Camelot it ain’t.
Page Six regrets to report that a press dinner to boost Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign descended into a foul bout of screaming and polemic farting Tuesday night.
The White House hopeful attended the affair at Tony’s on the Upper East Side, no doubt hoping to impress on the ladies and gentlemen of the Fourth Estate his worthiness to sit at the very same Oval Office desk once occupied by his late uncle.
But a shouting match over climate change broke out between two boisterous old men, sending the evening down an extremely unfortunate path.
The gaseous exchange — to which Page Six bore reluctant witness — began after a guest asked Kennedy, founder of the ecological organization Waterkeeper Alliance, about the environment. And it seems that the mere inquiry was enough to set off apparently drunk gossip columnist-turned-flack Doug Dechert, the host of the event, who became enraged and screamed at the top of his lungs:
“The climate hoax!”
Meanwhile, octogenarian art critic Anthony Haden-Guest, who appeared to have been sleeping happily for most of the dinner, was roused by the abrupt rumpus. He suddenly opened his eyes and denounced his longtime pal Dechert, calling him a “miserable blob.” “Shut up!” implored Haden-Guest.
The critic tells us he was not asleep, but rather “just thinking.” He also says he is the one who asked the question about the environment.
Dechert continued to scream wildly about the climate change “scam” while Haden-Guest peppered him with verbal volleys from across the table, calling him variously “f–king insane” and “insignificant.”
Here, it seems, Dechert sensed the need for a new rhetorical tack, and let rip a loud, prolonged fart while yelling, as if to underscore his point, “I’m farting!”
The room, which included... Kennedy’s campaign manager, former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, was stunned, seemingly unsure about whether Dechert was farting at Haden-Guest personally or at the very notion of global warming.
(Regrettably, we may assure readers that there was no room for doubt that the climate changed in the immediate environs of the dinner table.)
The candidate maintained a steady composure in the face of the crisis. Former Page Six reporter Flo Anthony attempted to change the subject, telling Kennedy how much she admired his father, the tragic attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy.
When asked to comment about his, er, outburst the next day, Dechert told us:
“I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.”
(He also asked us to refer to him either as a “gallivanting boulevardier” or a “beer-fueled sex rocket.”) But the beer-fueled sex rocket, who picked up the tab for the evening as its host, was unapologetic about his views, telling us that he has
“zero tolerance for the climate hoax scam nonsense in any venue that I am personally funding.”
