WaPo columnist wallops National Enquirer's David Pecker: 'The pied piper of sleaze'

The National Enquirer's reported attempt to blackmail Jeff Bezos into killing a Washington Post investigation continued to backfire on Saturday.

Kathleen Parker, a Washington Post columnist, blasted the Enquirer's David Pecker on Saturday -- even making a joke about his last name.

"As stories go, the faceoff between Jeffrey P. Bezos and David Pecker (paging Charles Dickens) has all the elements of a 21st-century battle royal between good and evil, represented by the richest man in the world, who happens to own The Post, and the pied piper of sleaze, respectively," Parker wrote. "Such is the stuff of columnist prayers — scandal, sex, money and, quite possibly, extortion, blackmail and an epic turn of events via shame, redemption and culture-shifting litigation."

She noted the scandal has a potential connection to President Donald Trump.

"Alternatively, because Pecker and Trump are old friends — and because Trump is no big fan of The Post or Bezos — Pecker, who is also the chairman and chief executive of AMI, was perhaps making up to the president for that previously mentioned immunity deal," she noted.

"The world will never be free of Peckers, yet this particular one is especially malevolent," Parker noted. "But when his company allegedly threatened Bezos and suggested that he betray the values of the newspaper he owns, it issued a challenge to karma."

Read the full column.