So Lonely

Conrad Black:

From my most recent NRO article, on a couple of stars in the conservative firmament: “There is nothing like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham in other countries, nor much like them in this one. The packaging is leggy women with bright teeth and eyes and lots of blond hair, and they are charming, though not demure. The message is God, Christ, learning, and country. They are outstanding bearers of that timeless message that has reprehensibly few public champions, certainly not including the incumbent president.”

Conrad, you're not due back in stir until September. Barbara not putting out?

Hey, his son is a shithead too.

More Black humour:

When he first arrived in prison, Conrad Black befriended a Mafia don. ‘It was obvious from the way the prison officers stood back from him that he was an eminent figure,’ explains the disgraced peer.

‘He told me, “No one will bother you. If you catch a cold, we’ll find out who you got it from.”

‘Then he offered me whisky and a cell phone, both of which were banned in prison. I said: “I am at war with the U.S. government, but I want to do things through legal channels …”

Shrunken: Conrad Black seems a pale version of himself after spending time in prison, right, in comparison to 2007 when he's seen entering court, left

‘Despite frequent searches, there was constant stealing and smuggling. This is a great country, but when they’ve finished singing Sweet Land Of Liberty and eating apple pie, it’s a bit of a jungle — which is part of its attraction.’

[...]

Explaining how he helped fellow inmates, he adds: ‘I am not by nature a bleeding heart, but their stories were affecting and it was fulfilling to strategise what they needed to do to pass exams. If they couldn’t spell, I would get them Hemingway’s short stories from the library. I showed them simple sentences, such as “I shot the elephant …”.’

Black held English classes for prisoners during the day, insisting his pupils obeyed two simple rules: ‘Don’t interrupt the others; and don’t treat me like part of the prison regime, because I hate the regime, too.’

For some reason I will add more. Here's Black on News Corporation:

As I have written elsewhere, the most nauseating aspect of the News Corporation telephone- and email-hacking imbroglio, until recently, has been watching the self-righteous hypocrites in the British establishment who grovelled to Rupert Murdoch for decades now piously demanding that he pull up his ethical corporate socks. It has been no secret how News Corporation was operated for decades. It is a nasty, vulgar, cynical, dirty-laundry operation that has reduced standards of public taste and decency on at least four continents for decades. The only quality product it has ever touched that did not wither in its hands was The Wall Street Journal.

What a spectacular kook.