Ed Kosner, Esquire's embattled editor, could likely use one of Estefan's syncopated rubdowns right about now. In Baumgold's case, look before you leap. Kosner's impulse to keep his back page in the family isn't a rarity. Usually, though, it's a magazine's publisher who tries to sneak into the starting line-up. The results can be uneven.
Somebody throw that man a towel.
At the National Review, founder William F. Buckley, Jr. is savvy enough to dump his thrice-weekly syndicated columns on the spread just before the magazine's back page. Patton would have punched him. Literary editor Leon Wieseltier can be counted on to occasionally issue a few deep, Heathcliff-like rumblings from the pit of his soul. Wieseltier can surprise you, though. And this was before his Cornel West voodoo doll arrived in the mail.