House dinners or social events.
In return, Sally started talking trash about Hillary to her buddies, and her animus became a staple of the social scene. “There’s just something about her that pisses people off,” Quinn is quoted as saying in a New Yorker article about Hillary.
Quinn penned a memorable column in November 1998, wherein she laid out in embarrassing detail the prevailing sentiments of the Washington elite. For example:
“He [Clinton] came in here and he trashed the place,” says Washington Post columnist David Broder, “and it’s not his place.”
So, it is interesting to see Quinn call for Cheney’s head in today’s Post.
