Lefsetz: Jeff Bezos vs. The National Enquirer

Don’t put anything in writing…

Because then you have plausible deniability.

One thing about Donald Trump, he’s proven to be surrounded by third-rate attorneys who are really henchmen –  lawyers that would be disbarred if their activities ever came to light.

And now we have Dylan Howard and Jon Fine of American Media extorting Jeff Bezos in print, as if they’ve got no idea how the world works, never mind the law.

This is what happens when you’re drunk with power, when you serve those with agendas in the world of gotcha, believing if they’re the biggest bully they will always win.

That’s not only Am rican Media’s David Pecker, but Donald Trump.

Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist.

Trump doesn’t believe in sunlight – no tax returns, no information on the most powerful man in America – just the way he likes it. And when he’s squeezed, he squeals. And isn’t it interesting the only person who can really get his goat is Nancy Pelosi, a woman.

Now if you’ve been paying attention for the past few years, you know that Nancy Pelosi is an over-the-hill, ineffective hack out of touch with America.

That’s how the Republicans and right wing press have depicted her. It’s a veritable war of words, with the Democrats historically playing defense. To the point where when Elizabeth Warren and AOC play offense traditional Democrats decry them, playing into the Republicans’ hands.

But then Pelosi maneuvers herself into the Speaker gig and it turns out that unlike the President, she knows how to play the game. She even runs circles around Chuck Schumer. Because she’s willing to dress up nice but still throw a punch, without looking like she’s even losing control. Sure, Republicans still hate her, but Democrats who bought into the right wing’s depiction of her no longer do.

It’s a veritable club, I tell you – the politicians and the news media. Same faces, owed favors. And we never know what’s really going on.

Which is why it’s so great that Jeff Bezos published his story on Medium.

He OWNS the Washington Post.

He could act like a dictator and insist they include his words. But he could see the negative effect of that, he doesn’t want to tarnish the Post, so he publishes on the web.

And goes from zero to hero overnight.

We saw this with David Letterman, extorted over an affair, he exposed the situation on television, and the story no longer was about his moral failings, his duplicity, his stepping out on his wife, but his honesty!

Jeff Bezos acts like an adolescent, then gains his cool and plays like Jordan in the NBA Finals. Or should I say LeBron?

Bezos lays it all out, at length, and it reads like it was written by him.

Now what?

This is bad for the Enquirer, this is bad for Trump.

But it’s good for our country.

You see, this is how the world has been run for eons. Backroom dealings. You’ve got to know the players to know what’s really going on, in all businesses.

Which is why Pelosi succeeds and Trump fails.

Being a politician is a profession. The aforementioned Michael Jordan proved that being the best basketball player of all time didn’t make him a world class baseball player.

But those are both sports.

It’s like saying Mark Spitz would be a great Senator.

Or Howard Schultz a great President.

Conversely, I doubt Nancy Pelosi could run Starbucks.

Then again,  you or me gets caught up in a scandal and we’ve got no options. Peter Thiel sues Gawker out of existence and Bezos spends bucks to find out what happened at the Enquirer.

Meanwhile, like Manafort before him, David Pecker believes the law doesn’t apply to him.

But to quote Bob Dylan:

“For them that think death’s honesty

Won’t fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes must get lonely”

We’re all human – we’re all the same – with similar desires and similar lives.

But in the era of billionaires, there’s a whole coterie of wealthy people who think they’re better than us.

Then again, those without cash believe money rules.

But they would be wrong, money is trumped by power.

That’s what David Pecker had and has.

Fox News is not worth as much as Netflix, but it’s much more powerful.

This is what insiders know.

And when you play the power game, you’ve got a number of cards.

Pecker believed that Bezos’s ego would not allow him to have his sexual peccadilloes exposed. All the money in the world could not make Pecker and the Enquirer go away.

But the honesty card put a knife in the Enquirer’s heart.

And the truth is, if you lay it out for all to see, they’ll look.

You should now:

“No thank you, Mr. Pecker”