Moynihan was an interesting character. He grew up in East Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen and worked as a longshoreman before becoming a Harvard intellectual and liberal icon. The Moynihan Report made him a pariah to the liberal Democrats and should have ended his career, The report was too honest and undermined the liberal agenda of the day. He found an odd bedfellow in Richard Nixon who recruited him to his White House staff in 1968. Another Republican, Gerry Ford, made him Ambassador to the UN. After restoring credibility on the international stage, the Democrats accepted him back and he had a successful run as a Senator from NY–still a liberal but also still an independent thinker. He often took stances at odds with the liberal agenda, such as his opposition to Hillary’s original health care scheme.
Moynihan was one of the last of a dying breed…a real New York character… he ascended from a tough start in life and became an icon as well as a forward thinker…and he loved his little drink now and then… I would see him hoist a few at Langans on occasion and he was funny as hell… my 3 favorite quotes from him were 1) when a reporter asked him if he had a drinking problem, he responded “Madame, I do not have a problem drinking” , 2) as UN ambassador, when the UN passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism, in front of the whole assembly, put his arm around the Israeli ambassador and loudly said to him “F_ck them!”… and 3) when he referred to hillarycare as “boob bait for bubbas”…