Kara Swisher is one of the best journalists working today, so it was fascinating to read about her experiences working for well-known editors as she rose through the ranks.
My next boss after [Jack] Shafer was John McLaughlin, of the TV show The McLaughlin Group. I ghostwrote his column in the National Review — he would add in the right-wing invective — and then I worked on his show. That asshole of a human being. I got the sense he sort of respected me because I didn’t put up with his shit. Because I wasn’t a Republican. I was a liberal, obviously. All these people were weird acolytes to him because he was a big deal during the Reagan administration. That was his power. So he used that. These people would do everything to work for one of the top Republican people, and I was like, I don’t give a fuck. My whole history is not going to depend on this. He enjoyed a smart woman in a weird, sick way.
He was awful and abusive and terrible — and as it turned out, he was like Sexual Harasser 101. He was harassing a woman on the staff who was a friend of mine. But he was abusive to the whole staff. He would line people up by height and then make them look for a dust ball under his couch. Stuff like that. This was Captain Queeg kind of behavior. He was just super crazy. Everyone had a beeper — he had to know where you were.
