When they publish the photos eventually, we will all see that Jeff's private part looks just like the Amazon "smile" on the boxes the orders are shipped in!!!!
30
Well, whoda thunk it - private enterprise will save the day, perhaps by helping send this entire ring of thieves to prison. The GoP/conservative ideology might help send their own leadership to trial.... excellent!!!
19
It seems to me very plausible that Bezos was caught in a honeytrap and sting.
He should have known better than to have an affair with a FOX news reporter whose own brother is a rabid Trump supporter.
This really forces us to question his judgment, including his famous business savvy.
67
One question: Why does any man beyond the age of 10 think sending photos of his junk is either funny or romantic? If I were the recipient, I would question is sanity or maturity.
107
Oh, wealthy egoistic men. How convenient that Mr. Bezos is now under the age old spell of youthful female adoration that gives flow to abundant testosterone in his veins. Once this cools down, in circumspect will he see the folly of his ways, miss his once loyal partner and wife and the wealth that evaporated in the courtroom? Even savvy billionaire businessmen are not immune to the lessons of life.
39
This is our amoral universe in which Pecker's lawyers have licenses to practice. I'm wondering in my naiveté if, after their aiding and abetting, they will still have them.
13
Further, undeniable evidence that everything DJT touches dies.
The line stating that ‘AMI is out of business they just don’t know it yet’ is perfect.
Much like DJT’s removal from office-it’s happened, he just doesn’t know it yet.
Only the best people....
77
News Corp and the Murdochs hire ideologues and propagandists to push their political agenda on Sky, Fox, NY Post, WSJ etc. Bezos has a much easier job: hire Marty Baron and tell him to print true truth.
29
The National Enquirer's parent company, AMI, shares board members (and a management philosophy?) with Pace University.
A good and ethical first step for Pace is to force the AMI board members to resign.
Now.
38
So, the Enquirer is a tawdry, sleazy and possibly criminal organization when it tries to shake down a rich Democratic Party contributor and owner of a leading left wing news organization, but it is an American hero when it shakes down Donald Trump after he wins the Republican presidential nomination.
Perfect.
Exactly the sort of moral high ground I expect here.
19
Admittedly I'm not a fan of Bezos as he has made a religion out of gross conspicuous consumption and his Amazon has invaded our privacy like the other tech giants. Maybe this personal incident will be his wake up call that people should not be monetized.
19
Very much enjoy reading NYT Dowd, but disagree with her on here. The National Enquirer pays for stories by 2 Sources and uses Close Friends, Relatives, Workers, Detectives, and others to confirm them. I don't see this as a Gawker by any means once Criminal Allegations are charged. Grand Juries can ask about anything of anyone anytime and not just subject matter it was first convened about.
There is no winning at all be around a Skunk even if one is the most Powerful Person on the Planet with its own Media Forums and Allies. Trying to take down a Skunk or attempts to send the Skunk away, just makes many more things come out and the stink can become even more Powerful and no one can remove it. As they say about Gambling the best way to Win is not to make Bets at all against the Odds.
Donald Sterling Tokowitz, Former NBA Owner, Steve Alan Wynn Weinberg Former CEO Wynn Resorts, and Sumner Murray Redstone Rothstein Former Viacom-CBS Chairman, all ended up in Court Settlements.
Sometime one can do everything right and still lose himself and his company over Affairs, Allegations, and Other Matters kept out of the Limelight's left in Dark Non-Disclosure Divorce or Court Settlements.
5
I only wish that Amazon would stop selling MAGA hats.
44
I sure hope the authorities are securing the AMI properties and especially "the vault" because I would imagine the shredders are working overtime.
24
You rock, Mr Bezos, and Amazon to me is the equivalent to the Sears Roebuck catalogs of my childhood in the not-yet subdivided farm land south of Chicago, where there were no stores to buy anything in. Amazon sells stuff I can't find elsewhere, books that are remaindered and not for sale elsewhere. And on a freezing day in Washington DC Amazon delivered food to our doorstep. And I love that you own WaPo even though I read the NY Times. Keep on truckin'.
26
Even though privacy is becoming increasingly difficult to protect it is still something we are all entitled to. And I don’t presume to be anybody’s moral authority. Bezos’ willingness to face the music rather than spend his billions on covering his tracks and caving to extortion is SO refreshing! Ironic, too, that a fake news rag like the NE & its cronies are so afraid of legitimate news!
14
Could this be the new resistance?! As much as everyone pretends to hate Jeff Bezos and that they hate Amazon maybe all of our dollars will in the end, when pooled together in Bezos’ pocket, finally be the straw that takes down the Trump and fellow criminal enterprise. The new trickle up economy.
24
The words of EB White come to mind: " Prejudice is a great time saver. You can't form opinions without having to get the facts."
Ms. Dowd, you can write entertaining and witty statements that boost the fiery coals of this soap opera. But none of us should be smiling or sleeping peacefully. It is not just Mr. Bezos privacy that has been invaded. Okay, images of our sexual organs and fantasies aren't the focus but the reality is millions of people's data, thoughts, interests are mined everyday and capitalized on by the Zuckerbergs, Peckers and frankly the Bezos of the world who are amassing fortunes by madly selling this information to whomever will buy it . Unfortunately, most of us don't have the means to standup or challenge these violations... and our government apparently doesn't care. Meanwhile, a Saudi Journalist was murdered and cut into tiny pieces... Russian oligarchs have convinced our fearless leader that Climate Change doesn't exist and innocent and impoverished children are held in shelters with no hope or means of being reconnected with their missing parents across the border. Now it not the time for your witticism Ms. Dowd. This is NOT going to end well.
12
What did Bezos do that makes him likable? It has been said many times that Mussolini made the trains run on time, and even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. In the meantime, anyone who thought Bezos was just the devil was on the mountaintop, and may be now trying to make up for it.
I know there has not been much in the press about how much Jeff Bezos has made Amazon into a hugely oppressive employer and squeezed smaller businesses until they bleed. But anyone who now likes Amazon or Bezos has lost his memory, or is just uninformed. This is where the mainstream media falls down. Few people believe in the news anymore because no matter what side they are on, they distort the real picture.
If people are looking to feel better they can use the burgeoning movement against the give-away to Amazon in LIC to cheer themselves up and do it accurately. The figures for the Amazon deal leave out a lot of the economic damage Amazon will do, and overstate the benefits. As a de Blasio supporter I am very disappointed in him. As one who has watched Cuomo, I am not surprised. But I am so pleased by the public officials who have stood up to this $trillion bloodsucker, especially one who even said Amazon was bad for America, not just in NYC!
13
When Bezos “rolls over this log” he may find what crawls out is the Trump gaggle of billionaire backers that run his ubiquitous unprincipled disinformation machine.
If so, Bezos will need his billions.
21
I'm no fan of the "National Enquirer " but Bezo's in reality
is a ruthless American Oligarch who has used his wealth and
power to maintain his monolithic business.
16
Mr. Bezos is a clever guy. Congrats.
However 100 of that 160 or 180 Billion is needed for renewable infrastructure. Thank you Mr. Bezos.
Unfortunate he was foolish enough to cheat on his wife. Who and What else has he cheated?
No one, NO ONE deserves that much money and power.
Gaming the system is the American Way.
19
If Trump has used one of his government intelligence services to break into the smartphones of Bezos and his girlfriend, the truth will come out and may be the final blow to the Trump Presidency.
14
After losing his marriage and privacy, Bezos will not let this go. He will be out for revenge and blood. And just incidentally, justice may be served as well. Not to mention that this will make great public entertainment; we will be treated to the spectacle of the world’s richest man crushing the world’s sleaziest publisher like a bug. Who needs to read fiction anymore? Just kidding, but jeez….
It will be interesting to see what Trump minions crawl out from under this log.
19
The vast inequality of income and wealth is destroying our democracy. Billionaires buy and sell legislators and conspire to rewrite laws to destroy our freedoms. They also run headlong into complex problem areas they know nothing about and wreck havoc showing us all that they are doing good.
I do not want Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos to spend their money fixing our problems. That job is up to us, through our elected officials and through tax revenues that the law enables them to collect. It is really no business of ours what Jeff Bezos does with his money, but it is our business to fix the corrupt system that allows the wealthy to push the burden for providing public revenues on the middle class whose backs are breaking.
We should say to Mr. Bezos that we wish him well in spending his billions in any way he wishes (within reason and within the law and moral constraints) but we wish to make sure that those in his position pay more in taxes and have less billions of their own to spend.
That said, Bezos is not setting a good example by ditching his wife for a bimbo, but he is definitely setting a notable positive example by standing up to an extortionist and, we can all hope, getting the NI out of our grocery checkout counter lines. He may not be a hero yet, but he certainly will be if he relieves us of that weekly onslaught of slime.
15
Mr Bezos, is not the first man who has cheated on his wife and sent hot emails or texts, and of course, won't be the last. Since we don't know what the state of the Bezos marriage was, perhaps judgement should be, at least, tempered about the end result. Comments here seem to be a mix of anger at his business model, condemnation for not being smarter, and many here are quite judgmental of his affair, which is not a rare event in our culture.
Putting all else aside, I am glad that Mr. Bezos is pursuing that sleazy rag that has worked so hard for President Trump.
22
What would interest me that AMI policy of catch and kill may expose them to a charge of a accessory after the fact. All these stories should be explored for complicity in covering up for criminal acts.
9
As bad as the tabloids are the actors are worse or just human. Bezos cheating on his wife is OK as long as it brings down a publication you deem as not reputable. I wonder if you would defend Trump if the articles were about him or someone else that you deem not up to your standards. The honorable thing to do is get out of the first relationship before you pursue the next relationship then you would not make front page news in the tabloids. What Jeff Bezos did was wrong and the tabloids have been doing this kind of stuff for years and if this one fails surely there will be one to take it’s place.
11
I have zero sympathy for the man that has destroyed privacy and many small businesses. He just got a taste of his own medicine. One point for the little guy.
15
In no way is Jeff Bezos a hero for cheating on his wife. But, for standing up to a bully and saying, "go ahead, publish" that was the right move, the only move. And skillful. We talking about his tactics towards a bully rather than his cheating. Pretty good. Of course, had he been honorable in the first place he would never have had to do anything.
14
“If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion,” he wrote, “how many people can?”
And this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Money talks. Particularly when one is buying private investigations and a pricey, white shoe legal team. So, yeah, good for Bezos to go toe-to-toe with the slime buckets that are behind AMI. But I hope that he--with all his billions--takes this opportunity to create a foundation that helps the little guys who are being bullied by entities with much deeper pockets.
A teaching moment? I hope so.
5
To truly effect change, Jeff Bezos should pursue ownership of AMI, Fox News and the Trump organization. Controlling their platforms and power base would bring an end to this corrupt regime.
6
Amazing how many resentful commenters are on the wrong side of this one. First, no one can judge another's marriage. Maybe they were both unhappy. Mackenzie Bezos will be just fine. Second, the Inquirer is free to publish personal photos and texts, but they are not entitled to use them for extortion. Or is that OK because you don't like billionaires or Amazon?
6
@Max
No they are not free to publish private photos and texts since they were obviously stolen. Just as it is illegal to hack into someones computer and steal their information. If they publish it on Facebook or whatever, that is different, but on a private cell phone? No way.
I suppose it is possible the "girl friend" is part of a scam to bring him down and she gave the photos to AMI, but then that is a different game!
8
Well played, Jeff (well, the last part anyway)!!
3
Know why sensational, voyeuristic, selatious half-truth-laden tripe that The Enquirer publishes is referred to as "yellow journalism?"
It's people like David Pecker, and for that matter Rupert Murdoch, take airing other people's dirty laundry to an extremely cowardly level.
What I'm saying here, is less about whether or not extortion is involved; than it is how the First Amendment can be subject to abuse; and whether it be The Enquirer, or racist hate-speech, without fear of consequences.
While I'm hardly advocating across-the-board PC; I am suggesting a serious level of accountability; especially if it involves libel, slander, defamation of character, or even,the hint of extortion; in which case the latter is a crime by definition.
3
That's a flattering photo of Lauren Sanchez illustration this article. Those days are over. She won't look that good anymore.
9
there are many decent people in this world, one of them seem to be Bezos
4
Bezos a hero? Fathers who care about their children don't behave this way. He's an empty vessel.
15
Anyone who worked in book publishing hates Amazon. Their first mission was to destroy the industry and now they're coming after everyone else. So this is like watching Godzilla take on Mothra.
8
I highly doubt Ms. Sanchez wasn’t in on this. I don’t know a single woman who would ask someone she loved in his position to send that. Seeing how she’s a media personality, she knew the stakes. And her brother somehow found them???
Fishy
24
Even if my 'package' were all that impressive … and if I knew how to take and send pics with my flip phone -- or if I had a smart phone and all the 'app awareness' of someone with about 50 years fewer than my 70 -- I would never be so crude as to take and send a picture of my 'package' to anyone ... and even if I were so crude, I would never be so foolish. (In any case, I'm happy that my truly good brain [cf. trump's imagination of his as "ah big" one], my 'good looks' [cf. whatever fantasy trump has in re 'the revolting developments' that his face and physique in fact present], the maturity and social confidence that, respectively and in sum, preclude the possibility that I might ever debase myself so.
P.S. You're very good, Ms. Dowd -- but the comments you report as Mr. Galloway's take this column's first place awards.
6
Jeff Bezos is Not a Hero. Just another middle aged man making disastrous decisions in his personal life proving once again "genius" at work translates really to nothing at home...in this case
19
Jeff Bezos just disproved the old saw of Randolph Hearst's "never pick a fight with someone who can buy ink by the barrel full".
Of course he himself has barrels full of ink.
That said, this could be the final straw for David Pecker, the Saudi's and Kushner. I predict that the Washington Post will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Mueller Investigation will take Trump and the rest of them down, all because they tried to blackmail the wrong man.
As far as anyone's private life, it should be off limits. A marriage and a failure of a marriage is between the people involved. I also believe this about Trump and anyone else going through divorce.
3
Presumably the Inquirer will have exclusive photos of Pecker in his cell. Inquiring minds want to see.
9
I feel it's almost bad form in this column to ask the question: why do powerful, supposedly intelligent and strategically minded people indulge in the immature practice of sending pictures of their genitals over social media to sexual partners? Especially sexual partners in extramarital affairs?
And why do they still do it after Andrew Weiner's self-immolation due to the same compulsion -- for compulsion it must be since it defies all sense and wisdom, both common and strategic? Will we see the rise of SA, Sexters Anonymous, as a last resort, when even the real threat of international humiliation is inadequate to break its grip?
Granted that Jeff Bezos may have a small shot at avoiding a descent to the status of being totally pathetic that Ms Dowd ascribed to Mr. Weiner, but that's only because Mr. Bezos is going after someone Ms Dowd dislikes even more (he will still be followed by smirks nevertheless). Mr. Weiner must be kicking himself.
9
Within a few days of Adam Schiff ramping up the Oversight Committee to investigate Trump two photo stories surface: thirty year old racist photos of a democrat and compromising photos of the owner of the Washington Post. Is this a coincidence or consistent with the pattern - whenever Trump is caught up in a lie or scandal a new crisis surfaces to divert the public's attention.
15
I hope Pecker does not get a tax refund, personal or business this year. Join my club.
7
I keep hoping that someone like Bezos or George Soros will buy Twitter and put it out of business.
14
Jeff Bezos is a very brave man, but going up against TOC (transnational organized crime) is extremely dangerous, I worry for him and his family.
4
So this is a technically savvy CEO who took, or allowed others to take, nude selfies and then sent them over the internet, along with some steamy talk. What was he thinking!?!! He is one of the people who is stripping away our privacy and he thought the internet was secure??
I understand the point of view of those who say that blackmail & extortion, particularly if politically motivated, is a heinous crime. I have to point out however, if Bezos hadn't practically handed them the material, none of this would have happened.
So once more for those who are slow (looking at you Bezos):
Nothing on the internet is secure.
Anything known by more than one person is no longer a secret.
Nothing is ever completely erased on the internet.
If you have sent indiscreet material over the internet, someone with enough money will find it. Your wife's / husband's attorney will find out and you will write a big check. The only question will be how many zeros go after the one, plan on at least six. In Bezos' case a lot more than six.
Watch what happens even to the rich when they are indiscreet and learn.
11
“Bezos said there may be another rotten international conspiracy akin to the Russians and the Trump campaign” - he did? Well then AMI is in good shape cause there’s no proof, that has been put forward, of a trump/Russia conspiracy.
You all have tried hard, Schiff has tried hard. But still none.
2
I am sorry. While Mr. Bezos has every right to protect his privacy, he does not have an absolute right to commit adultery especially on the dime of shareholders.
Both he and the pitcher Sanchez should be ridiculed for the selfish narcissists they are and made to go to therapy to keep their positions.
They are both willful home wreckers and are no better then men like Trump and the tarts who he committed adultery with. They have no excuses and are not heros.
5
Thanks to the Internet, the entire planet is now junior high writ large.
15
You mean at supermarket checkout people actually buy (and read) the Enquirer?
5
As a lowly peasant, one of the worthless, powerless 99 percent, all I can do is hope that my billionaire beats your billionaire. Go Bezos. I guess.
18
Has anyone noticed the quality of the company Trump keeps?
12
We have reached a truly strange place in our country's history when (1) a husband's breach of marital faith morphs into sympathy for the offender despite his utter lack of sound judgment or remorse and (2) the National Enquirer is treated as though it's a legitimate source of news. Who's the bigger peckerhead in this tawdry mess?
Bring on spring training!
9
Wow! The liberal press and the Democrats are defending plutocrat and world class tax evader Bezos who has an agenda (even the article admits it) to spy on all of us. So when Democrats lose the working class vote again in 2020 they can blame the Russians again or racism or the electoral college. Just make sure you pass by the Trump re-election campaign offices to pick up your checks because I never seen anybody working so hard to keep him in the White House.
4
Just think about all the empty "ragazine" slots at the grocery checkout, NOT telling me that Brad & Jen are finally getting back together again!
9
A pox, on both their houses.
9
For a change, Bezos is the good guy here. I suppose anybody would look good compared to Pecker, Trump, and the current Saudi leadership, but still. Hopefully, the feds have taken a look at all the prior instances of extortion (hint, there's a safe full of the best stuff) and are now ready to prosecute AMI for breach of their plea agreement.
Some complain that JB should be more beneficent in how he does business. I think he should run his business as efficiently as possible within the constraints of the law. But the laws should require he pay a living wage and reasonable benefits. It should also require he pay a tax on each transaction back to the local communities using his services.
That tax would raise his prices or lower his profits, and it could also offset local business taxes or otherwise subsidize their activities. Both effects would make local businesses more competitive. Too often they serve to let customers see products locally and ask questions before buying online.
Maybe the rise of Amazon could turn into a win, win, win for America.
2
It is strategically smart to get in front of a bad story; giving in to blackmail means it will never end, and you'll always be trapped.
But it would be brilliant to simply not create fodder for blackmail in the first place. Don't do anything that you couldn't handle becoming known, because you can't count on skeletons staying in the closet, so to speak.
9
Maureen, for once your instincts are off. There’s nothing heroic about cheating on your wife with a mistress. He has nothing to lose now that the one thing he had to lose—his affair going public—has already been exposed. In fact he thinks this move is the best way to prevent the enquirer from releasing his “below the belt” selfie. And he’s right. Don’t be fooled, this move isn’t about heroism. It’s his self-interested instinct for self-preservation. Actually this is his best move to prevent the pics from being published, that’s all.
4
How deliciously ironic in our despicably insane times: a downright repulsive, embarrassing (potentially criminal) mud fight pitting Super Rich against Super Rich.
Get your tickets, middle- and lower-classers! This toddler tiff is very much worth the price of admission.
6
"...the richest dude on earth has managed to come through a traumatic week inspiring admiration."
Finally--the "admiration" sense of "envy"--not the miserable "green" shade.
Maybe Bezos is not all and only the "sterner stuff of ambition". He can take on the bad guys--let's hope he sues them into bankruptcy.
Filling a few more public coffers would be good too.
2
Thank you Maureen Dowd for connecting a whole bunch of dots together. Bezos, Trump, Pecker, Bezos (again), Saudis, and the late Mr. Khashoggi of WaPo, which brings us full circle back to Bezos.
Love him or hate him, Jeff Bezos may be just the right kind of jerk to take on this complexified and very wealthy global mafia, of which our disgraceful president is a member.
And thank you Jeff for importing a French word (complexify) into the English language.
3
And this is the President of the USA - a friend of Pecker and so many other disgusting individuals such as Cohen, Manafort, General Flynn, Roger Stone and why not Putin himself. And we are not including here all the list of semi mafiosos Tump was dealing with in NYC.
And this is the guy the Republican senators have sold their soul to in politics.
It makes me sick to think America has descended so low.
7
What is most interesting is how little 120 billion dollars of net worth actually satisfies one’s soul. So little, apparently, that his wayward passions have seemingly provided blackmail fodder for the creepiest gig on Earth, the National Enquirer. We presume he was sexting images of his presumably hot (and married) $120 BN body to his demonstrably hot girlfriend. Well, I guess that’s OK in our anything-goes culture! However, his cellphone (probably Amazon brand) and passion is going to cost him big. Maybe *that’s* the morality tale we should be paying attention to!
4
As long as Bezos/Amazon helps the odious US security apparatuses spy on everyone and anyone for profit, he's no hero. At least you devoted one sentence to this Bezos activity.
5
Both Amazon and Netflix are showing the stand-up routines of hundreds of comedians who aren’t funny—the shock of vulgarity and profanity substituting for humor just doesn’t make it.
While, on the other hand, just reading about the daily routines of Trump and the so-called billionaire “one percenters” is hilarious as Ms. Dowd’s column shows.
Message to all would-be stand-ups: Read the newspapers, let the journalists and reporters be your writers.
3
I think the Roger Stone arrest was a bigger scandal than this. Planes, autos and boats with 19 agents to take down a guy who lied to congress? Makes the pecker story small by comparison. And why is political motivation only a factor for the Enquirer and not the main stream press which has at least as much bias but covers itself as pure as the driven snow?
1
Thoughts? I got two thoughts:
(1) There are too many rich people in the world.
(2) There are too many nasty people in the world.
Very often these groups merge and coalesce. So you get not ONLY exceedingly rich people BUT exceedingly nasty people as well.
Look at the guy living right now in the White House. Billionaire or not, he is certainly a rich man.
And I'm sorry, you rock-ribbed Republicans out there--but I don't think he is dreadfully nice.
Time for a spell of tut-tuttery.
The earliest President I can remember is Dwight D. Eisenhower. Died when I was a sophomore in college.
Anyone notice how unimaginably different America is nowadays from--oh when was it? 1968? 1969?
The electronic revolution was not even a gleam in a mad scientist's eye--not that I'm deprecating the electronic revolution--dear me,no!
But there was no such thing as "sexting." Even the so-called sexual revolution was barely a gleam in ANYONE'S beady little eye--though it was stirring--oh my, yes!
But the STUFF that comes out nowadays! Good Lord, the stuff that comes out!
I'm glad that Mr. Bezos has stood up to his tormentors at The National Enquirer. Especially since (in so doing) he has stood up to the bad guy in the White House.
But listen. Anyone out there nostalgic for--well--the old days? I know they were bad in many ways. VERY bad--oh yes! I'm not dumb. But people back then were actuated by something grown exceedingly rare.
A sense of shame.
6
Hello everyone, This is the week for all of us to purchase something on Amazon and become a subscriber to The Washington Post if you haven't yet. And, the more merch, the better, the more expensive, the better. Come on, do it. I know I will.
4
AMI appears to be owned by Chatham Asset Management, which I suspect doesn't care about anything in the publishing world except how much money it can make from it.
Easy solution for Bezos - buy AMI from Chatham Asset Management, or if necessary, buy Chatham Asset Management itself. Then turn NE into a decent publication or close it down. Either way, he'll enjoy the contents of their infamous safe of killed stories.
A nice fantasy that might actually happen.
7
It's easy to be defiant when you're the richest man in the world.
4
@Bunk McNulty I think that was his point in pushing back. If he can't who can?
2
Only a prig would make a stink about pictures of someone's junk, and I salute Bezos for standing up to blackmail of any kind. May his lawsuit bring forth the truth about the Enquirer's evil practices.
5
Just one correction: Jared Kushner embarrassed by the Saudi's crown prince's increasingly transparent cover-up? Kushner knows neither shame nor embarrassment.
7
Yes, this has been an interesting chess game - or perhaps Go.
Now how should we, the people, respond?
Write your local supermarket or go to Customer Service and say you will no longer go there unless they remove the National Enquirer.
Let’s show Trump WE have the power to put his buddies out of business. It’s already working on Hannity as advertisers are leaving, perhaps not fast enough, but in the right direction out of the Fox hole.
5
Nah! While the people that run the National Enquirer are nothing more than despicable human beings, Bezos has not fitted himself with any measure of dignity in the last few weeks. So what if he choose to fight back? Why should we all care how he chooses to do it? To say that he is setting an example for the others in how to conduct a fight is irrelevant. The vast majority of us never put ourselves into a situation where our spouses are embarrassed as a result of our own behavior. And those that do find ways to undo it using their own recipes.
The NY Times by choosing to wade into this sordid drama albeit with salacious details masked as op-eds has not come out on the good side of the ledger as well. The danger of engaging in a fight with the National Enquirer is that you are wading into the gutter. You WILL get dirty.
If our kids are engaged in less than desirable behavior, we tell them to revamp their friendships or stay clear of the muck, ignore the riff raff and simply focus on the things important to their own progress. We don't sit around the dinner table discussing the working recipes of the dirty dozen.
Ignoring these kinds of things is precisely what we have to do in these cases. Stay focused instead on undoing the social mess that has been wreaked by Trump and ignore the other ugly nonsense that keeps bubbling up to the surface.
4
When Donald sends his people they’re not sending their best. He’s not. He’s bringing extortionists. He’s bringing shame. They’re criminals. And some, I assume, are good people.
9
The other guilty parties here are the people who read trash like the National Enquirer, and otherwise legitimate journalistic media owners who sell their property to scoundrels like AMI, how don't care who buys it just so long as they offer the most obscene mouth of money for it. Money is killing us slowly. That is why the Bezos story is so remarkable. How refreshing, especially in the Trashy Trump Era, to have someone stand up publicly to cretins. But even that goes back to money. Someone of lesser means than the richest man in the world could not. Blackmail only works if there is a third party involved, the audience who would in fact punish the blackmailed person rather than the blackmailer. Does anyone really think someone who reads the NI has the sophistication or intellect to turn a blind eye to nude selfies and the titillation of watching celebrities ruined in order to take the higher stand of not allowing cancerous things like blackmail and extortion to work? No way. And to think that this is the world of sewage our current president moves and thrives in. I need a shower.
4
Why should we care? None of the characters of this sordid story will receive a meager tax refund or pay higher taxes.
3
At last. Someone who made money honestly and can stand up to the crooks.
5
@Ed Marth -- Bezos "made money honestly?" Perhaps. But as far as I'm concerned, the jury's still out....
6
Why does the national enquirer still exist? It’s like all star wrestling. Everybody knows it’s the original fake entertainment. What is worrying is that a supposedly harmless and witless supermarket tabloid, has been taken over by republicans with a tyrannical agenda. Like Fox News which should be called Fox opinions and news. Yes, dumb and dumber is an apt analogy. Has Jeff Bezos so much money that he has regressed into teenage mode? Perhaps he is so enamored that the blood has shifted from his brain. It is proof that smart phones are only as smart as the person using it.
5
It is not a stretch to think this hit job was instigated by trump. It is not a stretch to think that trump would use the office to go after his enemies. He has a hit list and his pals in the alternate media will do his dirty work.
11
The N.E. has operated with the M.O. of mobsters, if not been mobsters themselves and/or associated with them, for decades. Check out the history. Pecker and Trump are made for each other.
Those of us who buy and read the N.E. have supported it. Disclaimer: I subscribe as one who analyzes as much media as I can.
The information (some of it appearing as if it were classified military security information) in the past several years has appeared to come directly from President Trump himself.
I would not be unhappy if the paper stopped publishing.
But it also represents and appeals to the worst of who we are as a culture and people. We buy it. We support it.
Change our culture and human nature then the N.E. will change! Or change this sleaze in our movies, media and publications and may it will modify our culture?
Is there a new moral of this story here? That is, when a little, weasel bully takes on a bigger, richer bully, the bigger, richer bully will win because he's bigger and richer and maybe bullier?
Why do we care? Well, we have a super-over-abundance of big, rich bullies in this country and we are currently being "led" by one.
Makes me wonder if there are any men left in this country who don't take pictures of their junk and send them to the universe, who don't bully others, cheat on their wives, rape, assault, insult, wear black face and lie about everything as a matter of course?
I guess not. Not in the Enquirer and not in the rest of the media.
5
Trump's Pecker is certainly in a debacle and maybe erecting a monument to "ultimate" stupidity.
2
Pecker must have been very confident that Bezos would not say a single word, to blackmail him while Pecker is restrained from any FURTHER illegal actions while under that deal with the prosecutors.
Wonder how many very important people have paid off the blackmail and never said a word, for Pecker to be sure enough to go after Bezos with the prosecutors after him.
Bezos is very brave to do this - he could have paid and kept his reputation and his life as it was. He's a businessman, and the profitable move was to pay. He didn't do it. He exposed himself when he did not have to.
3
Several take-aways here: Don't take pictures of your private parts. If neglected the first piece of advice and did take such pictures don't send them anywhere. If you neglected the first two pieces of advice, make sure you are either a nobody or a gazillionaire. Otherwise, you are in for some aggravation. Not as much aggravation as Pecker, but still a lot.
6
I'll have to admit it. I have, really, no idea what is going on here. Pecker has pictures of Bezos' genitalia and threatens to show them to the world? And Bezos decides to show pictures of his own genitalia to the world himself? I don't know who is trying to stop who from doing what. I do know that half the world has a penis and the other half doesn't. That is something I DO know and wonder what the big deal is? Can anybody help me out here?
3
Here’s a thought.... start a public campaign to have this garbage removed from the check out aisles in the grocery stores where almost all of us are exposed to it and other stupid phenomena. It will die immediately.
3
Hmm. More stories, tapes and photos hidden away at The National Enquirer? Wowzer. I suspect there are people we haven't heard about yet that are beginning to sweat bullets.
Can you imagine the garbage they have on Trump? And you think the Russians have the only damaging tapes? Ha. That pursuit of happiness didn't just start yesterday. I'd be trust funds.
3
This: "by exploiting our “serious mojo for stuff, as survival went to the cave man who had the most twigs, had the right rocks to crack stuff open with, and got the most colorful mud to draw images on walls so his descendants knew when to plant crops, or what dangerous animals to avoid," is utter nonsense, and is concocted by minds who do not understand what a huge development is the computer/cognitive revolution, beginning in the 1700's by the French with their Port Royal exploration of grammar. No private individual can own an idea. That is the basis of this cognitive revolution, and therefore software in it's basic original form is free for anyone to use. It is why, as one example, the Huffington Post could become a competitor to the NY Times in a few short years; Huffington did not need the costly structures of old print media, because it was built on free open source software. Free and open and available for anyone to use and monetize in any way they see fit. Research Noam Chomsky's, the linguist, view of the lefty nonsense, Chomsky the fiercest and most vocal critic of the dominating structures in society, and you will begin to see what is really going on in the developments in understanding the human mind.
Weekly World News had street cred; the Enquirer can only dream.
2
Laura Sanchez' brother is close to Roger Stone and Carter Page? She happens to be involved with the Washington Post editor? There may be more here ... I'll stay tuned ...
7
Jeff Bezos is the creepy uncle that none of us were ever comfortable around. He is invigorated by his schemes of watching everything people do, and facial recognition is his entry to every government around the world.
If you really want George Orwell's nghtmare to become a reality, ride on Bezos' bandwagon. But every whiff of personal freedom of choice or movement will be erased if he gets where he wants to be.
Why do some people want to be rich? Not to be totally free, but to grasp control over others.
I am stunned that anyone who ever said one thing about democracy is as excited to pal around with this man as Maureen clearly is.
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/
9
As Charles Foster Kane of "Citizen Kane" might have said:
"I think it would be fun to run a "newspaper"...into the ground!"
1
How did AMI get the world's richest man's private texts and emails? Did a gov't agency help? Trump is in this up to his eyeballs.
6
@Christie My vote is on the girlfriend whose brother is aligned with Roger Stone.
4
@Christie
Yes! Which gov't agency? We may find out because the investigator of Bezos is world class.
1
Never expected to root for "gangsta move" Jeff Bezos, but since Trump as elected, things I never expected happen regularly. Bezos made his fortune from his brains, talent, cunning - Trump through draft dodging, inheritance, bankruptcy.
If after the first blush of new love calms down, Bezos devotes more effort to philanthropy, I place him in the winner column.
So now, as New York Times columnists repeatedly insist, we are supposed to feel sorry for Jeff Bezos.
Hm.
He surely is a white knight riding to our rescue from selfies, the NYX avers.
Tomorrow I will read about the unfair treatment of Trump, and on it will go.
1
So maybe now Bezos will rethink what hyper surveillance--namely--Facial Rekognition--can do to privacy--"Most recently, it was revealed that Amazon met with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the summer to attempt to persuade the agency, which has been responsible for separating families seeking asylum at the border, to use its software."(Hive--VF)
2
'Nerdy Overlord'? Not even...
1
Dear Southern District of New York:
We have been so impressed with your investigations and indictments. In case you missed it, AMI has threatened Mr. Bazos thereby violating their agreement of being lawful and nice for three years.
Go get em. Please.
7
Wasn't it blackmail using sex pics that got Jared's father sent to prison? So maybe this approach to Bezos was suggested to MBS by his best friend Jared! And this failure is even bigger that Kushner seniors was!
3
I wish Jeff Bezos the very best in penetrating the entire Trump/Pecker/Saudi syndicate. This will be a clash of the titans. Bezos has quickly moved into hero status with this bold and very important move. That Trump could win the presidency with the help of Russia and tabloid rubbish aimed at the low hanging fruit of his base, is obscene.
1
“I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out,” Bezos wrote."
This, from a man who cheated on his wife, cheats his employees of overtime pay, and cheats the public with exorbitant shipping charges unless they pay a yearly fee.
I hope his ex uses some of her new-found billions to form a company that gives Bezozon some real competition.
2
Bezos, of course, focused group this thing to death. Rather than a masculine cowboyish gunslinger, Bezos is a calculating algorithm. His counselors, knowing of the agreement with Mueller, advised him to push on that wound to instinctively make A.M.I. grimace, and forgo publishing the pictures. As a matter of fact it was probably the only way he'd get out of this without galactic embarrassment. But a hedge fund manager doesn't intuitively have that kind of instincts to just cowboy up.
1
Is this why Republican senators and congressmen bend over backwards for Trump and are so willing to sell democracy down the river? They are a rather cringingly wimpish bunch. What exactly is in the safe at the Enquirer office? This can't be the first time these people have worked their extortion gambit.
6
"...(Bezos) is an incredibly impressive person."
To me, no. He became filthy rich on the back of his shareholders, to whom he never paid a penny of dividends.
I'm impressed by people who are happy to share the wealth with those who put up the money.
2
Strange man. Definitely doesn't walk w the crowd. Totally amoral business practices as with all Fangs. Tech reincarnation of the robber baron. Every aspect moves much faster.
2
"The most colorful mud" to draw on Ice Age cave walls doesn't work historically, but for tabloid press working in the dark, it is brilliant.
Yes, Bezos is a hero to not give in to the blackmail. He is a private citizen and the threats were ugly.
The extraordinary thing about all this is the combination with Trump's dirty politics, the Khashoggi murder, and the potential involvement of a foreign state. Like the Kremlin hackers giving stolen emails to WikiLeaks, the theft of Bezos' private digital texts that might be released by AMI is the same tactic to damage an enemy for political ends.
Whether it was Saudi Arabia, Russia or some other entity, the possibility is alarming. Here it is to control the free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment. Beyond Bezos, has this tactic been used on Congressional politicians, or others in government?
The purported kompromat on Trump included sex videos, and the Cohen tapes had hush money arrangements for affairs with a porn star and Playboy model. Pecker's and Kushner's tabloid press (which published WikiLeak hacks) smeared Hillary with outrageous attacks. This is all a theme now.
Sex, lies and videotapes -- Trump's Amerika or amrika.
3
What were talking about here is a slam-dunk, prima facie case of criminal extortion and blackmail. Only a fool would take seriously the specious--now hopelessly outdated--concept that such crimes must involve demands for something *tangible* that is of value. We're living in an ever advancing digital age. So a demand--from Pecker's lawyer yet--that Bezos *not* promulgate the likelihood that AMI's attack is politically motivated is, in actual reality *more* valuable to Pecker than any bars of gold. Why? Because when prosecutors determine, as the must, that Pecker has authorized a crime, he completely loses the protection of his NY Justice Department 3-year immunity-from-prosecution agreement, signed just last year. An agreement that remains in force *only* if he and AMI commit no crimes during its term of application. Having committed one, or possibly even two *obvious * crimes, Pecker, as soon as he is indicted and convicted is then liable for exactly the same penalties under law for which Michael Cohen is now sentenced to *three years*in jail! Further, I wouldn't be surprised if a direct connection to the Trump crime family or to the the Saudis were not only real, but also *provable* via Bezos' likely exhaustive investigation.
5
Here's a (legitimate) billionaire who would ordinarily be reviled for his wealth, but through brilliant instincts and savvy turned an embarrassment into a triumph.
He will bring Trump to his knees.
7
They are saying Sanchez’s brother may have been involved. Could Lauren Sanchez been a set up? Normally, I’d say that’s crazy. But anything’s possible these days. And...
It’s right out of Jared Kushner’s father’s playbook.
8
@Hugh Jorgen
Absolutely I wouldn't be surprised if she was part of the "honey trap."
With a brother who is cozy with the likes of Roger Stone, it's all too convenient that she played mistress with the owner of the Washington Post.
1
The takeaway is that all these guys are more alike than they are different. Bezos, the genius, chose as his paramour the sister of a guy who works hand in hand with Roger Stone and Carter Page. No one else he could have an affair with? They are looking into who leaked the messages and photos. How about her? I mean, come on, she works for Fox and she has connections to Trump stoolies up the wazoo. Ah but Bezos will hire expensive "experts" to find the culprit when she is now likely lying in bed next to him . The most likely outcome: Mackenzie will double her divorce demands. And Lauren will be demanding her payoff from Trump for years. Or until Rudy pays her off the way Cohen used to. Leopards don't change their spots. As the police would say. :Let's move along now. Nothing more to see here.
7
The ability to smear a person’s character in seconds is a anathema to everyone concerned about their reputation. When do we weigh freedom of press against freedom to enjoy freedom? People are shamed everywhere and everyday — guilty until proven innocent or suffer eternal shame.
Standards in US journalism 2019: The enemy of our enemy is our friend.
1
AMI, it's so called "journalists", and publisher Pecker, should be investigated and if their actions amount to extortion and blackmail, then they should be prosecuted in criminal court. As far as I'm concerned, Pecker should be doing time, and liquidation of the Enquirer would be beneficial to our nation as a whole. David and Donald would look great in matching orange jumpsuits.
14
“The Dickensian-named head of American Media Incorporated ..”
Say what you will about Mr. Pecker, he can’t be faulted for lack of authenticity. Lots of new arrivals on our shores had that seemingly innocent surname (from the Slavic equivalent of Baker) on their passports, but for the most part they or their children eventually became Pickers, Packers, Picks, Pecks, Packards or Picards. Barring that, you had to be shameless, or a proactive bully, to survive the adolescent playground. To thine own self be true.
2
don't like Pecker or Bezos. remember who Bezos is - the man whose monopoly has put thousands and thousands of small business owners in this country out of work. those are real people with families they need to support. i have zero sympathy for Bezos or those who benefit from his wealth.
5
@Father of One
Quite right you are. Although we all know how these men are destroying the fabric of America itself (one through tabloid assault and the other by retail means), there is way too much justification, rationalization and of course hypocrisy for either one to be held accountable.
That would require holding up a different standard, or just following laws that are on the books, but that might be too much to ask.
Pity.
1
"Bezos was able to bring his marriage to an end with a modicum of dignity and little apparent damage to his shareholders". Really??? I have not read many details about the divorce, but it looks to me like MacKenzie Bezos is a pretty smart cookie, and for any divorce to end with some civility would require a fair amount of cooperation on both sides. How about "THEY were able.."? Powerful as he may be, and however strong HIS survival instincts, he could not have pulled that off without her.
However, I certainly hope he can pull off the demise of Pecker all by himself. But maybe you can help too. A man can't do these things all by himself.
I love your columns.
Linda Thomson
3
Was it Michael who stole the sexts off Lauren's phone and gave or sold them to AMI?
2
Hope Mr. Bezos takes good care of Mr. Trump.........
8
I'm looking forward to AMI and all the Peckerlings to get a comeuppance that will scare the bejesus put of the celebrity outing business. Weaponizing porn mixed in with electoral politics and foreign intrigue posing as policy is something only a Trump Administration could do, and only because they were too blinkered to see the dangers. Having a mob boss as President opened up opportunities that had not seen the light of day since Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack buddies were close to certain members of the extended Kennedy clan.
Political hit jobs typically don't leave any fingerprints or a paper trail to follow; but Trump is no ordinary pol, and the trouble he caused for himself was handled the only way he as a celebrity knew how, a payoff. Unfortunately for him, election laws, which might as well have been written in Sanskrit as far Trump's campaign was concerned, intervened. And who took the fall; none other than the two guys who set up the playoffs. One of those guys is David Pecker's AMI. AMI got rolled by SDNY prosecutors with a deal that was guaranteed to blow up on them. This nolle pros agreement required AMI to abstain from any criminal activity. None; no exceptions. I can envision the prosecutors chuckling with glee as they built that verbal detonator into that limited immunity agreement, knowing full well that AM's business model was built on on criminality, theirs and others. And so they did it again, but this time to someone who could fight back, Jeff Bezos.
4
Maureen, do you think MacKenzie Bezos believes Jeff ended their marriage with dignity. How about their children?
10
Let's not forget the David Letterman blackmail scandal too.This,I hope has the same outcome.
2
Complexification is a key concept in the works of Teilhard de Chardin. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-pruett/cosmogenesis-and-consciou_b_4084855.html
The me too billionaire. Poor Bezos. He’s just a victim. Of course it’s ok for his paper to do the same thing to the President and the lap dogs in the media play it up. And let’s not even bring up the fact Amazon is spying on its customers and violating every basic tenant of anti-trust law.
8
Any possibility at all that Bezos was set up by his mistress? I guess he (and we) will soon find out.
4
You are the richest man in the world running, inter alia, one of the most technically sophisticated and security conscious companies in the world - Amazon Web Service .
And you send lewd photographs of yourself to another man's wife by SMS?
You could not make this stuff up.
17
I read the Washington Post (as well as the NYT) and buy from Amazon. I do not like the Saudis who have, in addition to misogyny, have added cold-blooded murder to their list of sins against humanity. So I like knowing my money is in some way working to bring down Trump, Pecker, and MBS via the efforts of Jeff Bezos. In my book, he’s doing God’s work.
11
AMI's lawyers aren't stupid. They considered the possibility that Bezos would go public. Perhaps they wanted him too. There's a lot more to this story than the obvious.
2
I think the best quote from this column is from Galloway, about Bezos being dumb and the AMI guy being dumber.
Bezos, whose company keeps track of your purchases and clicks and sends you "suggestions" to buy more stuff based on your purchases and clicks, should have known that there is no privacy on the Internet and to use a cell phone to store and communicate intimately personal things over the Internet was indeed dumb.
The AMI guy may have gotten bolder after he struck a deal with the Feds to squeal on Trump and possibly avoided prison time, but may wind up losing his shirt or worse this time, now that he is dealing with an incredibly wealthy man who has the wherewithal to overcome his dumb decision to send sexts.
The AMI guy may lose bigly on this one, but the Amazon guy is not exactly a winner. Nevertheless, I am rooting for the Amazon guy.
[Times' comment algorithm, by the way, has a tendency to block comments with words such as the AMI guy's name, as the guy's name can also be used in a derogatory manner. I used a Dowd Jan 12th column headling about Nancy Pelosi and Trump in a comment the other day and it got blocked as there was a word in the headline that the algorithm found offensive.]
4
Bezos has one thing correct: If he can't fight these online character assassinations, who can? Think about that for a minute, that protecting one's reputation in the digital age is becoming an impossibility as more and more Peckers develop their instincts and skills (probably as early as middle school). It is 100% an attack on privacy and there-in is the "complexifier". Bezos is one of the fab four who killed it. Not that someone else wouldn't have, but stoking that ugliest of human characteristics (buy lots of stuff...spy on others...take your pick) sits with him. I am tempted to believe there is some restorative power in this example of ironic genius, but mostly the whole thing makes me gag.
2
Bezos a hero, an admirable figure for how he faced down a grotesque and stupid snake?
Hardly
What Mr. Bezos did was put together a fine PR damage control plan.
He owned his rather distasteful and salacious adulterous behavior--below the waist pix, really?--and marshalled the muscle and fawning media coverage the world's richest man can do with a snap of his fingers. The Washington Post is gushing with praise for the paper's owner.
Pecker served himself up on a silver platter by trying to extort a man as ruthless and heavily armed as Bezos. That was plain crazy.
That said, Bezos should be lauded for further exposing the Enquirer's already notorious reputation as a sleaze merchant.
In the end, however. Bezos does not emerge from this tiff unscathed.
There is no moral and dignified way to commit adultery. In this age of loosened morality, however, there are still limits to what one can take in without feeling disgust.
Bill Maher joked at length about Bezos's below the waist photos. It's certain Bezos can't enjoy being the object of televised comedy.
In the end, the damage control plan will work well enough and the sordid chapter will fade away.
188
@Ricardo Chavira
Those pics were not meant to be public. And Mr. Bezos was separated from his wife. He is not without fault but he is a hero in this fight.
59
@Ricardo Chavirao adultery?? Ask our POTUS.
36
@CH
Of course they weren't meant for public consumption. However, most of us know what is sent into cyberspace is forever at risk of being exposed to the world. Bezos made a rookie mistake.
30
Bezos may have finely honed survival instincts, but he is just another in a long list of men who have gone more than a little crazy over some Latin booty. The phenomena is particularly acute for men of Bezos' age. I live in Miami and have seen it many, many times.
6
Just bought the premium subscription to the Washington Post.
8
Good for Jeff Bezos. I hope he burns their house and all the associated homes (even the White one) down. It's never intelligent to awaken a sleeping dragon.
9
the cognoscenti are fawning over the uber wealthy JB while his Family surely suffers
4
So you can shame the shameless, but in the process incite deep anger which comes back to bite you. Aliens, Elvis in hiding, and lizard people can’t compete with a real world titan who is now “woke” and looking to destroy. The hubris at AMI reflects the arrogance of the administration it serves, and this may be the straw that brings them to their knees. The whole porn star payoff scheme should have warned them about playing with matches, and everything this administration has touched results in deep wounds to those involved. Things are about change.
6
AMI hitched it's wagon to the wrong horse. It would have been much better off just publishing the garbage about Trump all along. Why pass on the gold standard of targets?
6
Terrific piece, puts Bezos into some perspective. Ms Dowd might tone down her canonization case for Khashoggi -- before he was murdered, for several decades he was a mouthpiece for the entire Saudi royal family and for bin Salman, and was well-paid to sell Saudi spin to the world press.
Khashoggi was a dyed-in-the-wool Saudi puppet, close to the former head of Saudi internal security, and by no means an advocate for, or example of, justice or democracy.
We don't know what Saudi state secrets Khashoggi was privy to, but it's odds-on his taunting of MSB was not based on some "Arab Spring" love of freedom and truth.
If CIA Director Allen Dulles' former assistant, a regime insider for 20+ years, had suddenly surfaced in Moscow writing for Pravda and telling the world he newly loved Communism and the "Stalin Way," how would the US intelligence community have responded? A person who had been right there when state secrets were debated, now flaunting "inside information" to the world?
How would the US press have interpreted it? That, because the possible US agent and traitor was warm and fuzzy and polite in person, and also socially adept, would the NYT cheer Pravda's newest "journalist" as a bold reformer and citizen of the world?
Khashoggi did not deserve his grisly -- and let's face it, totally incompetent -- assassination. No one deserves that.
But as a turncoat insider, he was no hero or saint, either.
4
“Blackmail is such an ugly word” is a great “trope” dating back at least to film noir of the 30s. The villain, who often ends out dead, responds with words such as “No, it’s my insurance policy.” Blackmail produces desperation, and the blackmailer often ends out dead in “Father Brown,” Midsommer Murders,” and other PBS fare. Mr Pecker should find another way to make a living.
2
He could be a real hero if after he takes down AMI, Bezos would take out Faux News.
6
Why anyone, including the woman to whom they'd were sent, would want to look at naughty photos of Mr. Bezos or of others of the rich and famous is beyond me. But then I don,t understand the attraction of stories of alien abduction or the rest of the garbage published by Mr. Pecker. The best response to such trash would be to leave it collecting dust on the supermarket shelves.
5
Bezos is is an adulterer. There is no reason for applause.
Pecker is no better. He rapes journalism.
Enough of coverage on this sordid tale.
3
I am curious and a bit jaded: when I read that Ms. Sanchez’s brother is buddies with Stone, Pecker and Trump, I can’t help but feel that Mr Bezos is being completely set up.
5
Bezos is stupid. Lauren Sanchez wanted those photos leaked so Bezos would divorce his wife. Her brother wanted a takedown to impress Trump. Voila.
8
I am going to have to pick a side between Bezos or Pecker? Jeeeze....this is gonna take awhile.
4
That smoke you see coming out of the chimney at the National Enquirer offices is not to elect a new Pope, but to incinerate all the items/evidence in their safes about Trump and the Trump-Kushner Family Syndicate/Mafia. Remember...Pecker can tell lie after lie 'til the cows come home and Trump will gladly pardon him. Pecker's goal now must be to have his sentencing completed before January 2021 when Trump's pardoning power ends. Give me a B, give me an E, give me a Z, give me an O, give me an S...What does it spell?...BEZOS, BEZOS, YEA BEZOS!
4
Wouldn't it be odd if after all of Trump's blatant misbehavior and potentially illegal activities that somehow this series of events with Bezos linked back to Trump, turned out to be criminal, and was ultimately what brought him down?
9
One somehow gets the feeling that George Pecker is a middleman in the larger war between Daddy Warbucks and Daddy Fakebucks. Mr. Pecker is the fall guy and he will easy lose the battle against Bezos. Bezos v. Trump is the main feature.
3
So, it looks like the Saudis got the dirt and gave it to Pecker to intimidate Bezos. Dumb move, but Saudi Arabia is medieval kingdom in a modern world propped up by a resource of declining value, which means panic and ignorance rule and you get stupid outcomes like this one. Bezos has enough money and guts to make it will cost them, Trump and Pecker bigly. The world will be a better place because of it.
4
Trump hates Bezos. Pecker deals with Trump. Pecker's specialty is digging up dirt, and blackmail. Who believes Bezos being targeted is a coincidence?
Does Pecker have pictures of other politicians?
6
It won't even begin to end until someone like Pecker gets the kind of serious time that a civilian would.
6
Maureen let us not descend NYT to a trash talking forum. We are better than the tabloid mentality.
Can I just take a moment to say that comparing Bezos and Thiel is like comparing chocolate mousse to horse manure. Peter Thiel is garbage.
3
On a moral/judgy scale from Warren Buffett to Sheldon Adelson, Bezos is strictly middle-of-the-pack. You can call him naive to think that his selfies and sexts were invulnerable to hacking, but he actually believed he was being discreet, as most of us do in highly intimate conversations.
He is doing the decent thing in the case of standing up to Pecker by realizing that since he can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, his only option is to call out the turpitude of his blackmailer.
That Pecker might be acting at the behest of Trump—who has revelled in Bezos’s woes, has asked the PO to double its rates for Amazon—is worthy of intense journalistic and Congressional scrutiny.
And despite AOC’s reasonable objections, NYC could do a lot worse than having Bezos as a business partner.
6
Yes, hand it to Bezos, he handled this right. Came right back at them with a sharp bloody blow to the nose.
It's Trump world now and one would think Pecker of all people would know it; Own the crime, the transgression, the scandal. Wear it as a badge of honor.
If it takes a Bezos to destroy Pecker, Trump, et al, so be it,
something the law, the congress and nature have not been able to accomplish yet.
But for godsake if Bezos succeeds do not vote him in as POTUS!
In the long run the billionaires will not save us!
4
I hope Bezos can show intent to libel/slander and blackmail and take not just Pecker down but hopefully those he may have been trying to help.
One does hope there is a really smart 10 year old after Pecker and the Pecker ets' emails and any other records/ payments.
1
Bezos is too cutthroat, too self-serving to be labeled a modern day Bruce Wayne. Although, he did a good thing by exposing Pecker, he is still, to me, villainous, a bad guy, part of the Legion of Doom, not even close to being one of the Super Friends. He super villain name: The Bezos -- capable of dismantling unions, upholding systemic inequality, automating his outposts, and crushing Main Street's mom and pop businesses. He is almost on par with Lex Luthor with his look. Let's keep this in perspective: Pecker and Bezos are to super villains fighting. No good heroes here.
4
Apart from seeing Pecker get what's coming to him (liquidation of all assets to pay a crushing verdict), I'm most looking forward to Bezos' acquisition of Pecker's stash of "catch and kill" stories. I'd really like to read them before the 2020 election so, Mr. Bezos, let's get this litigation on the road.
11
The ship of National Enquirer needs to be hauled onto dry dock to expose the reek of slime, scum and muck that was hidden below its water line. Captain Pecker and his motley crew harpooned a Moby Dick of a whale that will devour them.
6
Good for Jeff Bezos here. I applaud him. He's right, if a person w/ his resources can't push back against Pecker's disgusting behavior who can? He did the right thing and I am glad he did. Whatever you want to say about him, no one deserves the likes of Pecker.
7
The best way for Bezos to protect himself and his shareholders would be to not engage in such behavior. Many CEOs have been fired for less, Bezos breathes ratified air, afforded him by his early leveraging of Al Gore's publicly available Internet to compete against traditional American companies weighed down by old fashioned reliance on brick and mortar.
Bezos is less of an entrepreneur and much more an "opportreneur." And now he wants to brand himself a hero?
3
No, he doesn’t want to brand himself a hero. But he wants to make scoundrels suffer the shame and legal consequences of their dirty deeds, while he has fully embraced the shame of his own.
6
I can't understand the vilification of Amazon as a business. I believe that the average citizen prefers to purchase some goods via on-line vendors rather than at mom and pop storefronts. Bezos isn't an unscrupulous businessman for figuring that out and taking it to an unexpected level.
I am not interested in Mr. Bezos' private affairs and don't use him or other successful individuals for my moral compass. Unlike Mr. Pecker, his livelihood isn't tied to printing salacious lies.
2
@Bill K. Bezos answers to a board of directors he elected.
I support Mr. Bezos (not that he needs my support) and I believe Mrs. Bezos deserves credit also.
9
You know there is a problem when your attorney, in this case Elkan Abramowitz, the attorney for American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, says that the incident between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer does not amount to extortion or blackmail because "It's absolutely not a crime to ask someone to simply tell the truth."
That was the whole point...AMI did not want to allow Bezos to learn the "truth" about who gained access to the emails and photos AND whether it was politically motivated
Bezo hit a nerve and now the spin machine has come out to perform damage control.
Hulk Hogan redux.
5
@Allen82: It was just a quid pro quo? An offer not accepted?
Pecker is one of the crooks, grifters, scoundrels and sycophants with whom Trump has chosen to surround himself. I hope Bezos takes the lot of them down.
12
This week's reality show, starring the President of the United States..We have a billionaire with a Pulitzer paper, one of his journos butchered in cold blood by a Trump allied Saudi Prince Boss. Enter Trump associate Pecker, a shady tabloid Publisher who produces slick propaganda for the Saudi Prince, not to mention taking down Hillary every week before election. Old buddy Pecker, who finds himself hanging by a legal thread with SDNY for Trump catch and kill porn star stories, decides to make a master move - he swings for the richest man in the world - and misses. Stay tuned for scenes from next week's episode.
11
I feel bad that Bezos had to literally damage a private relationship in a way that harmed his family...Yet, he is sending his own kids and all of us a strong message about how much you allow bullies to rule you. And the message is quite clear. DO NOT GIVE ANYONE, EVER, THAT KIND OF POWER OVER YOU.
The only lesson that sleaze hounds like Pecker and Roger Stone teach is that making money rules over good taste and simple dignity. Harming others is okay if you can make cash doing it.....Much like most of organized crime does daily.
So, what lessons do you want your kids to learn?
Thank you Mr. Bezos for making the bullies reveal how low they will go on command. Now it is time to neuter their bosses too....Let's expand this teaching moment to make it quite clear that bullying has nasty, life changing consequences..
8
Is there really an audience out there that wants to see Bezos's genitalia??? Isn't it time Americans outgrew adolescence? I can turn my head away from someone else's private and persona selfie, no matter how distasteful (I do it on a daily basis, in fact, re: the Kardashians), but I cannot turn my head from blackmail and extortion. And that this appears to have been done, among other things by Pecker, on behalf of the Saudis and the US president makes it that much more grotesque and repugnant and scary. This is a huge story (helpful tip for Republicans: it is FAR bigger than Elizabeth Warren's ancestry). Trump has brought to the pillars of American culture the culture of depravity, sleaze, and criminally he so clearly swims in.
11
I'm rooting for Bezos in this one and hopefully Pecker, the Enquirer and the murderous Saudi prince who paid for AMI's blackmail attempt end up with more than a slap on the wrist.
8
Remember, Bezos may be in bed with Sanchez,
but AMI and Pecker are in bed with Trump.
I’ll leave it to you to pick your bedfellows.
8
Isn't interesting that while the stuff that appears in Pecker's paper is sensationally untrue, the stuff that never appears in his paper, or anywhere else may not only be true, but Pecker himself squelched through extortion the publishing of those truths. Meaning, Pecker is not only in the publishing of untruths business, but simultaneously engaged in the not publishing, even killing the truths business. Are we a great country or what?
6
If Mr. Bezos thinks he has been blackmailed by Mr. David Pecker, he should go to police. He is a billionaire and a public figure, whatever he does or say will be viewed in detail. His business dealing will be reported in WSJ, and his extra marital affair by National Enquirer. If he doesn't want his name in National Enquirer, he shouldn't be involved with any woman in a scandal, especially the woman is still married.
Bezos has a challenge here. It isn’t just Pecker and American Media Inc he is up against, but also Trump’s billionaire backers who run the GOP and a widespread propaganda machine that includes Fox, Limbaugh, Coulter, and extreme fundamentalists. Makes the Washington Post look like peanuts.
The Mercers, the Kochs, the Spencers, the Adelsons, the Uihleins , etc are experts at disinformation and scurrilous use of the web, and Twitter, and Facebook, and YouTube, and Instagram.
If these unprincipled allies of Trump take up the cause, Bezos will not have an easy triumph, despite his billions.
6
Time to instate a 70% billionaire tax, helping Americans get back on their feet, then let's see how they act.
The poor and middle class are homeless, dying in the street, and everyone is focused on the unacceptable behavior of rich men.
I am a high school teacher. Send them to the Dean and let's get on with what really matters in this country!
13
Whaaaaaaaa!
3
It seems there is no end to the sleaze and criminality of Trump associates. Endless and sickening.
Why would AMI defy their non-prosecution deal they had in place by trying to blackmail Bezos- especially when the Bezos marriage was already ending so the damage they could inflict was fairly minimal?
It makes no sense on its face unless you look to the Saudi connection. The Saudis hate the WP because of their coverage on the killing of the journalist. Trump is giving the Saudis a pass on the killing as well.
It seems money once again is the motivation of all the rotten things Trump and his corrupt associates perpetrate.
The Saudis have plenty of money so when the Saudi Prince MBS says jump- Pecker and Trump ask how high.
10
Ya gotta love a person whose wealth and raison d'être has come from destroying people's lives becoming "apoplectic" over real journalism exposing him, his fraud and lies, and shrieking that it could ruin him. Boo hoo, Mr. Pecker. It's that whole Trump/Republican thing of "It's different when we do it". Does this matter not deserve its own federal investigation? I think it does.
8
So Bezos shows that at his age he still has within him some teenager's thoughtless indiscretion...but also a Marvel Comics super hero's moral laser-drive to fight the evil of the Dark World and end weaker, un-rich men's exploitation.
Bezos sexts but unlike Trump who sends out fixers and thugs to intimidate or buy off his would-be exposers, Bezos stands upright, unveils the "S" on his chest, owns his teenager sexting and shines a burning light of blazing honesty on a now melting prince of Darkness.
And as the super hero's light of blazing honesty shines upon the shrinking Pecker we begin to see that Trump shares the same shriveling skin. Revealing to us that Trump supporters are not just Fox viewers but National Enquirer readers. Ignorance is their common denominator, gossip is the drive of their lives.
Hollywood could not create as absurd a fantasy world as that of Trump, Pecker, bin Salman, et al. People, we are trapped in a Marvel Comic Book dependent, not upon Mr. Mueller or the House Democrats, but on Jeff Bezos' light of honesty to save us.
10
Nonsense.
Enough of the "going to war" analogy. Jeff Bezos is billionaire Smeagol/Gollum.
Bezos has never been brave nor honorable nor patriotic enough to ever volunteer to wear the military uniform of any American armed force. Nor has David Pecker.
These two "boys" are playing the dozens aka signifying. They deserve each other as much as a tarantula and a scorpion. Their lives and lies do not matter.
2
@Blackmamba: No other surrender of liberty is more total than enlisting into an army.
That America has bought the National Enquirer for decades, supporting Pecker's obnoxious methods, endorsing his lies and innuendos, and admiring his affiliations with the likes of Trump, is the country's dirty little secret, now turned scandal. Pecker has clearly violated his immunity deal with the Southern District, who should now force him to empty his infamous safe to destroy all the slime he might use in future blackmail attempts. And if the US Attorney finds some evidence on Trump's extra-legal, Roy Cohn-inspired past, all the better. This national chaos has to come to an end with some stunning revelation that even hypocritical Republicans and the notorious Base cannot ignore.
8
Assuming Bezos' allegations of attempted extortion by AMI's CEO David Pecker are true, it would be poetic justice if Pecker, Roger Stone, and the president end up sharing Trump-branded toiletries in a federal penitentiary. Billionaire or not, extortion is still a crime in the US.
8
Shocking, a columnist siding with another publisher.
1
So now Pecker will need to give more information to prosecutors, (he'd better have some left to give) to keep his pinstripes vertical.
Were Mr. Anthony Weiner's pics also louche? Or were they pornographic?
It is fairly stupid to attack a person that has 60 or 70 some billion dollars to play with.
4
@tbs Weiner’s pics were to an underage girl.
Mr. Pecker, and his merry band of hooligans, shall not Pass GO, shall not collect $200, and shall go directly to Jail. Stupidity and arrogance has its rewards.
6
Perhaps Lauren Sanchez’s plan backfired, I suspect she was part of the plan all along.
3
One question: How does a company that makes no profits for years and years manage to drive profit-making companies out of business?
This is some story all right.
3
@Sonja
Through predatory pricing - which is blatantly illegal.
My special-needs daughter works at Whole Foods (an Amazon company) and is the beneficiary of Mr. Bezos' $15/hour minimum wage policy. As far as I'm concerned, that alone has earned Mr. Bezos a special place in Heaven.
I unreservedly support his desire to fight back against the "people" (if that is what they can be called) crawling out from under the log.
9
Daddy Warlocks? Snarky photo of dude and chick. Who on earth
makes these editorial decisions on headlines and art? If a reader wants splashy, she can turn to the National Enquirer. Good piece, tho.
I am amazed that someone like Bezos, who knows a thing or two about the internet, would send selfies to his girlfriend knowing that they could end up going viral. If Pecker took on Bezos "under the direction" of Trump and it turns out to be extortion under the law, then you-know-who will be an un-indicted co-conspirator. Of course he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and not loose any votes.
7
AMI explains what a trashy country the USA is. Hilarious!
6
Sanchez's brother is close to Roger Stone??? I sure hope the "takedown to make Trump happy" was not his sister.
4
Daddy Warbucks, LOL. All I see is Gollum vs. Beelzebub.
Good positioning, when Bezos 'complexifies,' the NYT, all of Queens, surveillance of the planet, he will keep you on staff and Free Amazon Prime for the survivors. Nice, overnight delivery by complexified low wage workers. Open them walls.
1
Another swamp creature exposed. This time it's David Pecker caught figuratively with his pants down. But, is there a truly macabre twist to this latest tale of a trip through the mire between the King of Sleaze and the King of Everything Else? There's the mystery of who exposed Bezos and, in the hallowed tradition of such detective stories, one must consider "Cherchez la femme." In this case that would be Bezos paramour, Lauren Sanchez, a former Fox TV host with right-wing connections (noted here) to such Trump allies as Roger Stone and others. In other words, Jeff Bezos may have been set up by a femme fatale as part of a conspiracy hatched by Trump with the help of his favorite media mogul and co-conspirator, David Pecker, to get "dirt" on Bezos. It's "stranger than fiction" just like the National Enquirer.
11
The incestuous relationships in this story are far more sickening than the stupidity of blackmail.
2
There's a lot of amazing people that do amazing things every day. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, military members, EMTs, counselors, workforce development administrators, nurses, doctors, and so many more too numerous to list here. The fact that they're not zillionaires and therefore invisible in the media doesn't make them any less significant. The adolescent behavior of the principals mentioned in this article shows just how far our society has decayed.
Thankfully there's still great people virtually nobody knows about doing great things every day.
18
An aside about Amazon.
I am not much of a consumer but I use Amazon when I do have to buy things.
It is the convenience:
Shop any time.
Delivered to the house.
Lots of products to compare against.
Returns are easy.
And reviews, though one has to be smart reading the reviews with paid reviewers out there :-)
4
Yes, that right...one of the experts just said it.
Racketeering enterprise of the WH is in full overdrive.
We're awash in this slimy and shameful tabloid frenzy, these seedy foreign entity, countless dirty scandals, felonious cabinet, Matt Whitaker,
AMI engaging in "revenge porn" or whatever they call it, all courtesy of this lawless, heinous WH and it's allies.
Topsy-turvy world of presidential criminality.
15
SNL last night did the Bezoes'z story justice by exposing it for what it is: a nothingburger of a yummy meal for the omnivorous modern American media, where flibbertigibbets feast upon anything / anyone weird or celebrity-centered. His is a simple century-old tale of a successful and powerful man casting his woman by the roadside in favor of prettier, firmer, nicer-looking pair of breasts. Nothing more, really. I have no pity for such cases or interest.
6
At least we now know why Trump gave his Saudi buddy and prince a pass on the pre-meditated murder of a journalist. The journalist worked for the Washington Post.
16
Khashoggi, the Washignton Post reporter, so annoyed MBS, that MBS ordered him tortured, evecuted and hacked to bits.
The owner of the Washington Post, Bezos, so annoyed Trump and MBS, the Saudis gave the Enguirer Bezos’ sexts.
Trump’s exultation in Bezos’ humiliation was so triumphal, the link with Trump’s buddy was self-evident.
So, to get Bezos to publivally exonerate the Enquirer, Pecker extorts Bezos by threatening to release photos of Bezos’ genitalia.
Now, Bezos is calling Pecker, and Trump, out. Trump used Pecker and the Enquirer to kneecap Bezos, to intimidate the reporting by the Washington Post.
But Pecker and the Enquirer had an immunity,(and impunity?), deal with Mueller, in exchange for cooperating with Mueller in the investigation of Trump’s pre-election hush money payoffs to women Trump had affairs with.
But, did Kushner know MBS was going to kill Khashoggi?
Why did Trump play down MBS’s role in the Khashoggi murder, even when our own intel said MBS was behind it?
Did MBS give Jared the Bezos sexts?
Will Mueller annul Pecker’s immunity deal?
Will Pecker, like Manafort, just keep on lying, figuring Trump will pardon him?
And why did Cohen cancel his public House testimony? Didn’t Trump dog-whistle to his machine-gun toting minions to take out Cohen’s father-in-law, Philadelphia-style?
But how much money is Jared getting from MBS?
11
Very funny, witty, and informative, Ms Dowd. As usual.
5
Yo, Mo, don’t throw stones at AMI’s glossy Saudi hagiography magazine when your old, really old buddy, Tom Friedman did much the same.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html
2
Jeff Bezos is in the business of selling products we need at low prices. David Pecker is in the business of selling dirt at ultra high prices. D. Pecker is a perfect fit with Trump, Saudis, & Putin- the New Axis of Evil who deal in the underworld.
7
Our culture is gross.
12
I dislike seeing even the worst newspaper on the planet (which the Inquirer darn near is) run out of biz, but there has to be some way to separate news, sleaze-o-rama, and entertainment.
Maybe if people stopped buying the fishwrap and the crud...
5
That's Enquirer. Not to be confused for the
Philadelphia Inquirer
Bezos’ fortune is real. Trump’s is based on an air-filled mountain of debt. This week the world’s richest man has stuck it to a wannabe master of the universe, who is little more than a dirigible. Good for you, Bezos. But, you were a complete jerk to to your wife and children.
19
Why does Ms. Dowd propagate this fiction that Jamal Khashoggi was best known as a columnist. He certainly was not a journalist. And yes, he wrote some columns, mainly the propaganda type, that were published in the Washington Post. But to identify him as this was his primary occupation is ludicrous. George Clooney wrote an article for Foreign Affairs. If he died today, would anyone identify him as a columnist?
A better question might be: What was the Washington Post doing publishing Khashoggi's writings in the first place?
The guy was a one time intelligence operative for the House of Saud. A member in good standing of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization. A guy that was neck deep in a dozen nefarious enterprises. But because he was killed in an internal dispute by his own government, somehow he is a journalist and not a propagandist? Pure bunk.
This is just more of the concerted effort to estrange the US from Saudi Arabia to damage Donald Trump.
3
I get it. With Trump, we've drained the swamp to make room for a cesspool.
7
The log Bezos rolled over is going to expose much more than sleaze. If federal and/or state prosecutors decide to go after Pecker and his enterprise, I expect what they will find is a well-oiled crime syndicate which has used extortion and blackmail for decades. Where there is blackmail and extortion, one also tends to find bank fraud and wire fraud and any number of other illegal actions.
The bigger question is; will Trump be implicated in any of this? If so, the SONY may have, yet again, "Person 1"listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in yet another criminal action.
11
Regardless of Bezos' mistakes and personality, and empty-headed behavior, he is Goliath to Pecker's David and Pecker was foolish to attack him just to make Trump happy. How can AMI possible win??
When Trump brought in The Enquirer to news conferences as if it was a serious newspaper everyone was amazed. Seriously? A man who is going to be President thinks this is a real newspaper? Well, I guess Trump never stands in line at the supermarket while people read it before they pay and then put it back. Talk about dumb, dumber and dumbest. What a triumvirate! Of course, that's probably the only actual reading Trump can handle. No big words.
I love that you called Kushner a princeling, Mo. Him being buddies with the Saudis so he could get financial support is disgusting. bin Salman is a murderer but also a sadist. Creepy that the USA (going back at least to Poppy Bush) is so chummy with those Saudi creeps. OIL. MONEY. GREED. POWER. A bad Bond movie, except it's real.
Great column. Thanks!
13
I hope I speak for everyone when I say Jeff Bezos taking on The National Enquirer is the story of the year. No one wants their divorce on those pages let alone personal photos - although why anyone takes them in this time of easy hacking is a mystery - but he's right. Blackmail never ends and ultimately the photos likely would have come out anyway.
I figure the reason AMI, the parent company, risked Mr. Bezos' wrath was to protect their financial interests with the Crown Prince and Saudi's. Also, after giving in to special counsel's pressure to turn over documents Mr. Pecker and his brethren had to suck up to Donald Trump before he trashes them along with the revered Washington Post. There is an argument they are as responsible for his election as the Russians. (And some irony in using those two media images in same sentence, one the top of journalistic integrity, one at the bottom. Only Mr. Trump disagrees with which is which.)
In anticipation of the unfolding of this tale I have purchased a lot more popcorn and beer. Be prepared is my motto.
2
Blackmail, and this is what Trump pal Pecker attempted, is a crime for normal people. Too bad none of the rules, of law, decency or morals, apply to the American right. So much for the Republican Party as the party of moral values.
6
Foolish as Bezos was to create compromising photos of himself, hurtful as his behavior was to his wife, the greatest scandal is that Bezos made his fortune at the cost of Amazon employees' misery and exploitation.
8
"It highlighted the special relationship between the Saudis and Trump, who was also lavished with puff pieces in The Enquirer during the 2016 campaign."
Maureen might have mentioned at the end of that paragraph that The National Enquirer also pushed constant anti Hillary covers screaming ridiculous headlines such as "Hillary Clinton's Two Secret Strokes!" "Bill Caught In Teen Sex Ring!" "Hillary's Crimes! Treason! Bribery! Perjury! Fraud! Espionage! Embezzlement!" if Ms Dowd have not been doing her own version of it at the same time.
10
Are there Oval Office tapes?
2
Fake newspaper associated with fake billionaire (who was fraudulently elected) versus genuine billionaire with his own real newspaper reminds me of the first Clay Liston fight ( 1st round knockout)
6
The feud between Bezos and the publisher of the National Enquirer as reported in the NY T....too much information. Much,too much information.
And a Maureen Dowd column on the subject? Stop!
Ms. Dowd you surely have better things to do. Your loyal readers have more important things to hear about from you. And your young readers and up and coming journalists have more important things to discover by your example.
So, as to writhing about the connection between Bezoes' s sex life, the National Enquired' s journalistic integrity....and Donald Trump.
Cut it out! Back to writing about the important stuff to which you excel. Please!
Best Regards
Steve
1
I would of thought the worlds richest man could do better than a former Fox News hack for a lover
Makes me wonder who the brains behind Amazon was
11
I think a lot of the brains belonged to mrs. Bezos, with whom Jeff probably did read a morning paper or two over the years. Jeff has shown a lack of smarts by trading in a real partner for a model of plastic surgery gone awry.
1
It's astonishing just how stupid Donald Trump's supporters can be. Why would David Pecker risk trying to blackmail anyone, let alone the "richest man in the world", who also owns one of the country's most prestigious newspaper? Perhaps, he missed the demise of Gawker and he's never met Peter Thiel. Or possibly, he fears the murderous Saudi prince, and his extortion scheme was an effort to curry favor with both Trump and the Prince. More likely, similar to Donald Trump, he's narcissistic and completely stupid, a self-destructive combination. You cannot make this stuff up.
8
If Bezos could crush AMI, he would be doing the world a favor.
6
Boy, I guess I’m a Victorian. If a man sent me photos of his nether region, I would be completely horrified and insulted. Just Imagining the actual taking of the photo is cringeworthy. And, this photo goes where? Framed and put on the mantle? Talk about a turn off. What happened to the loving and sacred bond between two people that is private and intimate?
I’m sorry you were embarrassed Mrs. Bezos, but I think you were also saved.
410
@Kathryn the sacred bond was already broken when he stepped away from his marriage and into the arms of someone whom he believed would worship at the altar of his private parts. His company, Amazon, disgusts me, his stupidity of not understanding a world that steals your data as Amazon does makes me laugh, yet the sanctity of character has eluded him.
26
I think the girlfriend may be up to her eyeballs in this mess. If Jeff needed an affair he reached very low.
38
@Kathryn
What were the subject of the photos Ms. Sanchez sent to Mr. Bezos?
10
I’ve been an Amazon Prime-holder for 10 years. By choice, I’ve never read the NE. I despise trump and all he stands for. Does any of that have anything to do with this situation? Nope. Rich or poor, scummy or angelic, affair or 30-year-marriage, EVERYONE deserves privacy. I sincerely hope Mr. Bezos guts the extortionists at NE, and I hope he and the other tech giants learn from this. He’s right, he’s in a position to do something the rest of us can’t do, and what perfect timing.
580
@Sunnieskye
But again the press and far too many of the public miss the real story here.
It is too expensive for an average person to hold a press to account if they choose to print something about you that is untrue or harmful.
That is a very big deal, much bigger than Jared taking Saudi bribes or Pecker trying to curry favor and maybe a pardon from his former buddy El Trumpo. I mean really hows El Trumpo supposed to retain self respect if he stays friends with a guy cooperating with Mueller?
13
@Sunnieskye If Jeff Bezos wanted privacy taking nude photos in this digital age rules that out. If anyone understands the Internet it's Mr. Bezos so if he wanted privacy he should avoid a camera phone in the shower. Seriously, hasn't that lesson been learned? It's so stupid it almost seems planned. Maybe she and her brother schemed to get him. This story has legs and was totally avoidable.
11
@Sunnieskye what I hope he uses this moment for is to scrutinize his company and obliterate policies that condone the use and sale of our most private information. I do not use Amazon nor do I read the NE. But I do read the NYT and hope Mr Bezos reads these comments.
7
Was Jeff Bezos aware of Michael Sanchez's association with Roger Stone and Carter Page before he became involved with Lauren Sanchez? Or did that come to light after he was smitten?
4
Yes, Maureen, this is C.K. Dexter Haven vs. Sidney Kidd on steroids. In the warm ending, Kidd gets his photos of the wedding but gets taken down a notch. Pecker (what a name; that alone on the front of the Enquirer will boost its sales to keep it from bankruptcy) is probably going to jail.
I'll get the book and video on Amazon. But it's going to be difficult to report on. A reporter can't refer to the role that Pecker played in all of this as, "Trump's Pecker." Our children have been exposed to enough, already.
4
I have mixed feelings about Bezos. I cancelled my Prime account because of Amazon's treatment of its employees - and read that WaPo reporters were pretty happy that they were already unionized when Bezos purchased the paper. But if Bezos can take down the Enquirer, it will be a tremendous service. He will somewhat redeem himself.
6
"but Bezos was able to bring his marriage to an end with a modicum of dignity and little apparent damage to shareholder value." I would say that was done by the wife- not him. He has children, where was his heroes when he chose to cheat on his wife rather than divorce her first ? This man is not a hero but a man looking and touching as he wore his wedding ring.
6
What kind of MAN takes pictures of his junk?
Plus, what kind of man pushes these pictures out on the Ethernet?
Answer - a CREEPY MAN!
Good Day ...
10
@Juan Archer: He didn't push those pictures out by his own consent or because he's a creep like Anthony Weiner. The National Enquirer tried to blackmail him with the pictures, so he got in front of the extortioners. If you don't want to see them, nobody forces you to.
2
@Juan Archer Always looked very creepy,so not much of a revelation,I was surprised he was married. Anyway in a few years ,not more, another rather large settlement will be reported.
I applaud Bezos for standing up to AMI/The Enquirer and he's right if he can't that who can? If it ruins the Enquirer that's a good thing for mankind - good riddance to that rag! As for Bezos - he's no hero - that's a stretch.
2
When, if ever, will the Newspaper of Record stop shilling for tech billionaires?
We are living through a second Robber Baron era.
This time around, we actually have real and substantial laws on the books:
- anti-monopoly laws
- anti-discrimination employment laws
- laws against predatory pricing
- laws against corrupt practices
- etc
And yet - no thanks to our pathetic, sad-sack media, with its ridiculous self-congratulatory slogans about saving democracy - we have an orgy of law-breaking by our tech billionaires and their captive politicos.
Bezos made his billions through predatory pricing. Last I checked, that's a violation of our competition laws. Bezos is so brazen about it, he's made a habit of threatening anyone and everyone with his thug's taunt: "Your margin is my opportunity."
FB and Google built their empires on the backs of competition-stifling acquisitions that no honest or alert DoJ would ever have approved.
Why was this allowed? Because about half of our political class is in their pocket, looking to score a board seat or a lucrative job with them after they leave Washington.
The most shameless act of all is the one the Times won't even cover: the last president's $68 MILLION sweetheart contract to be a "producer" of films for a tech company whose entire rickety business model depends on favorable regulation in Washington.
Unbelievable.
And you fools think Brazen Bezos is preventing democracy from "dying in darkness." More like: in plain view.
11
I must say that Maureen's column on yet another scandal is much better written than all those in The National Enquirer.
3
Very well formulated piece of light Entertainment.
Even though I am neither an Admirer of Bezos or Pecker, the latter makes me vomit for quite some time.
His Rubbish Publication should be forbidden as an Insult to Human Nature and specifically to the American People. So if an unlikely Choice had to be made, it is Bezos, not for Amazon, but for the Washingtom Post.
3
Are we sick of the mobsters ruining our country yet? I am and I thank Mr. Bezos for turning over the log so we can all see what comes crawling out. Maybe the Saudi Intelligence who acquired the texts and photos?
Trump and the Saudis and Putin and Pecker are mobsters and the corruption and evil is making our country terribly, terribly sick.
Drip, drip, drip every day new proof that Mr. Trump and his Crime Syndicate Family need to be imprisoned for a very long time.
I hope the Republicans understand that they are now 100% complicit in Trump's moral crimes. All of them - even the 'good' ones who do not stand up to this man and tell him he is finished are complicit.
Mr. Bezos stood up. And so did Ronan Farrow and other journalists who have been similarly threatened by Pecker. The hubris of extorting the world's richest man is just too much, it's almost laughable. But I guess Pecker figured that no one would ever, ever turn over that log so we could all see what lives there.
Thank you, Mr. Bezos.
9
I don't know - I give Jeff Bezos a lot of credit for taking on Pecker and calling his bluff. Love the attorneys for AMI. . .
To call this blatant attempt at extortion a "negotiation" and therefore not an illegal act is the kind of thing that makes people hate lawyers.
While we are rolling over the log to see what crawls out, let's extend that action all the way to the Oval Office, starting with Trump's tax returns.
And I could only laugh out loud at Trump's Tweet calling The Enquirer a rival newspaper to The Washington Post. That's like calling the Yugo a rival automobile to the Maserati.
11
The National Enquirer is a goner and with it Pecker’s media empire. About time.
7
"Dumb and dumber." Perfectly penned.
5
I have to imagine he was so exhausted from squeezing his suppliers that the only thing left to do was cheat on his wife. It’s shocking Maureen gives him a pass on this. I guess MacKenzie is the one woman she won’t support.
4
Good lord, the article reads like a “ billionaire” fight club. Blackmail is the least of it, you can’t make this stuff up. A murderous King, a spiteful president, a thug owner of a trash tabloid and a pompous entrepreneur......please! Let the women take over and really get things done, this country is becoming a play ground for disruptive, infantile behavior by these priggish men, shameful
5
Jeff Bezos may very succeed in taking down Mr. Pecker and his sleazepaper by having them found guilty of extortion and blackmail. If Mr. Pecker is incarcerated and also loses his immunity from proscition in the Mueller investigations, would Donald Trump be stupid enough to pardon him?
Probably, which may lead to Trump’s impeachment and removal from office.
3
Okay, I'm glad that Bezos called out Pecker and AMI's tactics in a big way. That took some nerve and he did it. I hope it will help rein in the world of tabloid journalism. But let's not form an admiration society for Jeff Bezos.
He cheated on his wife, plain and simple. And adultery is not just a breach of love and trust with your spouse; it's a breach of love and trust with your children. Bezos has kicked his kids' notion of family to the curb. (It's interesting and even poignant that his mistress bears quite a resemblance to his wife.)
Adulterers qua adulterers don't get to be heroes.
It's also very disappointing that Bezos is right up there with Anthony Weiner in the sexting department. Stupid is as stupid does. During the Weiner scandal(s), I remember feeling dumbfounded that an educated adult - and a public figure on a small scale- could be so stupid. I actually felt greater pity for his wife, Huma Abedin,over his sexting than his 'relationships.'
Anthony made Huma look like a stupid sucker as well. How could she stay married to such an infantile man? And Jeff Bezos is in the very same league - the sexting one.
But how could I forget that people will forgive the richest man in the world ANYTHING? Instead of cheating on his whole family while sexting like a middle schooler, Jeff Bezos
will be remembered as the richest man in the world - the guy who could afford to have some real attitude.
Consider yourself lucky, MacKenzie.
10
Gosh, Maureen, I wish you'd drop your wildly inaccurate hunter/gatherer analogy, not to mention the absurd cave man verbiage you quote. Our distant ancestors had zero interest in accumulating tons of "stuff." They lived in balance with the world around them. Jeff Bezos tapped into something totally unrelated to that vanished world. He tapped into obesity in every sense of the world, in every possible way it manifests in this toxic, lopsided culture. And he did it as an over the top, pitilessly aggressive go-getter. In that regard he's no different than the peddlers of trash he's seeking to bury, much less the swollen dinosaur in the White House. They're all of the same ilk. God save us from patriarchy and runaway capitalism -- and the sooner the better.
2
@free range The ocean is full of billions of tons of plastic trash originally,made in China and sent to giant warehouses constantly ,all over the world.
David Pecker is, to put mildly, in a peck of trouble. But, it's not like Gawker where a lawsuit took it down, but the strong possibility that the Feds will take him and his company, American Media Inc. (A.M.I.) down. Pecker and A.M.I. were granted immunity by the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) if he cooperated in the hush money conspiracy to "catch and kill" the expose of a year-long affair between Trump and former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, and IF they committed no further crimes during the next three years. SDNY is now investigating Bezos' accusations of blackmail and extortion. If they're substantiated, A.M.I.may be prosecuted under a "rico" (racketeering) charge and be put out of business and Pecker may join his convicted co-conspirator, Michael Cohen, in jail.
5
Is Lauren in on it? Is she a sex plant to lure Bezos into an entrapment scheme?
9
Hearst Newspapers and yellow journalism were the talk of the town in early 20c time. Page 6 sensationalism, trashy pulp telenovellas are the bread and butter today. The Jersey Shore Presidency is drama, drama, drama.
A La Brea tar pit for the mind.
4
Finally, someone who knows how to the play the game against Trump and his cesspool brigade.
The day may be coming when the smiles, sneers, and smug looks of people like Pecker and Stone will give way to the ashen and dead visage of Paul Manafort currently on display.
How do you fight Trump. Just ask Pelosi and now Bezos. D.H. Lawrence battle cry comes to mind "No Prisoners".
8
At least he showed that he was in love, unlike Trump's sorted affairs while his wife was pregnant. His was just carnal pleasure with prostitutes. How decent Bezos looks in comparison.
4
Oh come on . There was no love, merely adolescent infatuation. It may well prove to be really dumb if the object of Jeff's juvenile attraction turns it to be involved with the sordid Mr pecker.
2
@Dorian's Truth
Well, if he’s in love, he’s not too smart about who he falls for.
Lauren Sanchez is a married celebrity chaser. She has had affairs with multiple athletes, actors and news people. I say “affairs” because they often happened while engaged to the previous one. This is her MO: get engaged, have affair, engage that one, have another affair, get married, have an affair.
Granted for 50 years old she looks pretty good, but is that the kind of person you fall “in love” with? Maybe if you want your heart broken. I don’t know.
1
Forget the subject, which is common rich folks practice from Presidents & billionaires. I'd like to know since when it's good journalism to refer to people as "slimy" and "thugs". The Times has taken the strong biases of your backers, editors, and reporters to the level of yellow journalism.
Sure it's an "opinion" piece, but you pick your opinioned and the opinions they hold consistently fit the opinions you hold. You also edit them.
I don't admire Bezos or his Amazon or Pecker and his disgraceful Enquirer, but I'd love to admire the NYT and journalistic objectivity again.
3
Having spent a relatively large part of my life in grocery checkout linesI'm chagrined at my utter naivete in supposing that nobody believed the stories they read in the Enquirer. Well, my eyes were opened during the previous few years. Gone were the alien abductions, Elvis sightings, and final truth about jonBenet. Suddenly there were astounding revelations about Obama and the Clintons, the little known heroics of Donald Trump.
The politics of the paper were obvious. Less obvious was the dark collusion that weaponized sensationalism in the sevice of a possible criminal conspiracy. This cannot be exposed too soon for me.
Another thing I'm naive about is that I fail to understand the the public obsession with the sex lives of the rich and famous. Gossip has always been tabloid fodder, and it's foolish to expect these publications to show restraint, le alone decency in their reportage.
We can say that Pecker (or Murdoch for that matter) should have known better than to open this particular can of worms. But when has hubris ever been subject to good sense?
532
@michaeltide
I, too have stood in grocery check out lines, having chosen to not buy my groceries from Amazon, but I’ve blanked out looking at the tabloids. I felt they were so stupid that even glancing at their cover was embr for me. So, I completely missed out on the growth of the politicized trash. Of course, trump was never on my radar as I didn’t really know who he was.
19
@Rachel, though I'm an Amazon user, I don't think I'll ever let them buy my groceries, not because I wouldn't mind the convenience, but I wouldn't expect they would test every avocado for ripeness before putting it in the bag – stuff like that.
10
@michaeltide
I may be wrong, but wasn't the National Enquirer the source of the information (at first discredited by 'real newspapers') that led to the exposure of 2008 Democratic primary early frontrunner candidate John Edward's extreme duplicity and -- yes -- misogeny ?
4
Yes the Trump smear machine is operating but they picked the wrong person. Did they really think that Bezos would submit to blackmail??? What a hapless bunch. Still wondering about how they got this data. Did her brother raid her cellphone and hand it over to Pecker? This level of intrigue smacks of Russian scheming. Unbelievable.
10
Suetonius would be jealous.
3
@James F Traynor
The Caesars seem like choir boys compared to the Trump Cohort.
O tempora, O mores.....
NOT my president
While I'm not big fan of Amazon and its corporate quest to take over the world, I do appreciate Bezos taking on the real fake news. I do chuckle as I read about Bezos and Ms. Sanchez, and Mr. Bezos' essentially donning superhero garb as he grabs his beauty to ride, or swing (depending on your chosen superhero's mode) into the faces of evil before continuing on into the sunset.
My hat is off to the man for winning the heart (At least I hope that's true. It's hard to say, isn't it?) of a woman whose looks I used to Marvel at when I saw her on LA TV news, and could only describe her looks as someone/something that Stan Lee and company could imagine. It was as if she jumped off the page of a Spiderman comic after easily displacing Mary Jane and Gwendolyn.
How, and who Ms. Sanchez is, as a person, I have no idea. But for my "beauty button", a woman couldn't be drawn into life any better. If I saw her on the street, I'd want to check her for more than two dimensions. Congratulations to Bezos and his new Amazon-woman. I hope she's 1/137,000,000,000th as good as she looks. Oh, and let's here some "Boff!", "Smack!", "Bonk!, and "Pow" from the dank corners of the Enquirer. Go get 'em kiddo.
1
@Brian W. She looks tired, haggard and drunk in the photo here.
Not to be forgotten in all this, Trump thinks that the publisher of articles about "Bat Boy," the half-human, half-bat vampire-like creature, is a more reliable source of journalism than the NYT or Washington Post.
10
@DaDa
Trump also seems to believe movie plots are actually happy in reality. Prayer rugs and taped up women anyone?
This sounds like a half-baked attempt to turn a wife-cheating, adulterer into a hero. The fact that Ms Dowd finds his juvenile texts to his mistress half-romantic says everything we need to know about this puff piece. Fact remains that Bezos cheated on his wife and got into an extra-marital affair with a married woman, sent her sexucially explicit and suggestive texts and photos, got caught and then tried to deflect blame by hiring investigators to assign ‘political motive’ to his expose. He can call it ‘blackmail’ all he wants but fact remains that he was exchanging e-mails with them to strike a deal and all they asked him in return was to stop saying that it was ‘politically motivated’. They didn’t ask him to change political coverage of WaPo or ask for money or favours. I don’t see how any court is going call that ‘blackmail’.
The fact that he then got WaPo to come out with conspiracy theories behind the expose says everything we need to know about WaPo’s so-called Editorial ‘independence’.
I have never read NE and I despise MBS but let’s not pretend that AMI and Pecker were the only ones bending over backwards to help the thuggish Prince. Those of us with longer memories still remember NYT’s own attempts at portraying the thug as a reformer and Tom Friedman’s paeans to his glory. Some of us also remember Bezos’ own attempts to cozy up to SA and how he had never uttered a word denouncing Khashoggi murder until now. Ms Dowd appears to have a case of selective memory.
9
Maureen, when you speculate that, “Bezos said there may be another rotten international conspiracy akin to the Russians and the Trump campaign — this one connecting Pecker, Trump and the Saudis.” — you and Jeff are correct about an evil troika of global Empire existing, but you are both wrong about the principal and two supporting partners of this Disguised Global Capitalist Empire.
Hopefully, the ultimate and media-appointed “most popular political figure in America” will step-up his game for 2020 and expand his vague two-word sound-bite campaign of 2016 into an essential second, continuing, and complete American people’s peaceful “Political/economic and social Revolution Against Empire” [Justin du Rivage].
2
Since when a pervert adulterer (who took pictures of his private parts and text them to his mistress) is consider a hero?
6
When he stands up to more despicable forces!
1
after JB puts NI to shame; wonder if you'll be able to buy old copies of NI on amazon.com?
1
Trump should be very worried given that Pecker is a long-time comrade who probably has a lot of dirt on him.
The prosecutors with the Southern District of New York reached a non-prosecutorial agreement with AMI, the Enquirer's parent company for providing evidence of payments to two women in the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign to prevent them from going public with accusations of extramarital affairs with Trump. The SDNY is now investigating a criminal violation of that agreement and the outlook is not good at all for Pecker.
Because of Trump's involvement, there are bigger fish to fry and it seems that the evidence is piling up against Trump's feigned innocence.
IMHO, Bezos quarry is Trump, and Pecker is just a sleazy cretin who will be useful to the prosecution. Maybe SDNY offers a plea deal but probably they got him dead to rights.
Trump is going down and the Republican Party seems bound and determined to go down with him. Let's not get in their way.
6
And this is our culture. Bullies, cheaters, and liars abound. Their complex relationships fascinate and repel, and in the end are sound and fury signifying the same old unbridled lusts that always get us into trouble. Is anyone else bored yet?
5
Amazon is one of the most high-tech and secure environments in the world. Even Rupert Murdoch could never hack into into Bezos' phone, and Pecker is several IQ points down from Murdoch. Only the US Government could do that, which is what we are about to find out.
7
I find this a disturbing dissonance between 2 linked news stories. While people are laughing today at clever headlines about Bezos exposing Pecker, there is press regarding revelations about the tragic murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the columnist from the newspaper Bezos owns.
1
When he comes to his senses he may remember his children. Of course many have had a mid life crisis. However there are 69,000 homeless in NYC due to poor planning by Cuomo , Bloomberg, Deblasio. That allowed the real estate elite dominate the NYC real estate scene. Of course they take donations. Now they want a man who is worth 140 billion before divorce to get a tax break for Amazon a company that destroyed retail worldwide with huge growth rates. Look at all the empty stores nationwide. The zero sum game continues but Bezos wants everything. Now morons have tried to blackmail him . Belongs in the theater . Why can’t the political forces that exist in NYC simply wake up and raise taxes on the wealthy in NYC . Bloomberg has 50 billion but never personally built housing for the homeless. Imagine if he used 5% of his wealth as a down payment for this housing he could build 5 billion of housing for the homeless with a 2.5 billion down payment . Maybe Bezos could do the same thing by donating 2.5 billion and then 10 billion in housing for the least fortunate could be built just with donations from Bezos and Bloomberg but no he wants a tax break from his friendly politicians for the Amazon expansion.
7
I stopped reading this piece at the 2nd paragraph when I read the utterly ignorant and even more wrongheaded quote from Scott Galloway. I thought Maureen Dowd had better judgment than to endorse such nonsense. I guess I was wrong!
3
Mr. Bezos is human! Who would have thought it? Well he is human and he deals with challenges according to his resources. All of the rest of us who are not yet drooling dotards, would do the same. I hope he finds a satisfying love life that is honest.
I hope his wife and kids have wonderful lives.
I hope he reads the same newspapers I do and rethinks his attitude toward his workers. He Could Do This.
I shall continue to enjoy the ability to find and buy what I want when I want it. Thank you Mr Bezos for buying and supporting The Washington Post.
(If you could sell a bit more high end stuff I would be happy. I need a really good floor lamp.)
Who hacked Bezos' cell phone?
4
How desperate and/or stupid do you have to be to try and extort a man with more than $130 billion and who, in the bargain, also owns one of the two most influential papers in America? Moreover, to put, as it's alleged, the terms of your extortion in email is beyond understanding. No matter how this plays out legally, I bet that Bezos will dog David Pecker and Donald Trump for as long as they live. I would expect nothing less from a man who has told his investigators that their budget has no limits.
676
@Jack Purdy "How desperate and/or stupid" or more like how entitled, privileged, egotistical, megalomaniacal, psychotic and sociopathic?
29
@Jack Purdy
As each bomb of their own making goes off in the face of Individual 1 and his grifter cohorts the presence of karma is warmly received and acknowledged.
63
Every time I read a Dowd column, I am stricken with how, even when seemingly attempting to be complimentary of a subject, she is so snide.
I don’t think I will read anymore. There is quite enough nastiness in the U.S. these days.
24
@J,
Yes, that hits the nail on the head. Disparaging remarks about everyone except a few Hollywood friends.
Glad to know I’m not alone in feeling this way.
12
What’d she get wrong, precisely?
If her writing’s not to your taste, say just that. But let’s stop tagging people with personal labels; you have zero idea what’s she’s like as a person.
@J
There is always -- no matter how subtle -- the soft slither in the background.
I would rather not have known all the details and imagery. However, Mr. Bezos revealed it, in a grand "publish and be dammed" action.
As to who disseminated the photos and text messages... If Bezos can't think who spread it, he deserves what he gets.
7
re the issue of privacy...there is nothing about you that is not known by someone or something ( government)... and that was true before bezos, facebook and the alphabet...
I have no idea if simply asking someone to write that an investigation is not politically motivated amounts to extortion. But there is something I do know. And that is- a man who is purportedly one of the saviest internet beings in the world sent pics of his genitalia through cyberspace- for all the world to hack and see. And thus, this cyber genius is about as dumb as a brick of Amazon warehouse space.
13
@boji3
The Enquirer threatened to release the sexually explicit photos of Mr. Bezos, if he did not stop his investigation into the first article's sources.Sounds like extortion to me.
As for dumb as a brick of Amazon space(?),no surer way to have a lapse of judgement than to be in lust.
I wish we could just have a normal president who didn't have some bizarre relationship with the National Enquirer which is the national joke of the supermarket checkout line. This whole Russia, Saudi Arabia, Trump connection to this ridiculous newspaper and now its attempt to blackmail the owner of one of the largest and most influential newspapers in the country is dangerous and pathetic at the same time.
19
Who cares? NI is like a speck compared to Amazon...it can do nothing to shake Amazon. Do we have to care about the lifestyles and scandals of the rich and famous? Nytimes could use its journalistic talents on better projects.
4
1. Bezos owns the “Washington Post.”
2. One of the suspected leakers is directly connected to Roger Stone (indicted) and Carter Page (pled out), both in trouble connected directly to Trump.
3. The “Inquirer,” and its parent company got busted for catch-and-kill actions on Trump’s behalf. You know...the President? Oh, and only the Saudis.
4. Pretty much the biggest corporation on the planet is fighting with a famous tabloid publisher. There are First Amendment implications. Kind of newsy.
An heroic billionaire? That's what we call a guy who cheats on his wife exuberantly enough to send -- you know -- Weiner-esque pix to the other one, who herself is cheating on her husband? Heroic?
.
Sorry, this sordid story has no hero. Nobody is living happily ever after, no matter where it goes from here...
14
Picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel is beyond foolish.
9
Maureen, when you speculate that, “Bezos said there may be another rotten international conspiracy akin to the Russians and the Trump campaign — this one connecting Pecker, Trump and the Saudis.” — you and Jeff are correct about an evil troika of global Empire existing, but you are both wrong about the principal and two supporting partners of this Disguised Global Capitalist Empire.
Hopefully, the ultimate and media-appointed “most popular political figure in America” will step-up his game for 2020 and expand his vague two-word sound-bite campaign of 2016 into an essential second, continuing, and complete American people’s peaceful “Political/economic and social Revolution Against Empire” [Justin du Rivage].
1
The richest man in the world is Vladimir Putin of Russia.
10
I would have "respected" this article, if only you would have wrote the same way if the shoes were on the other side.
Bezos is a billionaire, he makes billions out of our weaknesses. He has one! so he will pay half his empire to his wife and realize, he is just another stupid man, who should have known better then take selfies.....
Hey, we all know that National Enquirer hit it right sometimes.
6
@malka abrams, On rare occasion the tabloid does get it right, but does That condone the National Enquirer sometimes attempting to extort someone?
Of course, Bezos is just another "stupid man", since money doesn't necessarily provide good judgement in every sphere of your life.
2
Saying that a billionaire is an incredibly impressive person is pure idolatry. The man is just disgusting.
3
The loss of the Enquirer if that comes to pass is probably a positive. The gossip hounds can seek substitutes. Bezos has the benefit of megabucks and therefore the power to spank the Enquirer hard especially with the special circumstances from the messing with the Trump prostitutes in they had to agree to avoid law trouble for three years. Pecker took a chance and his cheeky attack of Bezos for Trump’s sake will have consequences. Idiots all including Bezos for opening himself up for this type public inspection.
5
Please do not refer to Bezos as a "hero", Ms. Dowd. He is most likely a typically egotistical, overly confident, thin skinned billionaire who could not accept the idea of a sleazy supermarket rag getting the best of him, coupled with the endless resources, of course, to wage a fight against it to the bitter end. A "hero" though? In this uneven matchup, A.M.I. was the decided underdog from the very start of its self-destructive, senseless folly.
127
@John Grillo - Nonsense! What difference does it make how much money Bezos has? Sounds like a felony was committed. Wealth, or the type of person you imagine Bezos to be, has nothing to do with any of this, especially if Pecker broke the law.
And if a crime was committed I expect Pecker to be prosecuted, no matter who the victim is. Why not?
59
@John Grillo --- I agree Bezos's personal behavior has not been admirable, but what he did was not illegal. What AMI did --- even the attempt --- WAS illegal, and it's a pattern with them. Their strategy in the past has been that they were safe in this illegal activity because (a) people without enough money couldn't afford to fight them, and (b) people with enough money were too afraid of being embarrassed.
By this method of reasoning, they actually stood a pretty good chance of getting what they wanted from Bezos; they simply misjudged what kind of slimeball they were dealing with. Their usual victim is someone in the public eye who needs to maintain a wholesome public image at all costs, or people who don't have the resources to fight them. Turns out Bezos doesn't fit into either category --- which they should have figured out if they'd put 10 seconds' worth of thought into it. (On the other hand, maybe they did put that much thought into it, but if --- *if*, I say --- if the president of the United States tells you to do something, you'd better do it whether you think it's a good idea or not. This president, anyway.)
30
@John Grillo AMI most assuredly has the commander in chief in its corner, along with the third of the country that identifies itself as a MAGA(t). That is not an underdog.
16
As the world’s richest man, Bezos might be just the guy we need to lobby passage of laws making Journalistic Slander a crime.
What would that be?
(1)
One should not be able to purposely, knowingly or intentionally disseminate (publish) information, with intent that it be consumed by the public as news, as fact when one knows, should know (minimal/reasonable investigation) or ought to have known it is not.
(2)
Engage in extortion when handling salacious information.
What got me thinking about this was when Pallin called end of life planning to be “death panels” and used this deciet to have it stripped from the ACA, just for sport. Meanwhile millions of people will not plan for death of loved ones, and then when hit by the real thing find they cannot make the simplest of decisions when they are in deep pain that comes with the loss of a loved one.
They can hang the death penalty on Journalistic Slander while they are at it.
This one measure would gut Fox News of it’s M.O. and its mojo. It would also go a great distance to mitigate the damage done by elimination of the fairness rule.
Bezo’s owns legitimate media. He now finds himself in battle with illegitimate media. Why not bring it down completely.
Some have said he should buy Fox and then fire everyone. Before that, do this and destroy Fox’s value, then buy it for nickels on the dollar when it finds it cannot make money by telling straight honest news.
17
@Tim Kane
And while they are at it, even while they are eliminating the death penalty for people, it should become de jure for corporations that break the law.
A company breaks the law, they get the death penalty. The stock is made untransferable and the company is liquidated by the state, its assets put up for auction and the value retained by the public.
I love the fact that the AMI people are so stupid that it never occurred to them by threatening Bezos they violated the agreement they made with Mueller. This, of course, may trigger the penalties against them that were held off on the basis that they behaved in a legal manner.
666
@Subject to change. Maybe Pecker didn't realize -- or maybe he was desperate to be welcomed back to the Trump bosom and arrogant enough to risk violating the agreement -- or maybe a daisy chain of blackmail.
18
@Subject to change There has been a whole lot of stupid in this story. That's the amazing thing, that such incredibly rich and powerful people are as dumb as everyone else some days.
24
@Subject to change
Must have been so very sure that Bezos would cave to the blackmail.
20
Reminiscent of Letterman not giving in to creepy blackmailer. His extortionist went to jail. I can't be the only observer who hopes this romance dies soon. Bezos looks like a total fool for wrecking his marriage for this Hollywood silicone simulant.
13
He gave up his wife for that person?
20
@Longue Carabine:
And her brother, who apparently sold access to his private communication to AMI.
6
So Bezo's lawyer claims that Nat Inquirer is Blackmailing and Extorting him by threatening to embarrass him by exposing a sexual encounter unless he does what they want him to do in return.Why isnt what Stormy Daniels did to Trump and continues to do any different.She thretens to expose him after a sexual encounter ...takes $150000 in hush money from a legit Non Disclosure Agreement ..yet after getting the money wants more..NO THATS blackmail and extortion..Even Got Michael Cohen entangled in a nothing burger.
5
The issue with Stormy Daniels is whether or not the hush money payment was made as an illegal campaign contribution. If the efforts are to disclose criminal conduct, and criminal conduct is exposed, why would you object to its exposure?
8
@Laquisha Reynolds The day Jeff Bezos asks you to vote for him for public office is the day your “whataboutism” becomes relevant.
1
@Laquisha Reynolds: One gets what one can bargain for in the lessez-faire USA.
Bezos is NOT a hero, he is a self-interested oligarch with money to burn and breathtakingly stupid enemies.
If he'd had the integrity to do something useful with his vast wealth -enough to make renewables cheap, elections fair, or education free- instead of taking pictures of his genitalia, he wouldn't be in this mess.
The billionaires are either with us or against, and Jeff Bezos is no Bill Gates.
17
@Josh Wilson: Billionaires taking joyrides into Space obviously don't believe that climate change is an issue. I haven't seen any objective analysis of the relative fuel economy of various means of distribution either.
2
@Josh Wilson:
Neither is Bill Gates.
He lobbied for H1b visas. My life still has not recovered.
3
What was it Reagan said, oh yeah I remember
" Though shall not speak ill of fellow journalist's"
Paraphrased somewhat
Pecker and company had a deal with the government. Then they go and do this. Just plain stupid on an existential level.
Monday ought to be interesting when the prosecutors get back to work.
Nobody is going to ever mess with Bezos again.
9
@Stan: This won't be the first time a billionaire snuffed a publication.
1
Bezos has the money to politically put these corrupt clowns out of office. Vote out the GOP in 2020!
9
With all the money this Pezos have he could have turned McKenzie into a super model of his liking instead of chasing an alley cat. To make it worse he took a picture of his brains and sent it via his phone.
9
@Soro Hattie: Funny! The only thing I object to is your advice about McKenzie. She doesn't need changing, because she looks beautiful enough, looking like a real woman, not a dozen in a dime plastic surgery enhanced alley cat.
Jeff Bezos could shoot someone in downtown Seattle at this point, and he would be cheered as a hero.
6
Can't help but wonder if this seemingly unrelated crime will be akin to the robbery of Ellsberg's psychiatric files-you know the 'break-in' that time forget that then started the unravelling of the hideous presidency of Dick Nixon. Bezos may prove to be more of a history than he realizes.
1
" complexifier " is the new " covfefe ".
Thanks, Jeff. You the Man.
3
What a nest of snakes. Bezos, a man who could single-handedly solve a million problems if he did something constructive with his billions, destroys the retail business. Meanwhile, the media laud him as a hero for sacrificing pictures of his package to a supermarket rag swallowed by the stupid and owned by Trump's protector. And in another part of the nest, Sanchez's brother cozies up to criminals who are also Trump's sidemen. You just couldn't make this stuff up.
15
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
– 19th century British politician Lord Acton.
The Bezos soap opera is a “complexifier” with more ugly chapters to come … as he scores more “own goals.”
Meanwhile, the wealthy Dumb are drawing the Dumber and the Dumbest … and each other … into their web of deceit, intrigue and lies … and the world yawns !!!
5
@Gerry O'Brien
“Power reveals” - Robert Caro, and later, Michelle Obama
1
Go get 'em Jeff!
2
Bezos cheated on his wife, got exposed, and now he is a hero?
Why- because we hate Trump more than we cherish our values.
What a mentality has overcome the US!
19
@R. R.
Unless you forgot, trump is a cheater too plus liar.
2
@dupr
Yes, but this article is about Bezos.
@R. R.
They are certainly not "values" if they are dependent on the "R" or "D" next to someone's name. They are ideology.
We have a president who spends his day in vindictive schemes. Farmers are going bankrupt, black men are shot on sight, Ivanka gets a Chinese trademark for voting machines, a smug and shiny Jared follows his father's moral abyss of character, corporations dodge taxes while the worker is burden anew with a fake tax cut package, trump gives lying tours of our WH and billionaires take pictures of their genitals. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. I, for one, have always been revolted by the Enquirer, a base and lowly Murdock type rag, and now we are living in it's pages. For god's sake America, get out of the gutter.
70
The circle around Trump and Trump are disgusting. Money is their god and nothing will stand in the way of acquiring more. Democracy BAH! Laws BAH! Blackmail Humbug! Murder Too! It's all OK!
8
New Yorkers especially they say, love to step on a cockroach.
Here’s Mr Bezos turn - go Jeff!
15
Great PR. A guy whose habits with photos is one step above Anthony Weiner gets to play the victim. He has enough money and enough newspaper influence Main Street media move in lock step behind him, all playing the same tune. Still, the founder and head of Amazon is kind of a pervert. Implying government "forces" were behind the photo leaks is smart, too....gets his pals in the media looking for a Trump link. But using government agencies to go after political enemies is an Obama move. IRS after the Tea Party, FBI, DOJ, CIA and NSA after Trump and his campaign. We will just have to see how it plays out.
13
@Norm
I can only say "wow"
2
Maureen's Word of the Week:
louche /lo͞oSH/ adjective
adjective: louche; comparative adjective: loucher; superlative adjective: louchest
disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.
"the louche world of the theater"
8
@Rahn Louche is one her favorite words. Not the first time she's used it.
4
@Rahn, I picked mammonism, the greedy pursuit of riches, tantamount to devotion.
Wow, she's stunning, and way out of his league. If he doesn't realize she's after the money, he gets what he deserves. As far as the extortion, it's not much different than what Amazon did to cities competing for their new HQ2. How much is enough, Jeff? Will billionaires ever be satisfied?
#EnoughsEnough
#ClassWar
#EatTheRich
6
@Cid
And you believe Melania married the Donald for his brains?
1
Bezos is garbage for believing because he's rich that he's moved beyond a perfectly intelligent and beautiful wife. Has zero to do with National Enquirer or Trump or a conspiracy, it's about a man with money thinking his woman is no longer useful. Should teach us lesser echelons to remember what's real...and what matters. Money is nothing if you are empty.
17
Don't you guys get it? Trump is draining the swamp.
6
@Rafael
hopefully he is draining the Washington Post
The Nat Enquirer is a more credible anyway
1
While I don't have much sympathy for Bezos, anyone who stands up to illegal blackmail and tabloid journalism, in addition to owning a great newspaper himself, is not all bad.
23
How is it even possible that Donald Trump and David Pecker could drag the Office of POTUS any deeper into disrepute? Somehow they managed. The irony here may be that a supermarket gossip rag ended a Presidency when Congress and a Special Counsel faced unsurmountable obstacles in their effort to do so.
9
So is the girlfriend's brother backstabbing her too? Why?
10
A large portion of Bezos's billions comes from government contracts selling tech and webspace to build privacy-busting surveillance state apparatus. Apparently it's OK for the NSA to read every text every American says, except for Richie Jeff. Karma is, well, you know.
13
The real story here is how much, if any of what AMI tried to do to Bezos was at the behest of Trump or one of his minions. No direct evidence of that yet, but give it time. Now that they have control, wait for the House investigation. Mueller might also be inclined to go down this path. He’s already got Stone over a barrel. Conspiracy to commit Blackmail is most certainly a high crime and misdemeanor.
8
It’s been a mystery to me why Trump has not yet published a book containing all of his Tweets, including expensive leather-bound editions and Kindle -- if Mr. Bezos will allow it -- which as a first-rate businessman, I'm confident he would.
The book would be an instant best-seller all around the world and would occupy a place of honor next to the Holy Bible in the homes of millions of Trump's fundamentalist admirers.
Some kind of a tie-in with the Gideon people who place Bibles in hotel rooms could assure good sales for many years to come, as well as rich laughter in many of the rooms.
Naturally, he will be continuing his tweeting, so publishing one now will give him and Mr. Bezos the opportunity to put out later editions.
As the star of The Apprentice and Trump University, Trump earned considerable respect and admiration as a con-artist, so why is he missing out on this very obvious opportunity now?
5
Trump is not going to be happy that all this talk is about somebody other than himself! However, if he reads it, he might learn something about being a man.
3
Maureen at her best. Thank you. Now convince the 60 million Americans who voted for Trump that if they re-elect him, China will rule the world by 2030.
3
Calling Bezos an enemy of privacy over-states the case. Neither our culture nor our laws guarantee anonymity. I know someone who used to be asked how to avoid negative publicity, by business associates. Their advice was always the same, 'Imagine that whatever you do winds up on the front page of the New York Times. Choose what you do by that standard.'
1
So, has anyone asked the question. Did the Lauren and Michael Sanchez set out to do this together?
12
Comparisons of AMI and Gawker are wrong. Gawker did not attempt extortion.
7
Thanks, Ms Dowd, for another entertaining and enlightening piece.
That's good: no blind regards for anyone, whichever be their revenues.
America needs a fair media. That is the indispensable essence of a working democracy.
3
More hacked emails. Strange that the only person who wasn't hacked successfully was Hillary.
4
"Or another about his yearning to wake up next to her, have coffee and read the paper — The Washington Post, presumably."
I laughed so hard at that. Perfect.
2
Nice for Bezos that he can pull this off. Good for the rest of us too. Too bad it take billions to afford to stand up to a bully.
10
Bezos is one of the few people in the world with the means to destroy AMI, a company which relies on trickery, subterfuge, and blackmail to sell sensational junk to gullible readers and make a profit. They just handed him a reason to act.
8
If you wonder about how the pictures are leaked then:
The Post reported that Michael Sanchez, Lauren’s brother who says he is also her manager — and who is close to Roger Stone and Carter Page — said he was told by several people at A.M.I. that The Enquirer wanted to do “a takedown to make Trump happy.”
7
I also have an issue with the demise of independent booksellers etc..but it is not all Bezo's fault..many other factors. If he is anyway able to bring down this current travesty in the WH.-and all the criminals involved there well.-he didn't start that fight - but he would go a long way towards forgiveness for many..including me
3
Call me blind. I fail to see the "opinion" in her piece!
Rehashing stuff we already knew is "opinion"?
1
A media source that is politically motivated? Say it ain’t so...
1
Jeff Bezos is the American dream. He had an idea and operationalized it over many years. His family and friends invested. What is wrong with that? At 64 yrs old I have finally learned not to judge other people’s marriages. It took years. Why don’t you try it? Jeff’s father,Mike, worked for my husband for years. A good family, as is Jeff. Amazon changes lives. You don’t have to use it. Waste your weekends after working 80 hours doing errands. It’s your choice. I chose not to. Thank you Amazon.
5
The most amusing aspect of this story is Donald Trump trusting the permanent government intelligence apparatus enough to use them to hack Bezos...who should change his name to Bozos if he really believes it.
I'm surprised he didn't use an encrypted texting service while communicating with his lover.
5
@Blue Jay- Maybe that was too complicated for him. How many internet users know what a VPN is? Then again, VPN’s have a user fee and maybe Jeff was trying to save money. Think so?
1
Bezos is powerful and well funded. He can defend himself and prevail to some extent. But it will show everyone just how powerful and dangerous he can be if riled. Using WAPO to shape a narrative is his prerogative. Normally Dowd would trash efforts like those of Bezos. The Enquirer offers a more insidious target. Neither will come out looking tasteful.
2
Interesting -"Bezos may be a key player in the Silicon Valley scheme to destroy privacy and ratchet up excess in the interest of mammonism, but for the moment, he’s a hero." Maybe....It would be ironic if his own surveillance software--Facial Rekognition--was used against him. Live by the sword-Die by the sword??
3
It's amazing to see the self serving hypocrisy of the liberal media. The National Enquirer did a good job of exposing Bezos for the irresponsible arrogant dog that he really is. I was inclined to think favorably of him until the revelations of his sultry affair, but that was because I was ignorant of his true nature. The National Enquirer deserves a reward because they did a lot of hard work and went to considerable expense for this legitimate story. They even deserve a reward for their baiting Bezos with "blackmail". Bezos only just managed to save himself further problems by not taking the bait but he certainly is not a hero, despite what the fawning liberal, Anti-Trump media claims. After all, Bezos owns the Washington Post and you liberal media machine operators have to stick together. We, and he, are just beginning to discover the massive problems he has caused with his irresponsible behavior. His rejection of the so-called "blackmail" attempt is the equivalent of remaining on the scene of an accident caused by his driving while drunk.
5
If you’re indignation about “irresponsible behavior” involves men behaving as dogs, betraying marital vows, then DJT leads the pack. The Natl Enquirer hardly deserves praise for busting Bezos; our national interest is not served by kicking down the door to private consensual life.
1
Another sad page in how complex civilizations fail and fall. We ain't Amazoning our way to the Rapture. Another sad glossy page in big capital capture.
If decades ago you have told me that Fox, the channel that aired such "guilty pleasure" lowbrow TV shows like Married with Children, and the National Inquirer, a perennial purveyor of trash and baseless gossip, would have evolved into powerful media insiders and proxies for the Republican Party and Donald Trump, who is their party head and president of the US, and fervently embraced by the descendants of Jerry Falwell and the religious right, well....
You know the rest.
The US is defining deviance down, way, way down. And it is the erstwhile Party of "family values" that is leading the way.
The Right has no shame, and all ethics are situational, and all that matters is winning, and Spanish-speaking people are subhuman.
How do we like those values?
And are there so-called "conservative" leaders who can see what all this is doing to our democracy?
Where are they?
6
As always, great writing, Maureen Dowd! I can't wait to see how this 21st Century Clash of the Titans ends, for Bezos' s public refusal to capitulate to AMI blackmail and theft has just released the Federal Kraken on AMI and Its collaborators....stay tuned!
All of it disgusting from every perspective. So much clutter and chaos! " Imagine.." John Lennon
1
@susan Blanchard....Imagine there is no heaven, nothing to kill or die for. Imagine no more work, allotments and free stuff. Does 'free education' include food and dorm? asking for a friend.
Bezos’ rationale to confront and how he handled this exhortion won my respect!
He is the one with resources and clout to stop this type of mafia journalism practice. Once for all! Shouldn’t National Inquirer, no good for society, be buried finally?
I shared Bezos suspicions that this incident can be traced back to our petty mafia president. And Bezos' emails may be leaked by foreign intelligence (who else has the capacity and motive than Saudi!?) Trump has long considered Bezos an enemy and trying to hurt Bezos fits his behavioral pattern and vindictive nature. In fact, this is kind of things Trump has done all his adult life.
It is reasonable to think Trump must have used those taxpayers funded “Executive Hours” to plot how to use presidency to enrich himself or how to hurt his enemies and opponents.
8
Bezos will rue leaving his wife if he marries his lover - most men do.
9
For those who may be asleep at the wheel, America is in the midst of a cultural sea change that can be likened to the sinking Titanic.
Trump has assumed leadership of and given a voice to the most ignorant and depraved that can be nurtured by the worst president in the history of the country.
The surge of interest in running for office is an attempt at life saving for a failing culture.
Let’s hope they succeed!
10
Frankly, anything or anyone who can take on POTUS, humble him and if possible humiliate him, is a hero! Good luck Bezos.
2
It would have been so cool if Bezo selected Detroit to open his new HQ. Or Dayton. Or Flint.
Oh, well...
5
As much as I love reading Maureen Dowd, Glenn Greenwald has a much more clear-eyed take on this, and one far less kind to Bezos, entitled "Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else."
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/
5
So tired of progressive hypocrisy. Out of one side of their mouths, they're going after rich people. Out of the other side, they're excusing Bezos because, well, Trump.
This is why they cannot be trusted to make important policy decisions. Their principles blow in the partisan winds.
6
@AACNY
Ah, we see... we either approve of every aspect of an individual's behavior, or we disapprove of them entirely. You live in an interesting mental world.
Time for new batteries... your bulb is dimming. (Not, however, inconsistently with many of your posts...) Or, more concisely, your "principles" blow.
Think about it. When your tantrum wears off, you may understand....
A blackmail plot from the 50s- in our age of shamelessness, who cares?
In order to get through this post, I had to endure and/or dismiss Maureen's snarky comments throughout, even though she is one of the snarkiest writers around, always looking for the supposedly humorous and insightful yet cynical angle but often ending up just being mocking and snide. When I read her second paragraph, for example, I was thinking "get to the point". I don't often read her columns, having been turned off years ago by many of her pieces on Barack and other posts on Hilary; other readers in the past have also criticized her mightily for some of those columns and especially her molasses slow calling out Trump.
But Bezos is dealing with something that many other people are, and its a self-righteous but malicious, truly evil dissemination of private photos by someone or some organization which almost always wants something in exchange, usually money or some favor but sometimes just the opportunity to show that they wield power over you from stolen material. It's the shameless, in this case the Enquirer and AMI, trying to bring shame to someone, in this case Bezos, but it could be anyone whose privacy is invaded. Almost everyone is vulnerable and of course any victim would want to know exactly how did someone else obtain the photos?
Only recently are laws starting to address this, and not everywhere. But exposing private photos for one kind of profit or another is always wrong, always profoundly offensive and (in my view) always criminal.
4
I love Amazon, and yes, it is an addiction for me. Let's face it, for many of their items, the prices are great. And Whole Foods' costs have gone down a notch - just a notch - since Bezos bought it. But....my liberal instincts tend to kick in with this mega-billion dollar enterprise. What ever happened to our anti-trust laws? We do still have them, don't we? And how many brick and mortar stores have descended since Amazon ascended?
That being said, I still am knocked over by the sliminess of all things Trump-related. I can not think of one decent person, family included, in his orbit, both domestically and internationally. What Bezos did was dumb and, well, kinda disgusting, too, for those of us not into sexting. However, when juxtaposed with Trumpistic greed, debauchery, and corruptness, even Virginia's legislators look a tad better.
So we await for another mess to get messier. Nothing new with this now 2 year-old social and political paradigm. Anyway...if you excuse me now, I need to order some eye-glass readers and cases from Amazon....
2
the Washington Post is a great paper-thousands of readers depend on it for their news and opinion.Trump and Prince bin Salman happen to detest their journalism, in fact , they both detest any coverage which does not praise them.The National Enquirer is an exploitive, trashy newspaper which decided it could do to Bezos what they had done to others.He called their bluff and called out their extortion.If Bezos can make the Enquirer go away while supporting the journalistic excellence of the Post , he will indeed be a hero.
10
The ‘nail Trump’ fantasy continues. So after 75 years of airing out the mob’s laundry, well as JFK’s, the royal family, thousands of celebs who think they are above the law as well as the Clintons (which is what this is really about, their contempt for that dysfunctional bunch), Bezos and the NY zealous prosecutors will be the ones to ‘defeat’ them. The high and mighty have tried to bring down the Enquirer before the world was privy to Bezos’ existence. They’ve been sued hundreds of times and never lost, so good luck Junior. BTW, since ya’ll are dispatching the Clinton foes for good this time, may as well scoop the NRA into the dragnet. They, along with the Enquirer and the Russians were responsible for her losing-never forget. Seriously, this is really pathetic. I mean, wouldn’t it be really great if the Enquirer were some nehow silenced before the 2020 elections? Hillary would like that-I mean, if she were to run. You know that are going to humiliate her like never before if she tries a third time. Bezos is nothing but a surrogate, this is really about Hillary’s 2020 run.
2
There are more tiny Trump / Saudi fingerprints on this thing than there are on Trump's Twitter screen.
5
Maureen
Not sure where you your idea that the caveman was into hoarding stuff .
It was quite the opposite .
Our ancestors were foragers ,moving from place to place in search of food and water.
It was folks like Bezos who created this societal desire to buy more and more stuff.
Anyway,still wish him well even after making the ‘worst mistake of the year’.
1
Apart from mind-numbing complexity, the Trump cronies make 'swamp' look refreshing.
Almost every twist in the Trump/Page/Kushner/Manafort/Cohen cascade of infamy draws America into a new low of lurid, petty and dirty.
What a waste of national attention.
2
I personally admire Jeff Bezos because he started from zero and made his way up. I am sure he has used all the loopholes existed in this country to advance Amazon. He is super rich and has to contribute much more to this country. He is a different kind of breed compared to spoiled pampered Trump or Kushner. I am happy that he is using his wealth and power to destroy AMI and all those suckers. Anyone who takes on Trump I support.
2
Has Maureen got her mojo back? — Maybe.
While not a fan of the race to the bottom Amazon employment policies as they are not much better than Walmart's I am appreciative of The Washington Post. The country badly needed a second journalistic voice.
1
Trump hates Bezos for two main reasons. One, because Bezos owns WAPO as it almost daily casts a light on Trump's dark seedy underbelly and two because Bezos is the richest man on the planet... and Trump's not!
9
In 1981, Carol Burnett won a $1.6 million dollar lawsuit against the National Enquirer for a fake story that she was drunk in public at a restaurant with Henry Kissenger in 1976.
Burnett said (and this was in the Times):
'' 'If they'd given me $1 plus car fare, I'd have been happy, because it was the principle.' 'They didn't give a darn about my rights as a human being,' she continued. 'I didn't do a thing to The National Enquirer; they did it to themselves.' "
I'd say nothing has changed but it has: The National Enquirer has gotten much, much worse and is now advocating for a foreign power, Saudi Arabia, against the US's freedom of the press, and an American citizen.
12
I have to give credit where credit is due
Maureen made it through an entire piece that touched on infidelity without hammering Hillary.
4
The toxic depravity of Trump and his associates was evident decades ago yet the country was foolish enough to elect him president. The true depravity which you should be writing about his how the Republican party continues to excuse every criminal relationship in Trump World. Hopefully, the Democratic congress will shine a light on the sleazy underbelly of everything Trump. In the mean, time take a look at those elected Trump enablers. And if you still have any ink left, describe how much better off the country would be if those horrible Clintons were in charge.
4
It's beyond amazing that this sleazy, propaganda, smut rag, aka the National Enquirer, is still tolerated ‘point of sale’ at the checkout lanes in our supermarkets. Oh, that's right, I forgot, it's what Americans like to read. Says a lot for us, doesn't it? Next time I go shopping I’m thinking of asking the store manager why they still sell such junk. It should be interesting to hear the manager’s reply.
4
This issue goes to prove a person can be very successful in their career while at the same time be a textbook case of arrested development. These photos would not be surprising to have been sent by an 8th grade boy to the girl he met at summer camp last July.
Parents take note: your errors in parenting your sons pale in comparison to what Jeff Bezos’ parents are saying to themselves this week:
Mom Bezos: I am so upset! Jeff is acting like he is back in 8th grade. How humiliating. After Yale. And Harvard Law. I can’t understand where we missed the signs he was like this...
Dad Bezos: Well, Helen, remember when he drew pornographic cartoons of his teachers and his drawings were intercepted in 8th grade study hall? And you told the principal, “Oh, what’s the big deal? Boys will be boys.”?
Mom Bezos: You make a good point, Homer. Children learn about appropriate boundaries from their family.
3
Being an uber-merchant is "an incredibly impressive person?" I agree with the adverb; the word "incredibly" is often used incredibly. On hearing that word, a fave among a certain age and odious pitchmen cohort, I find myself often with the inner retort, "You know, you're right. Just not in the way you think you are."
Aside from that snark and my general abhorrence of craven business idolatry, Bezos did everyone a solid by stuffing these troglodyte types who enable the Trumps of the world.
1
I love it: the owner of the Washington Post flips the table and takes on the owner of the sleazy National Enquirer.
Bezos has given new meaning to the Washington Post slogan that "democracy dies in darkness".
4
It is somehow ironic that an adultering billionaire from the left is embraced in his takedown of an adultering billionaire from the right, as America somehow misses the "big picture" that if we focused more on each other and less on our egos and genitalia the world would be a much better place. Granted AMI has gone well beyond the context of marital infidelity and Bezos' failure to capitulate and his ability to risk personal embarrassment for justice are admirable it is a sad day in America when sleaze, private parts, racism, and sexual harassment/rape provide the bulk of our headlines and occupy the halls of our government. That is the true indecency.
3
At last! An op-Ed piece not about Donald Trump. Who knew such a thing was possible?
1
Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.
2
In one of the few articles that doesn’t mention Gavin de Becker, this piece rings hollow as there is a clear guiding hand of truth at Bezos’ side, illuminating for him the way to handle thugs. Because de Becker has dealt with actual thugs for his entire career of preventing tissue damage. He also helped handle Garry Shandling’s PR crisis in the 90s. “Bezos’ superior survival instincts kicked in”- Um yeah, those instincts are directly linked to the world’s leading expert on violence prediction and prevention: Gavin de Becker. I’m not sure why Bezos is getting called “Daddy Warbucks” in this piece because there are no orphans- or children to be seen- and certainly no Annie. I expect better research from any NYT piece even an op ed.
1
Pecker would be well-advised to eschew blackmail and extortion in order to concentrate on his core competencies, Elvis sightings and alien abductions.
441
If any Social Scientist wonder how Americans got to this sad state I suggest they simply stand in the longest checkout line available at the local supermarket. What’s on offer there for “news” is unfortunately an indication that our educational system needs a lot of work and fast.
8
If I had Amazon stock, which I unfortunately do not, I would sell while the price is high. If Bezos has been the creative driving force that made Amazon what it is today he has severely compromised his ability and influence now. Maybe it will take a while to show but the damage has been done, but maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't matter. I don't own any Amazon stock.
4
Ms. Dowd you say, "Yet the richest dude on earth has managed to come through a traumatic week inspiring admiration."
WE THE PEOPLE are cheering the sharks eating each other not the man. That is what they do.
Mr. Bezos spoke up to save himself. I seriously doubt he would take the same action for someone lesser mortal. I have no illusion that he wants to preserve democracy in OUR United States of America.
He's to busy thinking he's some master of the universe. Funny thing, take off his clothes and take away all the "stuff" he and his family have stolen and he's just another human being. However, I would not want to leave the legacy he is leaving when I die. He is a master on the road to authoritarianism and hell for 99.9% of the people on the planet.
Consumer choice is what has driven progress and prosperity in OUR United States of America and he is taking it away, in all social segments, as fast as he can and the Robber Baron regulators allow him to.
4
I hardly expect Bezos to suddenly declare that corporations like Amazon or FoxConn do not warrant massive tax breaks in order to win their business. Still, perhaps, there are signs of emerging humanity from the world's richest man.
There must be satisfaction is being an innovative disrupt-or that leads to unimaginable wealth (though what Bezos did is what Sears could have, should have, done)
Perhaps there is even more meaning in being human, and plying your resources towards a greater good. I'm hopeful that is the direction Bezos is headed.
Pecker and his lawyer may have gotten away writing letters like this for a long time without contemplating the consequences for what looks like extortion.Both AMI and the president seem to abuse their power by intimidating and threatening others. Bezos seems to be looking for answers and to curtail AMI from doing this kind of thing any more in the future, and his honesty and serving the public's interest is refreshing to see.
281
The tactics of Roy Cohn who used blackmail and extortion as his main mechanisms for power are now In the Trump/Pecker/Putin game. Trump smeared his way to office and continues to believe winning at any cost makes him smart, not dirty.
If this now drives US foreign policy, we are doomed.
28
@Sara...if I remember correctly, Roy Cohn (he of the McCarthy disaster) was a pal of Fred Trump and a mentor of Donald......no surprise here at Trump's frame of mind.....
16
@SallyYes, his wife will vouch for his honesty, & since he's a Democrat, his loyalty, faithfulness to his vows, integrity, he'll probably run for POTUS next.
Wow.
Since when are progressives cheering on the most notorious of our era's bully billionaires?
If you thought Walmart was evil, what do you make of a monster that pays people even less than Walmart and that is now seeking to make money - monetize, in Silicon-ese - off of your every thought and (inferred) desire?
Are you people nuts?
Bezos is not a progressive.
He is not an ally of progress. He is destroying privacy and individual dignity: destroying the foundations of our civilization.
Wake up, fools. He's not your friend.
7
@T-Bone
Trump.
3
@T-Bone This is war. Any enemy of my enemy is my friend.
1
@kozarrj
In context.
1
It is too obvious all media outlets(MSM) are doing bidding for Mr Bezoz (except Wapo) as it may appear to be a be another handmaiden's ( MSM) tale. Lets see what happens. Bottom line the guy was cheating on his wife and got caught , hence the immediate divorce settlement and Mr Bezoz is looking under each log!!!!! Now he is trying to prove extortion . Mr Bezoz is not the hero here. So stop declaring him to be some sort of moral victor and hero against whoever it may be. Also his billions do not ascertain him victory of any sort. It helps to achieve goals however.
4
Has anyone called this bit of intrigue Peckergate yet?
4
@Robert Kerry
After the incredible, hall-of-fame Bezos Exposes Pecker headline, any further attempts at wordplay on the topic are pointless...
is it just me or is Ms Sanchez starting to look like a honey trap?
11
@aurora: The only analogy that comes to mind regarding Bezos at this point, is the Old Testament's Biblical story about Samson & Delilah. Delilah (i.e. Lauren Sanchez) was bribed to entrap Samson (i.e. Bezos), whereupon she took advantage of his confidence to betray him to his enemies.
1
Assuming the story is true, ie Bezos took the pics and they were stolen, how idiotic can this guy be?
He is the richest man in the world. He knows if you put anything on the web or even not on the web consider the distinct possibility of it being leaked, stolen etc. unless you want to guard it 24/7 with security and even then there is no guarantee.
He apparently has a billion dollar wallet but a ten cent brain.
6
If the second Amazon HQ is run out of NYC, I hope The National Enquirer gets run out of bodegas and drug stores.
5
"(Bezos) is an incredibly impressive person."
Yeah, right. Because he can breeze through his own sleaze better than Trump?
In today' sex world its not what you do, its the way that you do it, as the song says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8fCXNTCWig
1
That is how you handle a blackmailer!
Really interesting to see this axis of all that is negative in our culture - the National Enquirer, Trump, Racists, the NRA, showing their connection - and for many - their sponsor - Russia.
4
The GOP loves their muck-raking, gutter-dwelling tabloids. They also love the Saudis (15 of 19, 9/11 hijackers were Saudi) and finally, Ta Da!, they love Putin and the Russian state. What a grand old party indeed.
5
Disappointing to find another man who should know better sending out nudes. Just what we need.
4
this Bezos apparently is under
the impression that women
love him for his ,shall we say,
Amazonian enhancements
rather then the enhancement
of his wallet.the old cliche
applies here:there is no fool
like an old fool or in this case
an incredibly rich old fool.
2
Guess Trump doing the jig with the Saudi Prince wasn’t so cute after all...
But we all knew that.
7
Excellent word from the French, "Complexifier" Bezos coined
re his epic fight against David Pecker and his tabloid Inquirer.
Jeff Bezos, billionaire creator of the horizontal smile (amazon.com) and the owner of the Washington Post, has been a thorn in DonaldTrump's side (and Richard Nixon's in 1973).
Bezos has algorithmed folks on all 5 continents to go into debt for their demented consumerism and instant gratification with plastic cards. Buy now, suffer later. The world's richest man (sic) could help humankind understand that less is more, and the private, unplugged life off the grid is worth living, that climate change is our most pressing
and unsolvable problem. Climate warming is our present and future.
Great job that Bezos is standing up to bullying, to president Trump and his malign social media bullies. Let's hope his Wa Po reporters (Pace: Jamal Khashoggi) will bring down our 45th president and his pal, Saudi "very strong man", Prince MbS as they did President Nixon in 1973.
Jeff Bezos, Michelle Robinson Obama ("Becoming") and Brooke Shields,
were Princeton undergrads at the same time -- 1985. We're all living through
the synergy of this complexifying time, 2019. A dystopian present under Donald
Trump harking back to American dystopia under Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
2
@Nan Socolow No one gets "algorithmed" into making bad choices. They make bad choices because they choose to do so, thus they are called choices, not mandates.
1
Had Bezos given in to AMI's disgraceful threat and signed an agreement with them, the news that he did would have gotten out. By agreeing to quash stories, Bezos would have been discredited as owner of the Washington Post.
Going public with the blackmail and pursuing AMI to find out how they obtained his personal property was the only rational thing Bezos could do.
5
Over many years, as super-market checkout lanes became bordered with the rediculousness of the tabloid "culture" headlining stories of abductions by space aliens, lizard-skinned babies seemingly fathered by Komodo dragons, along with ruthless and slanderous reports of celebrites, I have wondered what kind of person actually reads that "stuff" (I needed a noun that would get past the editors).
If only we could get MRI or CAT scan images of the brains of those people. What would a neurologist say about any strange patterns in the various sections of the brain that could predict such bizarre patterns of human behavior? Maybe it could explain Trump and his fan base, a group of about 40 million Americans willing to forgive his life of transgressions such as, business fraud, maritale infidelities, sexual predation, and a pattern of lying that he finds perfectly normal.
In all of that forgiveness of inhuman traits by Trump & Company, there seems a common thread with those readers of The Inquirer and other mindless tabloids. A terrible waste of newsprint, AMI may have met its match in Jeff Bezos.
And while nothing can excuse Bezos's infidelity to his wife, that should be between the two of them, not a vengeful tabloid covering its own tracks.
Little wonder Bezos has managed to gather such a large fan base in an effort to deliver a death blow to AMI and its CEO, David Pecker. I can't wait for this game of billion-dollar poker to begin. Jokes will fly, but odds are with Bezos.
332
@David Ohman. I always take great pleasure when I am out grocery shopping to turn the Enquirer's evil displays backwards. I usually try to do this surreptitiously, but after the 2016 election, I was so disgusted at the crowing cover, I just did it with a long line of shoppers bearing witness. They all clapped in approval. Just my little way of fighting back.
63
@DL: Good on you! I once picked up a copy of the NE, with a front-page scurrilous story about Obama, from its grocery store rack, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The clerk didn't ask me to pay for it.
45
@David Ohman --- I remember reading somewhere that the brains of conservative are more active in the areas associated with fear and worry than the brains of liberals. It's probably fake news, and all thinking people know you can't trust science anyway.
14
I couldn't care less who Bezos or any other consenting adults send nude pictures too. That's private to all those involved and none of my business. So I refuse to characterize this as stupid - because all people deserve to have a private life - regardless of fame or wealth. The Enquirer has done its best to embarrass and humiliate and destroy the reputation of people for decades by exposing what should be private. That's bad enough. But - then using its disgusting brand of magazine to blackmail people who are enemies of their friends - particularly when that friend is the President is clearly criminal. I hope they all end up disgraced and in jail. Shame on anyone who buys this garbage. I'm sure you wouldn't want your private emails and photos exposed either
14
I can separate Jeff Bezos the man from Jeff Bezos the CEO.
As CEO he has done some good and much harm. Amazon has allowed some to profit off its model but has also been responsible for the demise of many small businesses and does not treat its employees well.
However, as a deep-pocketed citizen, Jeff Bezos has the means and wherewithal to take down the Enquirer and David Pecker, both responsible for ramping up support Trump with vitriol and lies. For that I wish him much success and will be forever grateful.
Ms. Dowd, you neglected to mention the vile, merciless, misogynistic treatment Hilary Clinton suffered at the hands of the Enquirer....oh wait. Hypocrite.
8
Artie Shaw with Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Ava Gardner: Now all that was a hot and sexy story for tabloid gourmands. Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump with any body? Canned soup.
2
You left out the 35 National Enquirer cover stories attacking Hillary during the 2016 campaign.
Guess it doesn't fit into your "But what about Wisconsin?" narrative for her loss.
10
Can I have the screen rights to this story? Please?
2
The scandal is ripe for deeper Pecker takedowns as worms crawl out of the woodwork and dozens or hundreds of instances come to light. The Bezos aspect disappears and the number of Trump and "The First Lady" episodes will be headlines in respectable publications. The Saudi tactics will flow like a spilled inkwells mostly because killing a journalist is tantamount to the slaughter of a newborn elephant or puppy. The First Lady is very quick to sue but the other side of the coin (Journalism Control and Manipulation) will now be looked at and possibly reveal (a nakedness) or ruthlessness that matches her husband with complexified on steroids.
1
There must be something more to life than this.
5
You couldn't make this stuff. If a writer threw a manuscript on an editor's desk with just half the stuff involving our dear leader in the last two years, he'd be laughed out of the room. Saudis, Russians, North Koreans, murder of a journalist, extortion, smear campaign, illegal payouts, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, Trump as a Russian agent, billion dollar hotels in Moscow, money laundering, the firing of both your FBI director and the Attorney General, Russians in the Oval Office, Cabinet sleaze, government shut down. Bezos looks like a hero because he resembles the only sane character in the script. This resembles a collage of Groundhog Day with brand new chapters of Alice in Wonderland at your doorstep every morning. At what point do we suspend our disbelief? Or better yet, when do we wake up from this nightmare?
7
Unanswered questions for me:
1) it seems like the ‘enemy’ was successful is cutting Bezos wealth in half with the divorce. Not to mention bringing an end to his marriage.
2) it’s not clear what Lauren Sanchez’s role is in this story. Did she share the pictures and texts with her brother who seems like he was working with the Enquirer to attack Bezos? How else did these private pictures and texts get out and why was the brother a suspect with Lauren being involved as well? I imagine the security that Bezos and his immediate circle have in their phones are far superior to the common persons’ phone.
3) I must ask - was Lauren Sanchez a plant to bring him down? This would not be the first time that this has happened in history with rich and powerful men.
8
@RM
Unanswered question 4) why do men think women want pictures of their "manhood"???
3
Amazon didn’t drive the small shops out of business — the big box stores did.
Amazon actually gives some of the small merchants a chance again.
14
@Thom
Bezos put the shopping malls out of business and the anchor chain stores like Sears, JC Penny etc. The big department stores are no more and are shutting down.
1
If Bezos sues and gains ownership of A.M.I. (like Gawker), he would then have access to all the "catch and kill" stories. That could be a significant danger to Peckers allies, including Trump and M.B.S..
508
@Dore
I think the Federal Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York already have the entire archive of "catch and kill" stories.
16
I wouldn't get excited. There is no court order freezing its assets. Those vaults are probably already empty.
15
This attempt at blackmail is the definition of bringing a knife to a gunfight
21
Memo to Republicans and Trump Followers: This is what you support, defend, cover for, protect. How do you sleep at night?
32
Mr. Bezos has the financial means to destroy the National Enquirer. Why the players at NE didn’t consider this prior to their idiotic and clumsy attempt to blackmail him is beyond me. I only hope he is successful in doing so. The NE is a Trump rag as much as Fox ‘News’ is Trump TV. Both pander to and profit from the segment of the country that will swallow anything that is fed to them. Both share a large amount of blame for promoting a completely unqualified, dangerous buffoon as presidential material before a gullible mass audience that bought their snake oil hook, line and sinker. It will be very satisfying to watch their demise.
37
I'm in my 60's and have seen copies of the National Enquirer on racks in malls and in seemingly every grocery checkout line I've ever waited in. In all these decades I have never touched a copy.
I didn't want to get any stupid on me.
49
Me too. Though while standing in line at Price Chopper I still remember the headline of one edition that came out in the summer of 2016. It was how Hillary Clinton had failed a secret FBI lie-detector test about her emails. That’s the sort of bombshell you’d think Trump would have made public by now ...
2
No single incident so far has defined wrong-doing among the Trump family, administration, close friends and business associates - assuming one forgets about indictments and dismissal from appointed offices - but the slope of the curve tracing their actions leans away from character or integrity and heavily towards money and power at any cost. When someone stands up to that, facades tumble and fake news rolls off the cable news, tabloid and Internet presses. While the ones who id this - some retired Senators, top aides and cabinet members - became as newsworthy as last week's ball scores, Bezos is not too likely to fade away from this fight. First, he has the resources and he has the bravery. The wags may want to burn him in effigy for an extra-marital affair, but let's contrast that for a moment with the sitting President....OK, ready to move on?
As owner of the Washington Post, he has not interfered with the news objectives, and it becomes difficult to square that with him walking away from cutting off the Enquirer's Pecker., who by contrast, uses it as a personal weapon.
Maureen, you are right: we love our stuff, but we can't get enough of seeing others get their comeuppance
12
Why won't Maureen Dowd make the effort to examine the ramifications to others, beside the pleasure seeking desires of Bezos, and catalog how this affair has affected them?
The emphasis has been that Jeff and Lauren are adults and can do whatever they want, but that's not the reality of the situation. They both are/were married and both have children who are not yet adults. How does such an affair AND the publicity affect them? What about their spouses? It's not like they don't have significant and material interests in their marriages. What is marriage for anyway? Why bother? Then there is the settlement of a Bezos divorce. His wife has a legitimate, legal and ethical entitlement to half of Bezos ownership, or controlling interest in the Amazon empire. What about the stockholders? She might take her half and sell it to the Chinese. She might decide to take the company in a different direction, use her power to cancel programs, etc.
Then there is the career prospects of his lover, Lauren Sanchez. Will she lose business or employability in the media profession because of the bad publicity as a result of this affair? Will she be invited to host 'The View' again? One could go on. But the media pundits don't. Bezos is a hero.
Maybe you noticed I didn't say anything about morals or religion or sinning. Who cares? I'm just considering the objective, practical implications of such an affair and how it affects others besides the two principals.
10
OMG/ she doesn’t write for Psychology magazine. She’s satirist, a French metaphorical word smith;- comedic in tone and hubris and sarcasm. Grow up. And, yes divorce is never happy or gleeful or most importantly, never easy for the children of any family.
1
@Lynn Fitzgerald
That's all well and good but this editorial is just a facsimile of another written by a different woman in the NYT opinion pages praising Bezos as a hero. The hypocrisy is astounding. Two women pundits in the NYT simultaneously praising a man who cheats on his wife.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Except that Dowd sees the irony and conveys it. The article is not exactly praise.
2
Bezos is in the entertainment business, and this episode is very entertaining. I hope he does a feature film for Amazon Prime Video.
2
The "repressive, misogynist nation" of Saudi Arabia is very much "the 'Magic Kingdom'.” It has the magical power of making human lives simply disappear. Poof! Saw up the remains. Splash some Chlorox around the Consulate. Fedex the packages back to the Royal Palace -- and gonzo, clean as a whistle. Kings and queens with absolute power over entire nations have a way of enabling this sort of magic.
Long live the Prince! Magic for everybody else.
4
Think Rome,..... Late Rome.
15
Shouldn’t Bezos be looking into whether he was set up? Seems like a classic honey-trap.
16
Mr. Bezos,
Alll men have peckers. The smart ones know when to keep it in their pocket. You have a wife. You have children. What harassment and embarrassment are they going through now for your thoughtless act. Once and for all, God gave all of your species the same instrument. It may come in different colors but it looks and works the same, just like nylons. People of taste and distinction understand the National Enquirer is a rag, not a newspaper, and definitely not credible journalism. When you behave like them you tarnish the work the reputable journalist of the Washington Post do.
13
Please do not even mention the washington post and national enquirer in the same sentence. Bezos causing the extinction of the national enquirer (the origonal fake news) would merit a national merit of achievement and would probably increase the national political IQ a few points. A perfect public service for a billionaire. Hopefully FOX is next.....
2
My grandmother fished for a hobby. I remember asking her "Granny, where do you get the worms?" After a rain storm, she lifted a plank in the back yard and underneath it was a multitude of slimy and sleazy creatures and then she picked out the worms. Trump world is existing underneath the plank. But the real sleaze are the Republican enablers who have been excusing him for the past two years. Use your ink to delve into why the deplorables think Trump is OK and why Republican elected officials fear them.
15
I still remember all the fake bill clinton rumors planted by the repubs in the NE. Nothing new here but hopefully Bezos will give them all a lesson in real journalism and darwinistic capitalism (that they supposedly so like).
Pecker in Prison - now thats a NE headline I'd like to see!
1
Did MBS seek Trump permission, before the fact, for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? Maybe he'd did; maybe fe didn't.
3
We will see who the "Bozo" is!
I remember Watergate well.
Trumpgate is so much more fun, though.
God bless CNN and CNBC and The Washington Post and the New York Times and all those fabulous women and men who keep us up to date in America's greatest scandal.
I, for one, trust the American people. We are an amazing people,-all 330,000,000 of us.
Trumpgate will be a distant memory soon, one which we will tell our grandchildren and great grandchildren all about.
We were there, and the goodness of our people will win.
5
@Robert I don't think I'll tell my grandchildren anything about how Trump & Co. operated.
1
Over many years, your columns in a high percentage of cases not only hit the mark, but delivered it in such readable fashion as to recognize you were giving us some inside scoop. Yes, there were numerous naysayers to your columns as the years went by, but for right now the ridiculous turmoil occurring globally absolutely is in need of your tartest response.
I am hopeful the young 20 and 30 somethings of the millennial generation will become readers of your column so they can get a front row seat to what goes on when power and wealth become discordant.
The president's followers have made a mistake taking on Jeff Bezos. Besides being the richest man in the world, he also likely has many customers, followers and admirers in the president's over publicized base.
2
This is a lot more than a case of blackmail, or one bully against another, far more.
1) The Washington Post remains one of Trump's most relentless critics, as does the "failing" (not) NY Times. and both use inconvenient and embarrassing FACTS.
2) Trump has the thinnest skin of any politician in America and a ruthless vindictiveness that knows no limit.
3) Trump LOVES dictators, esp those who stroke his ego, like MBS.
4) MBS hates criticism as much as Trump, but has no limit keeping him from torturing and killing his critics, even when they are in other countries. And he had a Post columnist murdered, one of Bezos' employees and expected zero consequences.
5) But the Post kept digging, embarrassing MBS and Trump so Trump sicced his attack dog, AMI, on his idea of the personification of the Post, Bezos.
6) What was in it for the FAILING Nat Enq? Money, lots of it, from MBS! So Pecker's gang sought to break up Bezos' marriage and black-mail him. Bezos turned on NE launching an his own investigations.
7) So AMI sought to seriously black-mail Bezos with below the waist pics...and it back-fired, big time as Bezos decided the pics (ugh!) were just embarrassing, no more, but black-mail never ends.
8) Since AMI's immunity agreement stipulated "no crimes!" or the deal was off, they are neck deep in The Big Muddy wondering if the Big Fool will tell them "Push on!"
Bezos is, actually, the victim and good guy in THIS story!
23
Good for Mr. Bezos for standing up to these crooks.
15
Aren’t these photos and sexts what the Russians, Russians, Russians call kompromat?
I bet over there they do not employ lawyerly emails in the deal. Most likely they request interpreters to surrender their notes.
4
Nasty as usual Maureen. But probably right this time. I appreciate your connecting all dots between ami, trumpworld and the rural Saudis.
4
Leave it to the NYT--that it's specifically Dowd is more or less incidental--to find a way to bash those wanting to "soak the rich" (ie, make them pay their fair share to, like, make sure the species survives--the gall!).
A more relevant commentary is Greenwald's: https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/.
One phrase I agree with wholeheartedly: "gross idolatry of billionaire investors."
3
@Doug Tarnopol - Thanks for the link! Amazing how Amazon acts as Big Brother and is a danger to Privacy i this world of surveillance.
1
one things that makes Amazon so useful is that it is cheaper to buy on line than to try to get to a store in my area. Traffic is so bad that just going 5 miles takes about an hour not even including the hunt to find an item. These days it is literally impossible to find anything related to a specialized cord for my computer. So I say thank you Mr. Bezos for your brilliant thinking. I also hope you can find out how your personal life was attacked. Next I thank you for saving the two best newspaper in the US and perhaps elsewhere.
10
Where is the late Robin Leach when we really need him, with his closing litany "champagne wishes and caviar dreams."
Ah, the (sordid) lifestyle of the rich and famous--who cares? I don't.
7
Does Ms. Dowd -- a skilled wordsmith -- not see the glaring contradiction in this graph: "Bezos may be a key player in the Silicon Valley scheme to destroy privacy and ratchet up excess in the interest of mammonism, but for the moment, he’s a hero."
Anyone involved in the insidious efforts to rob Americans of their privacy is a lot of things. A hero? Not.
10
@John Jabo
Progressives only sometimes disapprove of extreme wealth and extramarital affairs.
@John Jabo I wonder if the point is not As ye sow... Gluttons can’t be choosers.
This is a good example of why we don't need billionaires around. At a billion dollars of net worth, you should be taxed at nearly your entire income. Now all these bizarre personalities will spend zillions of dollars on lawyers and buyouts of each others businesses, etc. All that money could be returned to general circulation. Normal people don't need any reminders about medical costs, education costs, trying to live with some dignity when poor, etc. True, he is successful in what he made and he was rewarded for it, but what do you need more than a billion dollars for. What do you need multiple billions for. Past NYT articles have pointed out the moral problem with such disparity. Bezos seems like a smug heartless person himself who likely put many retail people out of work with his "invention". So while all these retail people look for other work he just sits on billions of dollars? And now will engage in a billionaires legal battle over bruised egos after doing something stupid? Bring some of that money back down here on Main Street.
14
@Mickey Exactly. Wasn't the top tax rate in the 1940's something like 90%? Instead we go in the other direction to reward GOP donors.
2
@Mickey It is never OK to confiscate all the money that very rich people earn each year because they have managed to be successful and gain their wealth from their own efforts or whether they inherited their money. People come to America precisely because they have an equal opportunity to be free and earn huge sums of money if they can and keep a great deal of the money they earn. If you change that drastically as some on the left wish to do, you will succeed in driving very successful wealth people to relinquish their American citizenship and become citizens of countries that will not tax all of their income at extremely high rates and tax their accumulated wealth. That is not just a wild prediction, that will happen. What happened in the past doesn't apply to today's wealthy. They will not stand still and let you tell them how much they can earn and how wealthy they can be. What gives you or anyone else the right to make those decisions?
1
@Paul Didn't we have slavery in our country and stopped it abruptly because it was very wrong?
It’s comical to see so many of those commenting assign blame to the President without a scintilla of evidence other than their paranoia-fueled conspiracy theories and hatred. It’s why they’ll never see him resign or impeached. Like a disappointed toddler on Christmas morning, reality cannot and will not match what you can wish for or dream of.
8
Trump is going to jail
2
Maureen has made most apt description of Amazon ever -
Amazon of Jeff Bezos is the world’s biggest store, by tapping into our hunter-gatherer instincts, the compulsion to collect more stuff with less effort.
3
@Vivek, you forget..In response to 9/11 George w bush urged Americans to “go shopping”, go to “Disneyland”, these were his baselines of “normalcy”.
Ms Dowd understates the gravity of this mess.
1. It adds or corroborates info to Mueller's investigation of Trump/Saudi/Russia, as the Saudis are hand in glove with Putin.
2. This mess might send a warning to those who would use social media again in the potus campaign to malign, etc the democrat's. candidate.
3. Kushner, as well as his dear father-in-law, are inextricably involved.
4. Will anyone mourn the demise of a smutty tabloid when they can get their kicks on-line?
8
Would think anyone vaguely connected to Trump in any way, has astronomical legal bills. Deception and treachery seem to be hefty ingredients in following the art of the deal. It is one big spider web that ensnares anyone who gets near the dazzling propaganda machine named Trump.
5
Amazon is the world's biggest store? It doesn't sell half of what Walmart does.
2
I must say I'm having a bit of trouble accepting Amazon, Google, or even Facebook as "privacy invaders" at all comparable to the sleaze rag publishers of the National Enquirer.
Look, I'm an old guy (over 65) and not particularly digitally savvy, but even I have understood from the very beginning that the free access to information, shopping, friends and entertainment provided by the giants of the internet would come with a price in voluntarily disclosing some personal data.
I guess I've been lucky because Amazon's knowledge of my movie preferences has been a wonderful trade for the convenience of their service and I haven't been blackmailed over my favorite movie being "The Princess Bride" (...and I don't care who knows it).
The frenzy over the Russians buying the posting of stupid stories on places like Facebook has been a mystery to me. People who believe the Clintons conspired to support a child molesting ring in a pizza joint have bigger problems than believing fake news.
On the other hand, the detestable folks at Gawker and Enquirer are truly evil and I love watching them crash and burn.
26
@Ben
If you don't understand how the various tech behemoths have harmed our privacy, you could read about it. Dowd provided a link you could start with.
Has the brother been eliminated as the source? The last I checked, he has not. Lots of jumping to conclusions with this story. Sanchez is a serial gold digger. The brother does not like her. Let’s wait until all of the facts come out. To me, Bezos seems more like a desperate, cheating fool trying to save face, than he is a hero.
9
If Bezos is really smart, he would get rid of Sanchez.
14
Two people engaging in an extramarital affair that destroys their marriages. If he wasn't among the wealthiest people in the world then who would care? I know that I don't!
5
AMI a proven leper in journalism needs have its fish wrap used to light the fireplace. Trump will end up being a part of the story just no way to confuse the brand of loyalty he inspires. And, Bezos did what he should have done, expose the extortion, take his medicine and move on.
9
With all of the lauding of Bezos as a hero in this - I feel sorry for his wife and children. He has caused them a lot of pain and embarrassment. I hope the new girlfriend is worth it...
15
"The crown prince has formed a tight bond with princeling Jared Kushner, one that proves ever more embarrassing as..."
If only. Embarrassment is a normal human reaction to getting caught on the immoral or unethical side of a situation. No one in the White House does embarrassment.
12
This man Jeff Bezos does NOT understand survival. He has allowed his Flex package delivery department to RIP off and use so many drivers who have been overworked and not paid for overtime as independent contractors especially against the physically challenged handicapped man who writes this article who was horribly mistreated at his Flex fullfillment facility who used to be a independent contractor for Jeff's flex program which has fraudulently scammed many independent contractors and me out of money and time by forcing me to work overtime and not pay me for overtime. His staff is so brutally cold and adamant that they could care less how badly injured I got twice from a fall on the job. The management is terrible as they were with me and they insisted all packages be delivered after they said in their training video to return undelivered packages at the end of the shift. They have a poor tech team on updating their app that they have had to constantly update such and they blamed me for their undelivered packages after I worked so hard for them and none of them took any responsibility for their own stupidity and actions. This happened in 2017 and is very true.
3
Never argue with a scandal sheet unless you're Jeff B.
WAPO vs NE--overly simplifying--is fascinating me too.
Politics are slightly meaner than beanbag.
2
Robin Williams would have had a field day with this one, followed by my father known as 'wolf', described by a judge long ago as...(let us spare his grown children in Europe and hope this old scandal fades away).
The men in our rural town tend to go sheepish, while collecting their Amazon parcels at the post office, but we are at one in conceding the convenience of it all, taking into account the affordable price.
Joining a club of any kind, places this Amazon purchaser into a state of high jinx, and yet I once was unwittingly invited to join an unofficial reader's one, and it is all because of Balzac and not Bezos that this unlikely membership took place.
There is on occasion something to be said in a name; an unfortunate one for the head of this national tabloid newspaper, an opportune moment for a fast barbed arrow from the King of the Amazon Jungle.
But what about the latter's personal life? It is none of my business after all, and how he enjoys spending his bitcoins is a story for another day.
Whether Dr. Benjamin Dryer will accept his "complexifier", and place the above into the epicurean Oxford of nouveaux words remains to be determined.
Thank you, Ms. Dowd, for 'the idolatry of billionaire innovators', because it is lentils and rice here, and this subscriber to the New York Times would not have it any other way.
So Ms. Sanchez brother is friends with Stone and Page. I think its a setup don't you! No wonder Mr. Mueller III is so busy, he pretty much has to investigate the world. What ever trump touches it turns out bad.
14
"Never take a photo of anything that you wouldn't be proud to show your grandpa" was my advice when my boys went to college.
19
@mainesummers
LOL. I told my kids never send a picture that you wouldn't want on the cover of our Village newspaper. This after a local scandal broke when a young high schooler's picture of her breasts, sent to a boyfriend, went viral. Poor thing. Learned the hard way.
4
I've always thought of the National Inquirer as the best paper to use at the bottom of my bird cage.
Bezos is right in saying that if he, the richest man in the world, cannot stand up to a paper cesspool like NE, how can anyone without those resources do so.
And few people will go to their local store and pay a great deal more for an item that they can order cheaper from Amazon, and I see no reason to blame Amazon for that choice.
5
Hear, hear! Mr. Bezos has struck a huge blow for truth and integrity regardless of the circumstances that sparked his reaction. It was nonetheless an act of courage.
As for fake news, let's start adhering to the analysis and wisdom of Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the Director of the Annenberg School Public Policy Center at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. She observes that "fake news" is an oxymoron, and prefers to label the concept as "viral deception", which retains the pristine image of "news" in a positive, evolving, forward-moving, trustworthy, informative and enlightening manner.
Tweety, Pecker, Fox News, Right Wing commentators and their GOP enablers in Congress have been using loud, vociferous viral deception in all forms of media communications for the past couple of decades to the detriment of American society.
It's high time the silent majority of us citizens push back hard and consistently in order to reinstate our own collective values, not the least of which are transparency and accountability.
Let's hope Mr. Bezos' actions, combined with the final Mueller report, result in a turning point that rotates the country back around to our original compass point of progressive, humanitarian democracy with decency, and global leadership with moral authority.
7
The fact that the Saudis still kill political enemies by cutting them up alive shows that they are in the 21st Century only by the grace of the calendar.
In the modern era, they remain a backwards and primitive country.
10
may be naïve .....however, aside from all the complexities, speculations about entangled politics, motives, villainy & heroics, really don't see why it was thought by the "perps" that it would matter so much & that personal reputation(s) would need protection at a price of compromising principle & values ostensibly over a couple of naked photos...couldn't be that sleazy or lurid. Good to call them on it and fight but just don't understand why they thought Bezos would be hooked & crooked....they'd already helped publicize & trash the end of a marriage.
2
Is anyone looking at why Jeff Bezos entered into an affair with a
woman whose brother - and her manager although of what is a bit of a mystery - is so entrenched with Roger Stone? Even allowing for men doing stupid things after years of marriage this seems a little out there for a man who changed the world and got rich doing it. It smacks of a setup.
If so, the backfire will be heard around the globe.
10
@Kathy
Or for that matter, why has Jeff Bezos sought major contracts with every federal agency and countless local ones that engage in domestic surveillance?
That said, I'm glad he went public, and has a team of private investigators looking into how his personal photos were obtained by the Enquirer. Really glad.
Conservative Republican Rick Wilson, a never-Trumper, wrote a great, very funny, book entitled Everything Trump Touches Dies. Let’s hope that this is true about The National Enquirer.
7
Bezos is a hero? He benefits from having a beef with a smarmy enemy, but he is no hero. Heroes don't sneak around on their wives. They understand what is due to others. He owed her clear communication and the decency to end their relationship cleanly and without humiliating her and without violating her safety and sense of self. In this era of #metoo, why do we prop up men who violate their marriages in order to replace a spouse with a trophy wife? Marriages die in darkness.
10
Bezos is not an incredibly impressive person. He is a man with and lots of money/power who uses it to get what he wants. Anyone without his money would be totally ruined and thrown in the trash. Bezos is the epitome of our consumer society, as evidenced by Amazon, and the throwing away of his wife. Let's not normalize that mentality.
4
@Gordon Alderink
"Bezos is the epitome of our consumer society, as evidenced by Amazon, and the throwing away of his wife. "
He didn't throw away his wife. I think that description sounds too harsh. At least, based on the information seen so far. If he had an affair, that means something was missing from his marriage first before that even happened. I'm pretty sure most people don't have affairs while they're in the middle of very strong marriages. And for all we know, it may not be just the husband who was at fault. Couples do sometimes grow apart over time.
In the classic movie Citizen Kane, there's a scene where William Randolph Hearst's wife is putting together pieces of a puzzle on a table, while the husband is buying marble statues. They're talking totally past each other, they're not communicating at all. They sit at opposite ends of a very long table when they eat. They're clearly very wealthy, yet these scenes show them to be emotionally very distant from each other. It's clear their marriage is in name only. If I remember right there's no affair in that movie, but that could easily have been the next step for either spouse in real life. Simply having lots of money doesn't always seem to bring couples closer together, and marriage itself takes work too. Who knows, maybe this also describes at least the period near the end of Bezos's marriage before Bezos's affair even began.
1
It blows my mind that even Bezos didn't know that once you click 'send' the whole world will eventually see it.
8
Nowadays, it amazes me that anyone would send text-message pictures of their private parts. I have to wonder, though...Mr. Bezos' paramour's brother/manager is "close" to a pair of Trump's closest and sleaziest associates. Is it maybe just possible that Bezos was targeted by Sanchez and those her brother is "close" to?
8
Based on 1749 reviews, Bezos's handling of this blackmail and extortion gets 4.8 out of 5 stars. But, FakeSpot knocks it down to 4.4 stars.
6
I never had an opinion on my Mr Bezos, but that he choose to go public and the written content he provided speaks from a person with character.
WaPo just added one more online subscription!
Quo vadis, USA?
6
Is it really bravery when someone who has more than a hundred billion dollars doesn't care what the National Enquirer says about him at all?
He has a hundred billion dollars.
5
Maybe when all is said and done, 45 will have inadvertently drained the swamp.
7
I will have to admit support for this billionaire, along with Soros, Buffett, and Gates. "Dumb and dumber" is a good summary, as it's risky to send anything out online. But any perfectly legal, private content is still nobody else's business, let alone for use as a weapon. I sure hope this thing turns out to be another nail in the coffin of a career white collar criminal known as "Individual 1." Thank you so much, Mr. Bezos.
8
The truth is that Jeff Bezos should just reveal all the photos as well, as Lauren Sanchez doesn't leave anything to the imagination, as she seems like she is trying to be another Kardashian. She has had three relationships, two marriages, and 3 children, with two different men. How stable a person can she be? Just another very rich man with another hot sexpot? The photos have all been there before, with other men, and women. Hollywood, and Kris Jenner, and girls, revel in attracting attention with sexy photos of themselves day, and night, and sex tapes. It isn't as if the human animal would see anything they haven't seen, and then he could get back to Amazon, and its business, if his mind can stay focused long enough. That, in itself, is the big question?
3
Nothing sticks to Trump because his dad taught him well that like a mafia 'Don', he must always keep his nose clean and use 3rd parties to do his dirty work, with the least paper trail possible.
Are billionaires helpful to humanity? One can easily argue against. Easily. But most Americans are brainwashed to believe the lies of rich people, so rich people will forever be our leaders. Witless the entire NYC scene, where everyone preens like peacocks to possibly capture the eye of a billionaire.
I made the mistake of attempting to using the National Enquirer for potty training of our new born puppies, I so learned these little creatures had much better taste.
2
So why won't Trump release the report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? What is he hiding and how much is he being paid? Bezos has enough money, even if his wife gets half, to make AMI pay for their hubris. It will be fun to watch.
8
It’s Sanchez’s brother that makes me wonder if this “affair” was a setup. Because it’s time for a plot twist.
9
Medicare for all, thank you very much.
3
A compulsion to collect more stuff? Think practically.
If you mean the compulsion to collect toilet paper and kitty litter, then yes, I suppose you are right. We don’t all have SUV’s. Not having to haul these things up my crazy San Franciscan hill? Priceless.
This man is my Sherpa hero. Amazon has truly increased the quality of (my) life.
8
@Sarah
Love this. As someone living in the flat Midwest, appreciate your perspective!:)
1
Well doe Mr.Bezos... Now, how about paying some taxes.
Ms. Dowd: Why are you and Kara Swisher intent on transforming the New York Times into a salacious tabloid?
I am taken aback by the outpouring of sanctimonious indignation directed at Mr. Bezos. The man is a brilliant businessman and innovator. I am agog at female journalists’ blatant disregard for MacKenzie Bezos.
Mr. Bezos should purchase the National Enquirer and just shut it down.
How did the Enquirer come into possession of those texts? Many emphasize the irony of the Amazon CEO having his privacy compromised. This is no joking matter. I am not thinking of cybersurveillance for marketing purposes; I am more considered with the intrusion of military-grade surveillance on civilians.
How did Erdogan acquire an audiotape of Kashoggi”s murder? Were the Saudis so arrogant as to disregard the likelihood their consulate in Turkey was under surveillance? A hidden bug? I think not.
Cellphones are much easier to tap than land lines.
Mr. Bezos’s texts may very well be the spoils of illegal military intervention, whether American or Russian. I am talking about reconnaissance satellites that can record sights and sounds from the stratosphere.
How is it that Putin wields so much power over the oligarchs? As a former KGB agent and current President of Russia, he controls Russian intelligence agencies and the military. Whoever controls the military controls the nation. He jams GPS wherever he travels.
Someone is wirelessly assaulting North American diplomats in Cuba.
1
A few things that came to mind as I read your column:
#1: Why is it legal for the media to publish stolen emails and text messages? If it’s illegal to buy and sell stolen goods, then it should be illegal to make money off of stolen messages. I don’t see the difference.
#2. I empathize with Jeff Bezos. I’d flip out if someone stole my personal emails and texts and printed them.
#3. On the other hand, how can anyone be so stupid as to send nude photos of themselves to someone else in a text message in this day and age? Even if someone doesn’t steal it, the recipient could use it in retaliation for something the sender does in the future.
#4. Why do Americans blame all of their problems on? No one is making you buy things from Amazon. Have some self-control, turn off the internet, get off your phone, and go outside or open a book. Borrow a book from the library rather than buying one on Amazon. Again no one is forcing you to buy stuff from Amazon, so why make them out to be the villain. So what if Amazon drove Barnes and Nobles out of business. Barnes and Noble drove independent bookstores out of business. People should be more ticked off with companies like Comcast that monopolize an industry and then jack up the prices so that consumers are forced to spend money on a necessity that they can’t afford (I need the internet for my job, so yes it is a necessity for me). Or they should be ticked off at Apple for not paying their fair share of taxes.
3
@Kitty Kat
I'm a vegetarian who eats organic and lives in a major city. Since Amazon bought Whole Foods, I cannot avoid them completely. Their prices are soaring, too. Of course.
Barnes & Noble is still in business.
Amazon's role in domestic surveillance -- oh the irony -- is what has people most concerned. Dowd provided the link.
I realize there is a more thoughtful conversation to be had concerning elements of this story but I still can't figure out why anyone thinks women want to see pictures of their junk. What happened to sending a bouquet of flowers?
10
Despite the morass, mess, and immoral monstrosity of yet one more Trumpian disaster -- this all would be worth it to the country and to me if only one result resulted: The vanishing of that damnable National Inquirer nightmare at the checkout line of virtually every grocery store in America!
2
Does Bezos not realize that it was his Mistress that leaked everything?!? C'mon! She needed to move things along and was DESPERATE for the attention.
5
If there's one person that President Trump and the Federal Government need to make disappear and rendition to some CIA Back Hole Site in Eastern Europe, it is Jeff Bezos. The man is a detriment to The United States of America.
2
"That marriage."
I don't even know which one I'm referring to. I just recall Ms. Dowd saying it once a long (relatively) time ago. A least we were spared an ambitious intelligent woman who understood the ramifications of the position, huh? There's that.
1
Maureen Dowd states, "...Bezos was able to bring his marriage to an end with a modicum of dignity and little apparent damage to shareholder value." WHOA How about MacKenzie Bezos' role in that amicable breakup? After a 25 year marriage, she has appeared to handle his affair with grace and a lack of spite. Ms. Dowd does not seem to recognize this at all. I am very disappointed.
1
Two years into the tawdry Trump story – with its lineup of the best buffoons – seemed a lot like The Jerry Springer show. Now, we get to take a field trip to a lowlife publication that connived to make a Saudi prince look good after he arranged to torture and execute a journalist and to humiliate a nerdy billionaire with proof his adolescent behavior. – all to make Trump feel good.
Trump’s tweets lead the way, guiding one sleaze ball after another to discover how to please the petulant president. Your tax dollar at work. America’s reputation – down the tubes.
3
Bezoz and the honey trap. Easy to see what attracted his eye. Coincidence that brother Sanchez is buds with Riger Stone the great dirty trickster. Seems Bezoz was snookered and loses a lovely wife and family. Business savvy but like many men - left his brain at the door.
4
Oh, the twin myths of privacy and free shipping!
3
So the rich are now eating the rich.
How rich.
The fatal flaw in the American system has reached critical mass. This "winner takes all" mantra has created a society where exploitation is the rule. Jerry Springer, Drug Pushers, Wall Street Bankers, Reality TV, TV Evangelists, etc, etc, etc...
We now find that there's no good ending to this winner takes all ideal. It creates a class of men (it's always men, isn't it?) whose only role in life is to crush the weak.
I understood this concept from the moment I first got my fingers stomped on as we played "King of The Hill" on the monkey bars in first grade. The teachers finally put a stop to the game because so many kids were falling from the top and smashing their heads on the bars.
I look forward to the day when America once again finds its teachers, and when that nasty orange kid at the top falls and smashes his head on the bars.
1
This story isn't about Amazon or The Washington Post or about personal privacy. This story is just one more chapter in the abuse of power by this president.
If he was involved in planning this attack against one of his political opponents; or, the people around him just did it gain his favor, it is still an abuse of power by the most powerful man on earth.
If Trump wasn't involved why hasn't he condemned this cyber attack against an American business man?
12
In the meantime 40 more far right conservative judges have been appointed to the courts.
The world in complete disarray.
16
Kudos to Bezos for standing up to the bullies but I guess 11 or 12 figure wealth allows one some bravado.
On another note I think we underestimate the influence of the National Inquirer and the malfeasance it committed in withholding a trove of perjoritive information about Trump the Presidential Candidate, while splashing its rumor based garbage about HRC on its front pages seen at the grocery checkout.
36
"The Post reported that Michael Sanchez, Lauren’s brother who says he is also her manager — and who is close to Roger Stone and Carter Page — said he was told by several people at A.M.I. that The Enquirer wanted to do “a takedown to make Trump happy.”
This was not high-end, clandenstine-like hack. No, the easiest way these texts could have been stolen was someone close to Bezos stealing or compromising his phone and copying this information.
It's pretty obvious who provided these texts to the Enquirer and the beauty about all of this is that with the power and means that Bezos has, it will all come out.
20
@Ben. Or Ms Sanchez’s phone. I see what you’re doing there
1
@Ben: Being filthy rich means never knowing whether any display of affection is for real.
4
Wondering whether Trump was involved in the attempt to blackmail Bezos is like wondering whether sunlight is involved in photosynthesis. Trump may or may not have participated directly in Pecker's sleazy scheme, just as he may or may not have personally colluded with Putin to win the election. in Trumpworld, it's all about the yin and yang of favors: I do one for you; you do one for me. You don't have to make the request, you just have to keep score. I should add that the photosynthesis in Trumpworld produces weeds, not nourishing plants.
47
Getting sued by someone determined to exploit all the defects of the US court system is one of the bigger finacial risks of living in the USA.
9
@Steve Bolger
What do you think the democrats (and their left wing media partners) have been doing for 60 years?
1
This story has everything. Power, celebrity, adultery, betrayal . . . to name but a few. With any luck we'll be discussing these famous folks in various forums for quite awhile. Jeff Bezos doesn't seem like a 'hero' to me but I am probably triggered because of my own history with my ex. Thanks, Ms. Dowd.
3
I'm glad Mr. Bezos is taking on the Enquirer. I find it ironic that his personal information was being used to extort money from him. Meanwhile, Amazon is busy mining our personal information and shopping habits to get money from us. Oh, by the way, quoting Mr. Bezos' texts is just the sort of thing the Enquirer would do. We don't need to know what was in those texts.
22
@DR --"to get money from us." That's because people buy a product and pay for it. It isn't a new concept.
2
@DR Did you read the piece? Nobody tried to extort money from Bezos. They wanted him to publicly acknowledge that their writing on him did not spring from a political motivation, i.e., wasn't done by a newspaper friendly to Trump, who hates the Post and Bezos, to curry favor with Trump.
@DR Amazon can't get your money unless you give it to them. I'm amazed how many people have no willpower to just ignore the clickbait ads directed at them.
All I can say about someone photographing their genitalia is just yuck. How does a 55-year-old man behave like a 13-year-old boy? As my mother used to say, don't act in private any differently than you would in public. Nothing is private. And this was before the internet age.
Just one point on this: it is decidedly NOT written into our "caveman" DNA that "whoever has the most stuff wins". The exact opposite is true - throughout human history, human beings have survived as a species by cooperating in groups. Anyone who was too individualistic was a danger to the survival of the group. The fetishization of wealth and individuality was very much a recent invention, a product of the ideology of liberalism which, itself, began as a way to justify the sanctity of private wealth. Even kings and other despotic rulers in the past had to justify their privliged positions by the service they gave to the larger society. Capitalism, consumerism and everything that has come with it is quite an aberration from the norm. Billionaires like Mr. Bezos really should not exist. As much as I admire Mr Bezos' courage in standing up to a bully, he is still part of a coterie that is, effectively, stealing from the rest of society.
36
@Shaun Narine: Extreme wealh usually attracts a fawning entourage.
2
Mr Bezos would not be in the position he is in if he had in a dignified way ended his marriage before taking up with ms Sanchez.
22
@anne bergman True but the world doesn't have a right to know the details of a marriage break up. If we are going to find information of a marriage break up I suggest EVERY marriage break up be publicized. I don't care what caused his break up and neither should anyone else.
@anne bergman Exactly. We women get it.
1
@anne bergman I totally agree. Not only did Bezos shame his lovely wife of 25 years, but tarnished his children's lives as well. Hard to respect a man like that, regardless of how much money he has.
2
I never realized that when Trump said we are going to be tired of winning he didn't include himself.
10
I think it is time to ax the word private from ‘private parts’ - if not from everything except large hedge fund and billionIre estates and gated communities. It has become an irrelevant misnomer.
9
Fine, but Bezos still isn't letting his workers unionize, and still doesn't deserve to be paid $3 billion by NYC for the privilege of hosting his $1 TRILLION business. I hope he wins against the Enquirer, but he's committing his own injustices elsewhere and needs his feet held to the fire for that.
52
With high-profile extramarital affairs, such as those of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Americans have become desensitized to this sort of news. It's like the deficit and the national debt: at this point, many of us are numb to these things. But we are not numb to reality television: to a good, juicy storyline. The real question is about who will garner sympathy here. I will side with Jeff Bezos; after all, he is being blackmailed. And many of us appreciate the fact that our purchases can now be delivered straight to our doors, especially those of us who live in rural areas. The Bezos marriage was probably on the rocks before this scandal broke; that's why the affair happened in the first place. Regardless of who is really to blame (Trump, Russia, the Saudis?), AMI and the National Enquirer will be squarely on the losing end. We need to investigate if Trump was involved, certainly. Anything to get Trump, after all (seriously). It is peculiar that the mistress is so close to Roger Stone et al. and that this detail eluded Jeff Bezos. I would like to think he knew about it all along, but letting loose photos of his genitals must give us pause. It looks like he may not be the brightest bulb, at least in some areas. The end game would appear to be the demise of the Enquirer. Still, we should not kid ourselves that some similar sleazeball offshoot will not quickly fill its shoes.
24
@Blue Moon What bothers me more is that people love to read this garbage and believe it. I am not sure what that says about Americans but I'm sure it's not good.
2
@Blue Moon, I'm an old lady and one thing I've noticed about many man (not all, of course) is that they think through their nether regions when it comes to the opposite sex, regardless of how intelligent they are in other matters.
2
Never thought I would say this, but good for Jeff Bezos, for deciding to take on the National Enquirer. When I read that they had tried to buy Time...
18
All of this harshness directed at Amazon? Why? Think of Mt. Rushmore only Lincoln was really cool and by today's standards a good man(and he might have been gay.) Washington and Jefferson were at best slave owners, TR was a warmonger, even though they all had their good sides.
Now Jeff is getting vilified for greed by Americans? I don't get it. I most these folk attacking Bezos this AM are Russian, IMO.
Sure Amazon is driving the other smaller billionaires down. That said until we get back to a pre-1960 type of government that gets rid of all monopolies and I mean all of the big-boxes we will have billionaires.
And as they go, Bezos is okay. He is spending his money on space and innovating like crazy. I think guys like, Bezos and Musk are not motivated by money but something else.
11
All the way around it shows being a billionaire or a humble millionaire does not mean you are always, or even mostly, smart. Bezos is a good and traditional publisher of the Post -- much better than I feared he would be.
16
When you talk about Amazon you are talking about a monopoly that is extremely powerful. Bezos lost me as a future customer when he said books had had a good 500 year run, said all the little independent bookstores were history and basically undercut an author's right to get fairly compensated. Then, of course he started opening bookstores....
This is still a country where a brilliant idea (Amazon) can make Bezos the richest man in the world. It does not, however, make him a good man, does it?
13
@Kate Parina: Bezos won't go unscathed because of his adultery; one way or the other we all pay for our individual sins. Regardless of how convenient Amazon is for people; many still hold character and integrity in high regards. They will frown upon Bezos' mistreatment of his wife and children, and do their business elsewhere.
1
I'm okay with Bezos and I'm okay with Amazon. One season I like Amazon but not the only one is what I dislike about big retailers. I've been in big stores and there is nobody on the floor to ask for help. It is even worse trying to pay and get out. One check-out line for a huge warehouse size store ridiculous. All Bezos has done is make getting anything you want and paying for it quicker.
20
Very clever move by Bezos. Perhaps finally society will get rid of the idea that risque pictures condemn and ruin a person, but rather that they are unauthorised intrusions of privacy. Jennifer Lawrence has somewhat shown the way. But Bezos runs the risk that if such "exposes" are shown to have been made harmless, he could be awarded much less in his lawsuit, and AMI would not be driven out of business in the way Gawker was.
4
Bezos'a notorious warning to, well, everyone: "Your [profit] margin is my opportunity."
Is there a better example of capitalistic nihilism in the digital age?
The coy term of art is "disruption." I remember when that word was used to describe obnoxious children, the kind that every responsible adult would slap or send to a corner to sulk.
And now we worship the "disrupters."
We worship them when they destroy as many or more jobs as they create.
We worship them when they violate our century-old antitrust laws, buying up Doubleclick (Google) or Instagram & WhatsApp (Facebook) in an obvious
attempt to thwart competition and manipulate markets.
We worship them when they create bogus concepts like "net neutrality" that pretend to be pro-consumer when they're just timing the playing field in their direction and supporting their absurd business models.
We worship them when they routinely violate our employment laws, blatantly abusing the H1B program and engaging in age and other forms of discrimination.
We worship them when they make a mockery of our culture's premium on privacy protections and individual dignity, building vast fortunes on the commercialization of people's thoughts and behaviors.
We worship them when they corrupt our political process, enticing our elected officials - cf Obana's absurd, massively corrupt deal with Netflix - and capturing our regulatory agencies' lawyers with fat payouts.
These are RobberBarons.
Break 'em up.
13
Is Netflix completely dependent on Amazon's web algorithm? That's really what some of us want to know. Can you report on that?
1
I enjoyed your take on this absolutely incredible story for which the phrase, "you couldn't make this up" is the only possible response.
I just wanted to point out that clever as Jeff Bezos is, he did not make up the word complexifier. It is already a word in French.
5
Look, I get the cranky complaints about Bezos' Amazonian empire. I share the sentiments. But step back a bit and look at it through a longer lens. He didn't just pop into existence and start pillaging all of retailer. It took time, and a great deal of work in building a nascent idea, a gamble really, into something arguably profound in its impact.
But first consider that thinking of Amazon as a tech company is something of a misnomer. Excepting it's e-reader and the like I don't consider it a tech company. Apple is tech. Intel is tech. Micron is tech. Amazon is...retail. Excepting it's attempts with AWS.
Here's the thing. At the nascent beginnings of the 'Net, yes a mere 15 years ago at most, it seems Bezos recognized the value in being a middle-man between consumer and producer out on the 'Net.
Amazon makes none of the products you can buy on its site. It facilitates purchasing. In effect Amazon is a 21st Century Mall. A digital Mall. That's what it is. That is all it is. The genius of Bezos was to see this fact first; and then work mightily to achieve the high ground of that business model in the virtual world.
He got there first. Clearly he has reaped first mover benefit.
So more power to him. As for this seamy episode in his life. Well...it's just proof positive that being the wealthiest man on this planet is no proof against being human, and a remarkably stupid one when it comes to the art of Love. So it goes..
John~
American Net'Zen
15
@John
Perhaps a minor point, but AWS is not an "attempt". AWS completely dominates the commercial web hosting market.
6
@Tony: HA! True enough, though I think 'ol Softie (Microsoft) is giving them a good run for their money. Disclosure, I use Softies cloud storage. Further disclosure. I've been an investor in Amazon since they first went public, so consider the source when reading this.
Regardless, be it AWS for cloud services, or the Amazon web site for product purchases, it's still much the same thing isn't it? It's remarkably akin to the same idea as the 20th Century physical variant isn't it? The whole idea of their services is to act as a facilitator so other businesses can be more effective. Amazon is a Digital Mall. The "Mall of America" gone digital.
Which seems to fit nicely into our modern lifestyle doesn't it? Big box malls and the physical spaces they command are increasingly out of vogue. Look around. A lot of them are struggling. This is because they're simply less relevant given our modern lives. The mall still exists, though, doesn't it? It's just gone virtual.
Now you can wander the concourses of Amazon and check out everything vendors have to offer digitally. It's the same (mall) game, just tuned to a 21st Century rhyme. And Jeff Bezos is the landlord of that mall space, one who just happens to have found himself being the conductor setting the beat to a goodly aspect of American life, isn't he? At least in the areas of commerce. In the areas of personal life...well...he's no different from the rest of us, is he?
So it goes.
2
@John, I agree. I had never used Amazon until I broke my ankle and couldn't drive for three months. Amazon is great for so many reasons beyond their offerings. Customer service might be their best feature. I was able to return things easily and they always responded promptly. If department stores websites had been as easily navigable and they had upped their customer service and return policies, they could have done better too. Grocery stores are getting into the act now. I can order from my local grocery stores and get groceries delivered to my door. Target has improved its online shopping too. Successful stores will have to up their game if they want to remain successful.
2
Just as AMI is a dead company walking that just doesn’t know it yet, so is their deputy general counsel Jon Fine a dead lawyer walking, considering he signed his name to the “Here are our demands” portion of the blackmail letter (and probably drafted the whole thing, frankly). What an unwise move for an attorney. Virginia Law Review, big law firm background, and 25 years of experience, but his career is done and it is likely the New York Bar has already received complaints that will lead to his disbarment. Sad. I sense Trump’s bad in this, since everything he touches dies.
20
@Steve.
Everything he touches dies?
Except the economy and the unborn