Howard Kurtz uses Fox News column to tell you about a picture he just saw on Facebook

Kurtz digs deep to find the real meaning behind Ben Bradlee's daughter-in-law's Facebook profile pictures

Published August 27, 2013 9:18PM (EDT)

Howard Kurtz           (AP/Evan Agostini)
Howard Kurtz (AP/Evan Agostini)

Pari Bradlee seems to really like and care about her father-in-law, Ben Bradlee. So when the former executive editor of the Washington Post turned 92 on Monday, Pari posted a photo of the pair with a message that read, "It is a dream to be part of his family."

A lesser journalist may have just filed a few thousand words on this Facebook event of great import and called it a day, but not Howard Kurtz. For his Tuesday Fox News column, Kurtz dug deeper, pointing his eyeballs toward his computer screen until he caught the story behind the story: a photo of Pari wearing "a Swiss-cheese bra that leaves little to the imagination and long black leather sleeves and briefs."

In yet another "just-posted photo," Pari is nude, "shot from the back, twisting one arm behind her," Kurtz adds.

Kurtz wants to know, on the occasion of the week of Ben Bradlee's 92nd birthday, if Pari's Facebook photo goes "too far." But because Pari would not return his request for comment, Kurtz is left only to speculate about whether or not a "Swiss-cheese bra" is a symbol of going "too far," or if Pari's photos are a "quick way to grab attention, especially in contrast to Washington's buttoned-down culture." But then again, Kurtz muses, she may also just be "part of a Facebook generation that lives online (with 1,957 photos in her case) and embraces a more candid approach to sexual matters."

Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, who also happens to be Ben's wife and Pari's mother-in-law, released a comment to Media Matters, explaining she was "heartbroken" at Kurtz's column: "I thought Howard was a decent guy, I thought he was my friend and I'm appalled and really heartbroken that he would do something like this. Why would you want to hurt somebody?"

"Pari is a beautiful woman and she is a yoga teacher and I don't see what the problem is, I don't see the problem," Quinn continued. "We adore her."

But rather than get angry at Kurtz, Quinn remarked that she feels bad for him, saying the Fox News column, "makes it look like he is an old geezer, I feel sorry for him."


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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