David Vs Gossip Goliath

smuckers

Hollywood liberal Laurie David, wife of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Seinfeld" creator Larry David, found herself fielding abusive faxes and other messages yesterday after cybergossip Matt Drudge scorched her for holding a high-level strategy session in Beverly Hills tonight on how Democrats might defeat President Bush.
Drudge claimed on his Web site - erroneously, I've concluded - that Laurie David titled an E-mail about the event at the Beverly Hilton, to be co-hosted by the likes of superagent Ari Emanuel and "Seinfeld" star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "with the bold heading: 'Hate Bush 12/2 - Event.'"

In response, David told me yesterday, she was subjected to a barrage "of ugly messages," including this one, from an Akron, Ohio, man who somehow obtained her private fax number:

"Dear Laurie David: Thanks for revealing how Compassionate Liberals such as yourself would initiate a Hate Bush campaign. And some wonder why there is increasing anti-Semitism. I'm not."

David told me: "The last time I looked, people are still allowed to have meetings, aren't they?" She vehemently denied that she ever used the phrase "Hate Bush" on any E-mail, but noted that she sent out E-mails to Democratic friends, who in turn sent forwarded E-mails to their friends, and so on, producing probably hundreds of E-mails for which she is not responsible.

"I don't hate Bush," she said. "I hate his administration's policies - especially what they have done concerning the environment. But for all I know, he is personally a lovely man."

Late yesterday, after Drudge forwarded me the smoking E-mail with the "Hate Bush" subject line, I sent an E-mail to the author, and a man phoned me to identify himself as the culprit.

"This is all very unfortunate," the man told me, saying he lives somewhere in the Midwest but declining to reveal his name. "Laurie David should not be held responsible. I got an E-mail and forwarded it to a friend, and I thought I was being kind of amusing."

Acknowledging that he doesn't like Bush, the man added, "I don't want to tell you who I am because I don't want this to go any further."

Drudge was unapologetic.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of the Internet," he told me. As for anti-Semitic reaction, "Speaking as a Jew myself, I think Laurie David is trying to equate the Drudge Report with Jew haters. I know what she's doing. I also think that the Bush-hating organizers of this event need to get better organized."