ONE OF THE PROBLEMS with being the son of a president with a political future is the strange sort of friends you attract.

On Thursday, February l7, the New York Times ran a story about one Richard Bradley, author of a snarky book about Harvard president Lawrence Summers (who is in a bit of trouble you may have heard of). “Bradley,” it turns out, is the same Richard Blow, unwisely hired by John Kennedy Jr., to mismanage his magazine George. When John Jr. died, Blow wrote a book that one review said had “oozed necrophilia,” describing chats, meals, and editorial meetings with Tribeca’s Adonis. It also oozed bad faith and hypocrisy, as Blow had signed a confidentiality agreement upon being hired, and had fired two writers at George shortly after Kennedy’s death because they spoke kindly of their late boss to the media. “‘Richard Blow’ became a synonym for New York publishing ambition,” explained the new story in the Times, “the very portrait of a man who saw his chance,” and ran with it, all the way to the bank. But do not think for a moment this occasioned the alteration in the nom de plume. “Mr. Bradley said his decision to change his name at age 40 had less to do with controversy” than with unpleasant puns. Some people would say these were all too descriptive. But then, he said plaintively, people are “crude.”