Andrea Peyser
Andrea Peyser Says Something Funny
Andrea Peyser couldn't get online in the press room. Andrea! Say something funny! "This is like her campaign," she said.
Choire on Obama's Press
Around 8 p.m. last night, the Senator delivered half an hour of a not entirely committed speech, one which was marked by his usual mistake of being unwilling to arrange his text with places for an audience to applaud.
This time, he forewent his Martin Luther King, Jr., references for a story about Bobby Kennedy in Mississippi. The Senator, for all his talk about the death of baby boomer politics, only refers to the highlights of the 60's as a moral.
At the end he trailed off, and the press horded into a back room to briefly grill him.
"I was supposed to be here all day and have a bunch of meetings," Senator Obama said after--but they'd been cancelled, or at least postponed. "I circled and circled around Manhattan for a while," he said. How much longer will the Senator's vow to only fly commercial last?
According to his spokesfella, Tommy Vietor, he was departing immediately afterwards. This would turn out to be not exactly true.
Peyser, in the front row, got off the first question in the hastily assembled presser in the hotel's Lotus room. Imagine the most sarcastic tone of voice possible: "Have you met with Hillary Clinton while you're in town?" He had not. Shortly thereafter, the lights, overloaded by camera drain, went out. "It's Hillary," Peyser told the Senator. "She's got her finger on the switch."
-- Choire SichaConvincing Shelly
It's not often a reform candidate comes to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's defense.
That's what freshman Assemblywoman Sylvia Friedman did last night when she not only defended Silver's position on a rape bill that later proved incredibly unpopular, but said she helped persuade him to take the controversial position in the first place.
"He was in favor of ending the statute of limitations on rape on the criminal side, but not on the civil side," Friedman said at a candidate's forum on the Lower East Side last night.
Both the State Senate and the governor blasted the change at the time, saying that it would open the door to endless lawsuits and become a giveaway to trial lawyers.
It proved so unpopular, even among some women's advocates, that many considered it Silver's way of killing the negotiations entirely. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau reportedly cursed at the Assembly Speaker for insisting on it. And New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser write a column on the issue whose headline referred to Silver as a "rapist's best friend."
Not Silver's fault, said Friedman: "He was the one who changed his mind and voted with us."
I spoke with Friedman some more afterwards and here's what she had to say. read more »
-- Azi PaybarahThe Morning Read: May 16, 2006
The Daily News reports the City Council has declared war on poverty.
Over at the Post, Andrea Peyser goes after Sheldon Silver.
And Davidson Goldin examines Rudy Giuliani's stump speech for the Sun.
—Nicole BrydsonPoliticker at the Fake Hillary Event
The venue was uncommon, the figures, unreal, she writes. Here's her campaign photo diary, 2008.
Hillary greets the crowd, on hand to hear her ambitions for 2008.
The proud husband looks on, hoping to get a chance to once again fly regularly aboard Air Force One.
Rudy and George pose with Hillary campaign aide, Lou.
Support from the outgoing prez is always crucial.
See you at the inauguration!
—Nicole BrydsonWOOD WAR XXIII
The Daily News makes testimony about 50 Cent's shooting sound like one of those Parade magazine "How I Overcame My Goiter" celebrity profiles. But even a fuzzy and boring Fitty treatment beats blowing out the front page for a house ad for the Post's Scooby-Doo promotional comic book. Thirty-six pages of great family fun! Thirty-seven if you count Andrea Peyser! Mommy, what's a "randy Catholic schoolteacher"? read more »
Winner: Daily News Overall standings: Daily News 14, New York Post 9Miller Media Tour Part Two: Breakfast With Peyser
The Media Mob sighted the two at a table at Balthazar--where Miller went last week for an interview with Lynn Duke of The Washington Post--shortly after 9 a.m. Peyser, who had previously waded with glee into the dustup between Miller and Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd, was scribbling notes throughout the conversation; Miller was expressive, at times waving her arms in the air. read more »
UPDATE: Gawker got a photo, but somehow was unable to recognize the former Columnist of the Year.
--Gabriel ShermanPeyser Permanente
Not all that fleet, actually: The label first appeared on September 1, 2004, commemorating Peyser's victory in the annual column-writing contest of the not-quite-palindromically-named New York State Associated Press Association. It lingered through September 26 of this year--more than a month after the association had named its new slate of winners.
Donn Esmonde of the Buffalo News, who dethroned Peyser in the over-125,000-circulation class, said his paper had not given him any comparable graphic treatment. "I wish I got that kind of pub upstate," Esmonde said. "The News gave me a hundred bucks and that was it."
The new Columnist of the Year was magnanimous about the old Columnist of the Year's slow transition. "Maybe she thinks it's like if she's president, then for the rest of your life, people call you 'Mr. President,'" Esmonde said. read more »
The Media Mob was sorry to see Peyser's credential go, too. To make up for it, the Media Mob hereby officially names Andrea Peyser to the newly created position of Number-One Columnist. She can keep that on her column through October 6, 2006.
