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Sally Quinn - Arrogance on display

Quinn is married to Benjamin C. Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post, her former boss. Quinn and Bradlee have one child, [Josiah] Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee who was born in 1982 when she was 41. They have acknowledged that he was born with velo-cardio-facial syndrome (cleft palate).

Quinn’s condemnation of Bill Clinton’s adultery rang hollow coming from someone who broke up the marriage of her boss Ben Bradlee and then went on to marry Bradlee herself.

Quinn began as a reporter for the Washington Post with very little experience: reportedly called by Ben Bradlee after a report of her pajama party in celebration of the election to congress of Barry Goldwater, Jr.

In August 1973, Quinn tried her hand at television, joining CBS News reporter Hughes Rudd as co-anchors of the CBS Morning News. The show’s anchoring team was its first disaster since debuting in 1963 — ninety minutes before her television debut on August 6, 1973, Quinn, who never reported for television before, collapsed while trying to fight the flu. The next day, she was forced to anchor solo when Rudd’s mother died. Quinn’s ad libs during the show’s first week also tended toward the inappropriate — on one episode, following a report on the children of California migrant farm workers, she quipped that child labor “was how I felt when my mother and father made me clean up my room.” Quinn left the CBS Morning News after the February 1, 1974 telecast.

Quinn had a long-standing animus for the Clintons, possibly due to a perceived snub by First Lady Hillary Clinton, who declined a party invitation from Quinn.

Quinn wrote an op-ed piece published in the Washington Post in which she complimented herself at length for not noticing the color of his skin.

“I realized that when I look at him, I don’t see a person of color. I see a really smart, appealing, thoughtful person.”

In June 2008, the Catholic League issued a press release highly critical of Quinn for taking communion at the funeral mass for journalist Tim Russert. In an On Faith blog posting on the Washington Post website, Quinn — who is not a Catholic — wrote that she was “determined to take [communion] for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding” and that she “had a slightly nauseated sensation” after taking it.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded that “Quinn’s statement not only reeks of narcissism, it shows a profound disrespect for Catholics and the beliefs they hold dear.” Since the incident, Quinn’s judgment as moderator of On Faith has come under question by media commentators including columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, who wrote that “if [Quinn] does not understand the affront she gave then perhaps regularly blogging about religion for a major news outlet is not the right job for her.”