Badpuppy Gay Today

Wednesday, 12 March, 1997

David Brudnoy, a long-time columnist for Ronald Reagan's once-favorite conservative magazine, The National Review and a popular Republican-Libertarian talk show host applauded by personalities as diverse as Senator Edward M. Kennedy and P.J. O'Rourke, came out to listeners in 1994 as AIDS-stricken and gay. By many, he was called a hero for doing so.

Now, however, in "Life is Not a Rehearsal" (Doubleday, $22.95) a burst of his published recollections, Brudnoy admits he had absolutely no intention of coming out to the public and that he was carried by co-workers figuratively, if not literally, kicking and screaming to the microphone where he announced his AIDS/gay status to the world.

The Boston Globe, titled its story "David Brudnoy's Secret Struggle." Brudnoy says that the Massachusetts' newspaper's slant made him seem "valiant--not a sneak--as a man who bore up more or less alone under a terrible weight for five years, now confronting fate with dignity." In fact, Brudnoy admits, he took every possible precaution to keep news of his HIV status a complete secret, even going to another city to obtain doctor assistance. Just prior to his "coming out" he lied to a reporter, he admits, about his HIV status.

The March issue of the Lambda Book Report, an independent lesbian and gay book review magazine, tells how Brudnoy faced "leftist" Boston charges that he'd sometimes spoken as if he were a racist, a charge which the conservative host denies. It is true, he says, that he has no sympathy for such racial balancing programs as affirmative action, but this proves nothing, he believes. Even so, working in the 1960's at Texas Southern University, Brudnoy admits that he bumped African-American students from the honor roll after finding their school marks under par and measuring by his own particular standards. Brudnoy's memoirs tell of his regret for having done so, however. He now believes he needed more information about each dismissed honor roll student's personal life but was too absorbed in other matters to ask for it.

Brudnoy's Jewish roots he never mentions, he says, unless given circumstances insist on the necessity. He does show, however, what the reviewer called an "unbridled affection for WASPS." "We stayed friendly for years, this WASP princeling and I," (p. 77), or "They almost defined a kind of unaffected WASP civility; I liked them enormously," (p. 79) or "the dear lads were interchangeable in their politeness and generally WASP good looks." (p. 88)

In 1989, Brudnoy tells in his new book how he got in trouble for joking-- on-the-air---about slavery. "I don't think they're going to go back to slavery," were his words, "but if they do, I wonder if I and my broker can buy me a couple." In 1992, Brudnoy also found himself in trouble for thoughtless use of the word "Niggertown," but, he insisted, that word had originally been used by someone else and that he hoped others would have understood.