DEMOCRACY, GOOD TASTE UNDER SIEGE

By MEDIA FARM

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AMERICAN DEMOCRACY came under full assault last week, as a possibly drunken dude in a suit took over a Hillary Clinton campaign office in New Hampshire. Terror, and journalism, ensued.

Here's how the Globe opened its coverage the following day: "A man wearing what looked like a bomb beneath his sweater and tie walked into Hillary Clinton's campaign office yesterday, taking three staff members, a volunteer, and an infant hostage, forcing the closure of the senator's campaign offices throughout Iowa and New Hampshire, and paralyzing this small city on the Maine border, authorities said."

And the Herald: "Fresh off a two-day drunken bender, Leeland Eisenberg strapped highway flares to his waist with duct tape and took hostages at Hillary Clinton's office here, demanding to speak to the senator in a five-hour standoff that drew national TV coverage... Eisenberg's frantic stepson, who begged police to let him 'go tackle' his disturbed dad, told police early on that his stepfather was coming off a 48-hour drinking binge."

Not that there's only one paper in this town that knows how to party. The Globe did note that, after making it known that he wanted to ask Clinton for free psychological care, "Eisenberg also demanded cigarettes, a Pepsi, and alcohol. Authorities gave him only cigarettes." And, in a possible nod to the civilizing effects of its new fashion magazine, the paper usually known for decrying "hoax devices" took to calling the thing around Eisenberg's waist a "faux bomb" that had been "duct-taped to his waist." Let the record state: faux fur may be in, but faux bombs are out.

Still, in the incident's aftermath, local papers seemed to lose steam, while our competitors to the south gained momentum. Consider that the Globe's follow-up, relegated to B1, relied heavily on news reports from other news outlets and actually said as much, or that the Herald's major coup came in catching a glimpse of the former hostages eating breakfast.

The New York Post, by contrast, scored interviews with people who'd talked to one of the hostages ("I asked to talk to the guy that was holding them hostage. He didn't want anything but to talk to Hillary Clinton. That's the only thing he wanted") and with Eisenberg's trailer park neighbors, who "called him a hard-drinking oddball who, every day, would walk by himself to the nearby Maxi Mart to buy a six-pack of Natural Light beer and a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes."

In case you forgot what you were reading about, the Post captioned one photo of Eisenberg thusly: "His crazy wish to talk to Hillary Rodham Clinton terrified her staffers and made Post headlines."

But, in the end, Media Farm's Gold Star for Crazed-and-Drunken Hostage Coverage goes to the New York Daily News, which produced this report a full day before anybody else reported on Eisenberg's troubled mental state, and in the process, utterly destroyed both of Boston's so-called newspapers:

The neatly dressed man who took hostages in Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office was known as a hard-drinking madman with a violent temper and a lurid past around the trailer park that he called home.

"He walks around talking to himself," said 18-year-old Robert Gilman, whose grandmother lived alongside the light blue trailer where Leeland Eisenberg once resided with his estranged wife.

"He's always talking about God, like he's having a conversation with Him," said Gilman who referred to Eisenberg as a "psycho." ...

"He drinks every day, morning and night," said Carlsen, 70, who repeatedly referred to Eisenberg as a "nut bar."

THE IMPROPER BOSTONIAN just got around to writing about its recent redesign, so we're not all that wicked late in following suit. Our first take: It looks a lot -- a lot -- like some other glossy city magazine that we know of, minus the Zen Santas. It's almost like that show on MTV where the fat girl turns to the camera and says, "I want to look like Fergie!" and then they chop up her face and afterwards, when the swelling goes down, she kind of does, except for the stretch marks and shit. That's what this reminds us of.

Also: In case anybody was wondering, we could have lived out our last days just fine without seeing Mopsy's neck wattle.

AND AS LONG as we're cleaning up loose ends: Let the record show that, yes, Media Farm does find it hilarious that the Globe's entry into the local women's mag market is named after a tranny.