Steve Schwarzman Basks in the Limelight

Steve Schwarzman is a busy man these days, what with running his company around the world (Blackstone just bought a back-office company in India), preparing his company for an IPO this month, fighting Congress on the taxation of private equity, and even attempting to bail out a Bear Stearns hedge fund. But he still manages to find time in his schedule for being feted by the rich and famous, for instance at a New York Public Library event last night in his honor. Such events seem to be quite common for Schwarzman these days:

Mr. Schwarzman and his wife, Christine Hearst Schwarzman, have become regulars at events like these, and increasingly of late, honored guests. He was given the Leadership Award at his alma mater, Yale University, on Thursday night. Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse awarded him with a Distinguished Service Award in April of last year.

Of course, there was also Schwarzman's notorious $3 million birthday party in February, where he stage-managed all the accolades: "When Blackstone colleagues prepared a video tribute, he sought to squelch any roasting, asking his peers not to poke fun at him," reported Henny Sender and Monica Langley in a Schwarzman profile last week.

Today, the WSJ's DealJournal is reporting on some of the oily obsequiousness directed towards Schwarzman from Maria Bartiromo at the NYPL event:

Bartiromo said she was introducing Schwarzman “not as a journalist” but as a friend. She called Schwarzman “truly a wealth creator”; a “winner”; someone who “loves the camera, likes the attention, and it loves him.”
“Steve,” Bartiromo said, “you’re a pioneer. There’s no other way to look at it. It’s all good.”

Ugh. I just hope that Bartiromo is never forced to report on her "friend" Schwarzman.