A CONSERVATIVE WHO'S BEEN MUGGED: I've made it very clear in this space that I think New York Post columnist and world-class alkie Steve Dunleavy is an embarrassment, even by the Post's comparatively low standards. Whether it's his awful prose, his ridiculous moral judgments (mob rats are scum, but oath-abiding mobsters are paragons of virtue), or his defense of indefensible figures like Michael Skakel and the Louima and Diallo cops, one could make a pretty strong case for Dunleavy as the worst columnist in New York, if not the whole country.
Thus, there was an item Monday in the Daily News gossip pages that I couldn't help but laugh at: apparently the other night, after the 65-year-old Dunleavy got stinkin' drunk as usual, he made like one of those homeless people he's always railing against in his column and fell asleep on a bench. Problem was, the bench was right on Sixth Avenue, and at 3:15 AM two men jumped the sleeping columnist, relieving him of $70 before Dunleavy kicked one of them; both were arrested. Then, reports the NYDN, Dunleavy returned to the Post's newsroom (which is about a block away from where the mugging occurred), and promptly vomited near the metropolitan editor's desk.
The Daily News account doesn't make clear whether Dunleavy went home first and the vomiting happened the following morning, or if he went straight from the mugging to the office in the middle of the night. At any rate, unlike most people (who would've been suspended or fired if they showed up drunk to the office and vomited near their boss' desk) Dunleavy was not disciplined in any way, and his column ran as scheduled the past two days.
Here's Dunleavy's own account of the mugging where, to his credit, he at least takes responsibility.