Former New York Post editorial page editor Bob McManus dead at 81: ‘A journalist’s journalist’

Bob McManus, the wry and eminently fair voice of the New York Post for over a decade, died Saturday at NYU Langone Hospital. He was 81.

McManus was a Postie for 29 years — the last 12 as the influential editorial page editor, where government waste, public and private corruption, and hypocrisy in all its forms felt the “pain of his withering gaze,” as the paper noted when he retired in 2013.

“He was a journalist’s journalist,” said former Post state editor Fredric U. Dicker.

McManus died three days short of his 82nd birthday of complications from bile duct cancer, his family said.

Robert LaVelle McManus Jr. was born in Buffalo, the oldest of nine siblings to Robert L.  McManus Sr. and Jeanette Manning. He was introduced to journalism early in life by his father, an award-winning reporter at Binghamton and Albany newspapers who went on to become a top aide and press secretary for the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

“Bob had memories of going to work with his dad on Saturdays,” said Mary McManus, his wife of 24 years. “Newspapers were in his blood.”

McManus was raised in Binghamton and, after a bout with polio at 12, moved to Albany with his family. He graduated Vincentian Institute high school, where by his own admission he was “academically undistinguished,” his wife said.

He was always a hard worker — in high school he finagled a full-time job as manager of the “pets and plants” department at W.T. Grants department store while a student.

After graduation he enlisted in the US Navy and served four years — first on a destroyer, the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., and then on a submarine, the USS Sablefish. He was proud of his time in the highly-selective “silent service,” and was a member of the NYC Base of the United States Submarine Veterans.

He returned to Albany, and got his first crack at the news business, as a copy boy at the morning Times Union, while he took classes at Siena College.

8

He quickly moved up the ranks to become an award-winning investigative reporter, exposing corruption and malfeasance on topics like snow removal and Medicaid, friends and family recalled.

Longtime friend EJ McMahon, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, described McManus’ writing style as “pithy amalgam of Damon Runyon, Raymond Chandler and Red Smith.”
“He was the last of a dying breed in what’s left of journalism — underneath the editorial writer and columnist was an old-school, no-nonsense reporter, a stickler for accuracy and fairness.”

He became the Albany paper’s city editor and projects editor in the 1970s before being persuaded in 1984 by Dicker to move to Manhattan and join the New York Post’s editorial page. In 2000, he was named editorial page editor.

8

8

McManus was “always after the truth, and never let his personal views, or his abiding cynicism, get in the way of that pursuit,” Dicker said.

8

The month before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, McManus ran an editorial thundering that Washington was fundamentally ignoring al Qaeda despite escalating attacks. With Ground Zero still burning, he felt obliged to postpone his wedding for a month, recalled his successor, current Post Editorial Page Editor Mark Cunningham.

“Bob was a pro; a sharp classic dresser; an avid reader all across his ridiculously wide range of interests; a guy who loved to craft a good line; a man who cared about the truth and despised phonies; always aware that our mission is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” recalled Cunningham.

He especially “loved” giving opinions about George Pataki’s 12-year tenure as governor, and was sometimes quick to needle Pataki by inserting “blah, blah, blah” whenever writing editorials discussing the administration’s rationale on state policy issues, recalled his wife.

8

“Bob loved politicians,” Mary McManus said. “He found them very interesting, whether they’re Democrat or Republican, and people did consider him to be fair even though he wrote editorials.”

Longtime Post editor and columnist Steve Cuozzo called McManus his “Irish ‘rabbi.'”

“He knew every living and no-longer-living soul in Albany, including Nelson Rockefeller, and his deep knowledge of government at all levels informed his every editorial and opinion piece,” he said.

“His time on a U.S. Navy submarine instilled in him a profound strength and discipline, but he was also a kind and witty man beloved by his colleagues. . . . We’ll miss him terribly.” 

8

8

Even though he retired, McManus never really left The Post, continuing to pen common-sense columns. He’d usually accept the assignment with a shrug, “I guess I could do it,” — only to call back 15 minutes later to say, “I’m very worked up, can I have more room?” one staffer recalled.

8

His last New York Post piece in March 2024 called Gov. Hochul’s decision to deploy National Guard troops into the city’s subway system to address rising crime a “political stunt — undertaken to divert attention from her unwillingness to confront the core problem: the hammerlock crime-tolerant progressivism has on public policy in New York.”

“Life was interesting with him,” said Mary McManus “He just knew so much and put the pieces together so well. . . . His memory was phenomenal.”

Besides his wife, McManus is survived by his daughter Kathleen McManus, three sisters and four brothers.

The family is planning to hold a memorial service honoring him sometime next month.