Bob McManus in the Times Union newsroom in 1973, where he began as a copy boy in 1967 before being promoted to city editor and leaving for the New York Post in 1984.

Bob McManus in the Times Union newsroom in 1973, where he began as a copy boy in 1967 before being promoted to city editor and leaving for the New York Post in 1984.

Bob McManus in 2023, when he was still writing columns skewering corrupt politicians. He felt he was doing a good job when politicians were angry with him.

Bob McManus in 2022, nine years after he retired as chief editorial writer from the New York Post following a distinguished 40-year journalism career. He continued to write a political column until he began treatment for a cancer diagnosis in 2024.

ALBANY — All Bob McManus wanted to be was a newspaperman like his dad and uncle before him.

In fulfilling his ink-stained destiny, McManus — eldest of nine siblings raised in Albany — rose from lowly Times Union copy boy in 1967 to one of journalism’s vaunted perches as the longtime editorial page editor of the New York Post. He retired in 2013 but contributed a column until he began radiation and chemotherapy treatments for a cancer diagnosis a year ago.

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As the irascible editorial voice of the reliably conservative and swaggering big-city tabloid, McManus skewered corrupt politicians, pilloried scammers who betrayed the public trust and parried with his mercurial boss — media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

After his death on April 5 in New York City due to complications from bile duct cancer, three days before his 82nd birthday, McManus was given a double shot of hosannas from the paper where he spent decades as a beloved “Postie.” Colleagues called him “the wry and eminently fair voice of the New York Post” and “a journalist’s journalist.”

The New York Times obituary said McManus “prided himself on his unambiguous common-sense commentary” and that he represented “the last of a dying breed.”

Buffalo-born McManus developed a rebel’s attitude after he contracted polio at age 12 and missed the 1955 school year in Binghamton, where his father, Robert McManus Sr., was a reporter for the Binghamton Press, as was his mother’s brother, Robert Manning, “Uncle Bob,” who became editor of The Atlantic. His father later served as a press aide to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and public information officer for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

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McManus had bulbar polio, a form of the virus that paralyzes throat muscles and can damage vocal cords, which left him with a low and soft voice.

Residual effects included weak neck muscles and........

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