Melville House Books

“It was only sex,” complains Rush Limbaugh in a tirade on his website (“Left Feeds Off Bernie Kerik Story As If Bill Clinton Never Happened”) about the way “the media continues to focus” on the story of Bernard Kerik and his affair with right wing publisher Judith Regan. But the story continues despite Limbaugh’s moralizing, and it’s spreading around the world. Most of the stories, such as this report in Australia’s Melbourne Herald, focus on three things: that the revelation of the affair is “a major embarassment for President Bush and especially for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,” and, as this story from England’s The Independent notes, “the apartment in Battery Park City, now being described as a love nest,” where the affair was conducted, “has views directly onto the hole at ground zero.” Meanwhile, a report by Amanda Peyser in The New York Post—which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns HarperCollins, of which Regan’s ReganBooks is an imprint—seems to have been fed to the reporter via an intermediary from Regan. In it, a supposedly “terrified” Regan—legendary in New York for her toughness—says Kerik is “maniacal” and “insane,” and that he “had Regan followed,” “showed up at her house,” and “threatened her.” On the other hand, Peyser says other acquaintances of the “power-addicted” duoe are “male and female versions of the same people.” Peyser says “The yearlong affair, which began as Regan prepared to publish Kerik’s memoir, was an open secret in town.” It all ended, Peyser reports, when Regan got a call from another Kerik mistress whom she hadn’t known about. Pyeser reports “Fiery Judith shot back, ‘I don’t feel as f—ed as I did before you called. You’re more pathetic than I am.’” Another friend tells Peyser that it revived the affair with Kerik. “She’s very territorial,” the friend explains. “‘What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is mine.’”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.