Author David Brock may be feeling payback for his dishy exposé of his former conservative friends in his latest book, "Blinded By the Right." Internet gossip Matt Drudge alleged yesterday on his Web site that Brock "suffered a breakdown" last summer as his book neared completion and "was committed to the psychiatric ward of Sibley Hospital in Northwest Washington."
Drudge quotes a source who claims Brock "had delusions, he thought people were trying to kill him." Drudge says Brock denied that "the hospitalization and breakdown in any way affected his ability to recall events depicted [in the book]. Brock strongly denied that any portion of the book was written at the hospital."
Brock didn't return our calls yesterday. Tina Constable, a rep for Crown Publishers, said, "We don't comment on our authors' personal lives. We stand behind David and the book."
Constable said Crown had signed Brock to do another book, which she called "a manifesto for contemporary liberals." Brock's memoir, which has been hailed as required reading by former President Bill Clinton, paints an unflattering portrait of conservative pundits, including Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. It also suggests that Drudge had a crush on him and once e-mailed him a mash note.
But Drudge denied his latest report was a vendetta. "He made up all that stuff about me," said Brock's ex-friend. "I thought I should set the record straight on his mental state." source
Yesterday, there was much gloating among Brock's former friends and allies in the conservative camp, but only a few would go on the record. Editor R. Emmett Tyrrell -- whose American Spectator magazine published Brock's scandalous accounts of Clinton's philandering -- told us: "Until now, I've been very cautious about what I've said about poor David because I didn't want to be responsible for driving him over the edge."
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