Quinn was born in Savannah, Georgia to Lt. Gen. William Wilson "Buffalo Bill" Quinn (November 1, 1907–September 11, 2000) and his wife, Sara Bette Williams, (January 27, 1918–September 26, 2004). Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Quinn has two siblings, a younger sister, Donna, of Oakland, CA. and younger brother, William Jr. of Phoenix.

Lt. Gen. Quinn was an intelligence officer and played a key role in the transition of the United States' intelligence service from the Office of Strategic Services to the Central Intelligence Agency. From 1964 to 1966 he was commander of the 7th Army in Germany. During WWII he held the rank of colonel; helped coordinate the invasion of southern France in 1944, captured Hermann Goering, and though he was not present when it happened, his regiment liberated the concentration camp Dachau. He arrived the next day when he heard the news.

For many years the Quinns maintained a residence on Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., where Bette Quinn was known for her cooking and entertaining. Sally Quinn reports in CC Goldwater's HBO film Mr. Conservative that Senator Barry Goldwater spent much time with the Quinns, often staying at their home, after his wife decided to remain in Arizona instead of coming out to D.C. while Congress was in session.

Quinn graduated from Smith College in 1963.

Quinn is the third wife of Benjamin C. Bradlee, her former boss at the Washington Post. Ben Bradlee became famous during coverage of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Quinn and Bradlee have one child, Quinn Bradlee, who was born in 1982 when she was 41 and Bradlee was 61. In 2009, they appeared with Quinn Bradlee on the Charlie Rose show on PBS and spoke of Quinn being born with Velo-cardio-facial syndrome, also known as 22q11.2 deletion and Shprintzen syndrome (named after Dr. Robert Shprintzen who first identified the disorder in 1978 and also diagnosed Quinn Bradlee). Quinn wrote of Quinn's learning disabilities and attendance at special schools in a 2006 blog article "What My Son Taught Me About God."[1]

Newspaper journalism

A Savannah, Georgia native and Smith College graduate, Quinn began at the Washington Post with very little experience: reportedly called by Ben Bradlee after a report of her pajama party in celebration of the election to Congress of Barry Goldwater, Jr., the job interview included the following exchange.

"Can you show me something you've written?" asked Managing Editor Benjamin Bradlee. "I've never written anything," admitted Quinn. Pause. "Well," said Bradlee, "nobody's perfect."

However, she soon demonstrated, as a reporter for the Style section, a talent for drawing out the subjects of her interviews and profiles. Henry Kissinger said, "[Post reporter] Maxine Cheshire makes you want to commit murder. Sally Quinn makes you want to commit suicide." A notable incident of her career was her claim that Zbigniew Brzezinski, then the National Security Advisor, jokingly opened his fly in front of a reporter, a claim that the Post retracted the following day.

Television journalism

In August 1973, Quinn tried her hand at television, joining CBS News reporter Hughes Rudd as co-anchor of the CBS Morning News. The show's anchoring team was its first disaster since debuting in 1963...ninety minutes before her television debut on August 6, 1973, Quinn, who had never reported for television before, collapsed while trying to fight the flu. The next day, she was forced to anchor solo after Rudd's mother died. Quinn's ad libs during the show's first week tended toward the inappropriate...in one episode, following a report on the children of California migrant farm workers, she quipped that child labor "was how I felt when my mother and father made me clean up my room." Quinn left the CBS Morning News after the February 1, 1974 telecast.

Other

Quinn served as social secretary for Cherif Guellal.

Quinn had a cameo role in Born Yesterday, the 1993 remake of the 1950 romantic comedy.

Bill Clinton

Quinn was critical of President Bill Clinton during the impeachment trial, stating that he had "fouled the nest". Quinn had a long-standing animus for the Clintons, possibly due to a perceived snub by First Lady Hillary Clinton, who declined a party invitation from Quinn. Salon | Media Circus: The (not so) mighty Quinn Regarding Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr, she wrote: "Similarly, independent counsel Ken Starr is not seen by many Washington insiders as an out-of-control prudish crusader. Starr is a Washington insider, too. He has lived and worked here for years. He had a reputation as a fair and honest judge. He has many friends in both parties. Their wives are friendly with one another and their children go to the same schools." Starr had won the gratitude of Quinn's husband Ben Bradlee in 1987, as an Appeals Court judge, by dismissing a $2 million libel suit against the Washington Post. TWM - The Clinton-Lewinsky Obsession/Gitlin Harry Jaffe wrote in Salon that Quinn's condemnation of Bill Clinton's adultery rang hollow coming from someone who broke up the marriage of her boss Ben Bradlee before going on to marry Bradlee herself. Clinton, however, was not being impeached on the grounds of adultery.

Liberal criticism and origin of "The Village"

Sally Quinn is heavily and regularly criticized by liberal bloggers and commentators (Digby, Wonkette, Gawker, Media Matters) for her role as a Washington socialite. The ridicule is due in large part to Quinn's feud with the Clintons. In Quinn's "foul the nest" column, influential members of the Washington political establishment expressed their displeasure with President Clinton for sullying Washington D.C., which they refer to as their "village", "town" or "community." In the liberal blogosphere, "The Village" is recognized as satirical shorthand. Digby explains:

Greg [Sargent] is right that ["The Village"] stems from the notorious Sally Quinn article about the Clintons. But it's more than that. It's shorthand for the permanent DC ruling class who have managed to convince themselves that they are simple, puritanical, bourgeois burghers and farmers, even though they are actually celebrity millionaires influencing the most powerful government on earth.

It's about their phoniness, their pretense of speaking for "average Americans" when it's clear they haven't the vaguest clue even about the average Americans who work in their local Starbucks or drive their cabs. It's about their intolerable sanctimony and hypocritical provincialism, pretending to be shocked about things they all do, creating social rules for others which they themselves ignore.

Taking communion

In June 2008, the Catholic League issued a press release highly critical of Quinn for receiving communion at the funeral mass for journalist Tim Russert. In an On Faith blog posting on the Washington Post website, Quinn—who is not a Catholic—wrote that she was "determined to take [communion] for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding" and that she "had a slightly nauseated sensation" after taking it. Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded that "Quinn's statement not only reeks of narcissism, it shows a profound disrespect for Catholics and the beliefs they hold dear." Since the incident, Quinn's judgment as moderator of On Faith has come under question by media commentators including columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, who wrote that "if [Quinn] does not understand the affront she gave then perhaps regularly blogging about religion for a major news outlet is not the right job for her."

Dueling weddings

On February 19, 2010, The Washington Post published "Sally Quinn's The Party: No 'dueling' Bradlee weddings, just scheduling mistake", in print and online. It received scathing comments from readers. This was Quinn's last column for the printed newspaper. The column alluded to Bradlee family dysfunction, her son's wedding, which she scheduled on the same day as her granddaughter's wedding. The column was considered inappropriate and reader backlash was immediate, criticizing Quinn for airing family laundry and Washington Post editors for printing it. By February 24, the Post canceled her column, which had been appearing in the religion section of the print edition.