Normally, I'd lay off a target as easy as Jeanine Pirro, because joining a gangbang is just not my style. I'd rather do the iconoclastic and unexpected, like be the first Democrat to call for Alan Hevesi's head. However, that very iconoclasm often causes others to unfairly accuse me of closet Republican tendencies, so I guess I'll just have to slip on spiritual condom and partake in some sloppy seconds.
I'd been planning a Pirro piece for a long time, but given the beating I'd given Andrew Cuomo during the primary, I'd wanted to write it with enough care to credibly explain why a guy (1) I'd essentially accused of behaving like a mobster, and (2) who regarded the office as a consolation prize, should be Attorney General of the State of New York. Thank you, Jeanine Pirro, for saving me the trouble!
In contrast to Cuomo, Jeanine Pirro doesn't merely act like a criminal thug, she actually exchanges fluids with one (or at least used to). Her husband, Al Pirro, once did eleven months for tax fraud committed on a document on which the co-signatory was Ms. Pirro herself (who also benefited financially from the illegal deductions); and people have the nerve to say that Al Pirro has been less than gallant. Is this unfair to harp upon? Does anyone remember the beating former AG candidate Catherine Abate took because of allegations about her father's past? How about Rudy G? Well, one can't chose one's father, but since Ms. Pirro appears not to be a Satmar, I think it's safe to assume that she chose her husband, and that, initially, her career benefited from this choice, as did his "law practice". In 1986, Ms. Pirro, an Assistant District Attorney, with a hard-driving (couldn't resist bringing that up) "fixer" husband, was plucked from obscurity to become the Republican choice for Lt. Governor on Andrew O'Rourke's pathetic and short-lived "All Westchester, All the Time" ticket. Grateful for her sacrifice, the Party gave her a judgeship at the next opportunity and later the nod for DA. She had the good luck to be nominated against a former Manhattan prosecutor whose targets had included several prominent Democrats residing in Westchester who he'd attempted to jail for criminal activities against which no laws had been passed. Revenge was very sweet indeed (and not necessarily undeserved), and Al struck up several lasting friendship across the aisle which have stood him in good stead, as did the reflected glory of his wife's powerful new sinecure.
But, Al Pirro is apparently not the only criminal scumbag with whom Ms. Pirro, until recently a District Attorney, has chosen to maintain an association. As all the world now knows, the person whose office represented "The People of the State of New York" in the criminal courts of the County of Westchester has chosen, against all good judgment, to continue her personal friendship with the highly disreputable former Commissioner of the New York City Police Department; one Bernard Kerik. Moreover, she attempted to enlist Mr. Kerik to perform an illegal activity, to which, despite severe browbeating on what appears to have been more than one occasion, Mr. Kerik demurred. In a scene which recalled the opening of "The Godfather", where mob boss Vito Corleone refused to sanction the murder of the men who had attempted to rape the funeral director's daughter, Kerik refused to wiretap Al Pirro's "pleasure craft", a trysting place where the poles were apparently used for sport-fishing, so to speak. Unlike Corleone, Kerik's refusal did not stem from any code of morality, however disordered, but merely from the practical impossibility of finding anyone willing to take the risk of committing such a crime on behalf of a prominent former prosecutor running for higher office, while her husband was scrounging for lower orifice. You just can't get good help these days. The matter is now the subject of a criminal investigation by a United State's Attorney. Al himself is neither unfamiliar with federal criminal investigations or wiretaps; recently, a mob acquaintance of Al's was heard on tape bragging of having received confidential information, obtained by the Westchester DA, through the courtesy of Al's good offices.
Respected opinion makers like Errol Lewis and Rock Hackshaw often cite Pirro's record as a prosecutor in hyping her candidacy. However, they always forget to mention her unique personal ability to be able to empathize and understand the criminal's point of view. OK, that's a cheap shot. After all, when Pirro categorically refuses to examine evidence that someone she had put away may be innocent, she is certainly not showing any empathy to convicted criminals. Of course, those who she wrongfully convicted really aren't criminals, but why harp on technicalities like which Officer of the Court inscribed their John Hancock on that Form 1040, anyway? And, doesn't Bob Morgenthau refuse to revisit his old errors too? Yeah, he does, but at least he doesn't visibly salivate over the possibility that one day he may actually get the opportunity to send his mistakes to the electric chair (although he may sometimes drool for other reasons).
Can Jeanine Pirro be indicted for criminal idiocy? She no more wants to be AG than does Andrew Cuomo. As she said to Bernie, "been there, done that". Acutely aware of the albatross she married, she told Kerik she'd be Governor today, but not for her choice of companions. Wisely, she'd initially chosen to run for US Senate, knowing it was the one race where Al would not be an issue. One's connections to a cheating husband who committed perjury by lying on his tax forms is not likely to be raised by an opponent whose cheating husband lied before a grand jury. Moreover, the national exposure such a race seemed likely to entail would certainly have boosted Jeanine's second career as a TV personality, and possibly lead to full-time employment by the Fox Network.
But then fate intervened, and fate's name was Joe Bruno. A Nassau County State Senator named Michael Balboni had set his eyes upon the AG's race. Balboni represents Nassau County's north shore including Great Neck, Roslyn and Port Washington. While he is popular in his district to the point on near-invincibility, that district was a likely pick-up for the Democrats in the event of a vacancy. Senate Republican Leader Bruno believes that holding one of his party’s marginal seats is the equivalent of a sentence to life imprisonment without parole, and like Jeanine Pirro, he is not inclined to give second chances. Balboni had to be forced out of the AG's race at any cost, and that cost required that Pirro be forced into it. Promises were made, the Independence Party line was delivered, and KT McFarlane was dug up from well-deserved obscurity, all so Joe Bruno could peacefully sleep at night knowing he'd still wake in the morning as one of the "Three Men in a Room". In what may be poetic justice, thanks to Bruno's efforts to save the Balboni seat, thousands of voters expected to support Eliot Spitzer on the Independence line, who were once thought likely to continue down the line to the benefit of nearly every Republican candidate for State Senate, will now, confronted with having to work their way through the prospect of voting for Jeanine Pirro and Alan Hevesi, abandon the line before reaching Bruno's allies. Perhaps Bruno can print the IP buttons reading "Vote Pirro-Hevesi: Nobody's Perfect".
How could Jeanine Pirro have been so stupid? She knew the Democratic nominee for AG would be either Andrew Cuomo or Mark Green; yes, both men had the aura of damaged goods, but both were also street fighters clearly capable of slinging mud or any other substance in service to their careers. Running against Clinton was the only statewide option which might have avoided discussion of matters Pirro would have preferred to have remained under the radar; running for AG, of all offices, against the expected opposition, was the equivalent of setting up a speed trap between her husband's office and his yacht, and then having his girlfriend make him a booty call saying she had only a half hour to take in a quickie. Pirro is now being subjected to the rough equivalent of a public gynecological exam with no opportunity for escape once she was snapped into the stirrups, deprived of even her paper gown, as pictures of her ordeal are posted on Fleshbot for the private titillation of strangers and acquaintances alike.
The explanation for willingly subjecting oneself to such an ordeal can only be insanity or masochism; if it's the latter, she's clearly forgotten her safety word. Will someone please appoint a Guardian Ad Litem to protect this woman from those who seek to do her harm, starting with her own self.
Gatemouth's Homepage was updated on 9/28/06; for more fun and laughter, click here.