Recently I had dinner with a political prospect from the far reaches of one of those areas of Brooklyn where my political knowledge is limited, and my reporting is mostly a matter of faking the funk.
During the dessert, he laid a bombshell in my lap.
“You can use this one: Diane Gordon told me she was running for the City Council.”
As I’ve said before more than once, life is too short, and those unfortunate enough to be living in communities like East New York cannot be blamed if they decide to derive their entertainment through their elected officials, whether it be Councilman Chuckles Barron or their former Assemblywoman and perhaps future Councilwoman, Diane "House of the Rising Sum" Gordon.
Certainly, if I were faced with choices of that quality, I too would join Ms. Gordon in seeking to move to a gated community in Queens, although given the number of former members of the Assembly from that august borough recently sentenced or about to be, and the rumors of pending indictments in the near future, perhaps there is no escape, there or anywhere else.
Or so the zeitgeist might seem to indicate.
And this is not merely a matter of City-based politicians. Recently convicted Former State Senator (and almost County Exec) Vincent Leibell was from the suburbs, while Former “Man in a Room” Joe “Phil Leotardo” Bruno was from upstate.
Without talking about any new or impending cases, let me repeat what I said a few week ago while joyously dancing upon the grave of a dead man who will not be missed:
“I may be naïve, but I believe most politicians went into the business, not only out of ego (certainly always a factor), but for motives good. I say this about virtually all of them, left, liberal, moderate, conservative and far right.
I even say it about those with no discernable ideology.
It certainly is the reason I went into the business (and the reason why I eventually became disillusioned with it) . In this link I discuss some of the perils of such a life. Many people who embark upon such a course lose their way, but even most of them probably believe they are in the business to do good.
I also think society often has unreal expectations. The realities of the system alone require compromises to achieve good, which many, if not most, normal human who care (itself a possible contradiction) probably find distressing.
The distorted view of the public, as refracted subsequently by the media and prosecutors, sometimes results in what some politicians claim is an effort to “criminalize politics.”
Many times this complaint is nonsense; sometimes it is justified, and perhaps most often, it is part of a fuzzy gray ambiguous haze.
But there was nothing ambiguous or fuzzy about Fat Tony Seminerio.
Seminerio’s case was not about the “criminalization of politics.”
Tony Seminerio politicized criminality.
Seminerio justified a cynical belief that “they are all crooks.’ Such a belief, when widely held, only makes things worse.
If one believes they are all criminals, nothing shocks. If one believes they are all criminals, government can never be justified as a means for doing good.
That is Tony Seminerio’s biggest crime.”
That being said (and that being sad), it is time to draw some useful distinctions that people like “Reform“ Brooklyn District Leader Lincoln Restler seem bent upon ignoring.
Always a forward thinker, Restler became the first pol to call for the resignations of Assemblyman William Boyland and State Senator Carl Kruger in the wake of the criminal complaints filed against them.
“The charges against Senator Carl Kruger and Assemblyman William Boyland are a sad reflection of the corrupt Brooklyn Democratic machine,” said Restler “As the Chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Committee, Vito Lopez consistently supports candidates focused on self-enrichment, rather than the needs of our struggling neighborhoods. We need honest leadership in Albany, Senator Kruger and Assemblyman Boyland should resign their seats immediately.”
Now, let me be clear, I have no strong feeling about Junior Boyland, aside from disclosing my begrudging and perhaps unfathomable fondness for his sister Tracy (though it did not stop me from endorsing Velmanette Montgomery against her for State Senate), and noting that Junior seems both pleasant, and perhaps lighter in some matters of his weight than in his girth.
But, as to Carl Kruger, I can only quote Robert Caro:
“There is an expression used in Albany to describe the relationship of two men between whom there exists bad feeling when that feeling has existed for years, has resisted every attempt at reconciliation and has only deepened with the passage of time, to a point where ‘dislike’ is not so fitting a name for it as ‘hatred.’ In discussing such men, one assemblyman will say to another, with a knowing shake of his head: ‘They go back a long way’”
Carl Kruger and I go back a long way.
I’ve despised Carl ever since 1984.
Brooklyn Democrats were then in the midst of a leadership war between the forces of Borough President Howard Golden and the late Tony Genovesi, fighting a series of proxy wars across the County.
The Golden proxies in my home area were Michael Garson (presently a disgraced and convicted former judge) and Renee Hauser (alev ha-sholem). The Genovesi proxies were Alan Maisel (now a pretty decent Assemblyman) and former District Leader Myrna Zisman (now a Trustee in the Nassau County Village of Cedarhurst and a major league contributor to Republicans, as well as for the sort of Far Right Wing Zionist groups who give people awards for building illegal settlement in defiance of the Israeli government).
I was working for Garson. As a young operative for the Senate Minority, I had recently been thrown into an emergency assignment and had been forced for a few days to tend to tasks other than overseeing the distribution of Garson’s literature.
He tracked me down and started screaming over the phone:
“I’m going to get you fired from your job!!!!!!!!”
I replied: “You’re going to get me fired from my job for doing my job? Good fucking luck.”
Actually, I ended up drawing a bit of heat from my superiors for not reminding them to cover my back at home, which I had foolishly presumed they had done. They’d gotten yelled at too, and were not pleased, bringing me more heartache.
I was furious. It was only the latest in the series of indignities visited upon me during that summer by Michael Garson; insults verging upon dignitary torts, relieved only by the consolation of the cash I was creaming off the top of the literature distribution operation I was running for him.
When my Senate emergency was finally over, I joined my girlfriend, State Senator Donnie Halperin’s lovely scheduler, Phyllis, for dinner at our faction’s hangout , “Martin’s” (alev ha-sholem) on Nostrand Avenue.
Unfortunately, we’d picked the night the other side (which usually hung out at “The Arch” on Ralph Avenue) decided they were going to make a show of strength deep into our base.
But for the presence of two Cuomo honchos, Fabian Palamino (the Governor’s counsel) and Tony Papa, sitting at a table nearby, and a group of yentas from the local co-ops, some of whom were polling inspectors for our club, Phyllis and I virtually had the place to ourselves
I was talking in hushed tones about Garson.
The gist of my monologue was that I was through with that scumbag; fuck him; I was voting for Maisel (though not Zisman); I knew exactly how to cover myself on distributions, how to get as little done as possible for as much money as I could steal. I knew which kids reported back to which club members, and I would make sure they were worked to death. All the club members and their friends and relatives were going to get lit dropped on their blocks and their building, and the rest of the lit was going into Sheepshead Bay. We were going to Hawaii on the profits.
Phyllis responded that it was time to take a different job, because as long as that SOB thought I owed him, he thought he owned me; he’d expect indentured servitude, including yard work and polishing his wife‘s outsized diamond ring, which she could shove up her tight JAPpy ass. Phyllis hated Garson, a situation probably not helped by the fact that Mike was her divorce lawyer, a mistake which eventually led to litigation begun in 1982 finally coming to resolution in 1991.
We were on a tear, plotting out a free distribution for Maisel, subsidized by Garson, when we were suddenly joined in the restaurant by about 150 members of the Jefferson Club.
Papa and Palamino, supporters of Golden, immediately joined Genovesi and Maisel to bust chops. I didn’t hear the conversation, but got the drift when Maisel guffawed out loud, mounted Genovesi’s lap, and pretended to be a ventriloquist’s dummy, doing a very convincing imitation of Howdy Doody.
It was about then that I heard yelling from another table.
It was Kenny Frankel, the unspeakable butt boy to the detestable Myrna Zisman.
Kenny had left our club after being caught submitting a sheet of identical signatures for one of our school board candidates, thereby acquiring a nick-name derived from of that of one of Brooklyn’s most memorable fraudulutors.
Phyllis looked up and growled, “Go over and see what ‘Vander Kenny’ wants.”
Kenny had an uncanny ability to call my apartment at the exact moment I was otherwise engaged in a moment of ecstasy with my inamorata, a situation which Phyllis did not find as humorous as it seems in retrospect.
I suppose it may have bothered Phyllis that Kenny seemed to have a better intuition about my dick than she did; that, and the fact he wore a larger bra size.
Kenny attempted to introduce me to Bernie Catcher, who I already had done business with (and who I had learned, could, by virtue of the Jeff Club’s remarkable Captain’s system, literally track a literature distribution, block by block, as it was occurring), and we exchanged civil “hellos.”
I then looked at an angry looking bald man watching us warily. Having already been through a morgue of newspapers clippings looking for dirt on Maisel’s associates, I said the following, and nothing more:
“You must be Carl Kruger.”
The man turned blood red.
I guess I understand why. If someone called me “Carl Kruger,“ I’d be insulted too.
But this man was Carl Kruger.
The mad man now started screaming at the top of his lungs.
“FUCK YOU!!!!…AND FUCK YOU, KENNY, FOR BRINGING HIM OVER HERE.”
At that point, perhaps trying to avoid further noise, Bernie turned to me piteously and softly said, “If Carl doesn’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to talk to you either.”
In retrospect, it does occur to me that after months of having to endure Kenny Frankel, Bernie and Carl were dying to express their disdain for him in an acceptable manner, and I had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of that fury.
The screaming continued unabated. All eyes were upon me and Kruger, including those of Phyllis, who grabbed my arm, threw some currency on our table and dragged me out of there.
THE BASTARD HAD DRIVEN US OUT OF OUR HANGOUT!
How dare he?!?
The next day, Phyllis took calls and visits at her office from five different people asking if it was true that I had decked Carl Kruger at Martin’s
She would neither confirm or deny the story.
From that moment on, no one in that campaign worked harder for Michael Garson than I (except perhaps Phyllis).
I even cut my rate of skim.
Michael was surely slime, but there was no way I was letting those animals take over my community.
I should note that Bernie Catcher, though hardly one to easily swallow his pride, did eventually manage to make amends.
May his name be a blessing.
I’m still waiting on that apology from Carl.
Truthfully, I tried to let bygones be bygones.
Strange as it now seems, Carl was the “progressive” choice for the nomination in the 1993 Special Election when Donnie Halperin resigned from the Senate to become (I kid you not) State Housing Commissioner
Mike Garson’s brother Joel, who kept a picture of Ollie North over his desk, was the conservative. Bruce Balter, who sent Democratic County Committee members a letter trumpeting the work he’d done to elect Giuliani, was the moderate. There was a real liberal in the race, Alan Sclar, who had been my best literature distribution kid back in the 80s, but he had about three proxies in hand, and two of them belonged to him and his wife.
But Kruger was a very difficult Senator to like.
Almost none of the money Kruger raised in his early years ever found its way into State Senate Democratic coffers, and almost none of his staff ever found themselves working on State Senate Democratic races.
Kruger, perhaps the best political mechanic in the Conference, never seemed to find the time to work on any State Senate Democratic races.
In the 2000 US Senate race, Kruger made an early endorsement of Republican Rudy Giuliani, who soon left the race when overcome by the combined forces of his nether regions (prostate and promiscuity).
Hillary was not forgiving, and her campaign manager, Bill DeBlasio, personally saw to it that, to punish the Senate Dems, the Democratic Coordinated Campaign withheld much needed funds from the Senate Dems until they arrived too late to be of optimum use.
This is reminiscent of a passage from Mario Puzo’s novel, “The Godfather” describing the operations of a rival Don:
“He had a fleet of freight hauling trucks that made him a fortune primarily because his trucks could travel with heavy overload and not be stopped and fined by highway weight inspectors. These trucks helped ruin the highways and then his road-building firm, with lucrative state contracts, repaired the damage wrought. It was the kind of operation that would warm any man’s heart, business of itself creating more business.”
In this case, Bruno was Don Stracci, and Kruger was the largest truck in his fleet.
As I noted in 2007, “Political cross-dressing has been all the rage for years when it comes to Brooklyn Dems endorsing Republicans, but Kruger doesn't restrict himself to just endorsing Rudy against Hillary, and the like; he actually transgressed the taboo of pissing on his own conference, endorsing a Republican (Marty Golden) against a sitting Democratic State Senator (Vinnie Gentile), and then helping to run Golden's campaign.’ The wife (Doris Greenwood) of a member of Kruger's staff (Joel Garson–yes, those Garsons) works for Golden. It's all big one happy family…He came this close to being kicked out of the party conference, but cut a deal with David Paterson to save his skin.
If not for Kruger, the Dems would be at least two seats closer to the Senate majority. Actually, we should make that at least three seats. If the Dems take the majority by own one seat, Kruger will be the Joe Lieberman of the State Senate, except it won't only be ideological perfidy that Kruger pulls; give Joe credit; he's a neo-con; Kruger's just a whore, who'll sell the Senate to the highest bidder.”
At one point in the campaign, Senate Democratic staffers working for Gentile were distributing some negative lit in the Shanty Irish fortress of Gerritsen Beach, when they were surrounded by a cordon of off-duty cops under the direction of Kruger staffer Joel Garson and escorted out of the neighborhood.
As I recently recounted, the Kruger-facilitated defeat of Gentile, was pretty much the end of the line for Marty Connor, and therefore the end of the job I loved.
Shortly thereafter, I was working the holiday party circuit, looking for job leads when I ran into Carl Kruger (hand in hand with Dottie Turano) at Jakie Gold‘s smoked fish soirée; I got a little woozy, suddenly I thought we were in Martin’s, it was 1984, and Phyllis was no longer in the room restraining me.
I looked straight out at Kruger, and screamed at the top of my lungs:
“I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DEMORATIC CLUB; WHO LET THIS REPUBLICAN IN???
The whole room was staring. Jake Gold didn’t know whether to step in to stop the fight, or to begin to take notes, so he could better repeat the story later.
Kruger’s voice went soft. “You’re gonna need help keeping your job, and I’m gonna make sure you don’t.”
“Fuck you,” I responded in a softer tone, “Paterson doesn’t trust you anymore than Connor does, so you’re so far out of the loop that you’re the only one in the Senate who doesn’t know that I’m one of the 13 names on the first day hit list. There‘s nothing you can do to me, asshole.”
I then started Screaming again. “CARL KRUGER, POLITICAL TRANSVESTITE; CARL KRUGER, THE RU PAUL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.”
Jake, a dear friend then as now, looked at me askance, “Vith all due respect, I think the crowd is a little old for the Ru Paul reference.”
It was the first time Kruger had ever threatened my livelihood; it would not be the last. The second incident was an email from a friend concerning my blog; the substance of the email was that Kruger knew who I was, and was threatening to get me fired.
Following that message, I took an unannounced hiatus in November, 2007, and did not publish again until February 2008. I didn’t really start blogging in earnest until May of that year, after Room 8 was chosen as the DNC’s NYS designated blog.
From 2002 on, Kruger was almost a junior member of the Republican Conference, basically getting serviced out of their allocations for any shortfalls in staff or member items, and getting some of his bills passed without David Paterson or Malcolm Smith having to beg for it.
But that wasn’t enough.
In 2007, Eliot Spitzer and Malcolm Smith worked assiduously to get two Republican to vote with the Democrats to reorganize. He needed two at once, because no one wanted to do it alone.
The more credible it was that the majority would changes hands, the more likely Republicans would have been to jump.
Things looked good.
Then Kruger accepted appointment by Bruno to the Chairmanship of the Senate’s Social Service Committee. The position paid Kruger an additional $12,500 a year and afforded him additional staff, including Independence Party Vice Chair Tom Connolly, who was then using the IP as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bruno’s Campaign Committee, to the extent that they were being run out of their offices.
By accepting this position, Kruger allowed Bruno to send his conference a powerful message:
“Don't bother jumping ship; I have Democratic votes, and you'll end up in the minority.”
Kruger had taken the wind out of Smith's sails, and he got a prize for it.
That was the beginning of the end for Spitzer. Kruger had blown his best shot at turning the Senate, and with it, his best opportunity for enacting his reform agenda.
As documented by Lloyd Constantine, the failed effort to turn the Senate was the beginning of the end, as Spitzer’s efforts became more and more desperate. There was Choppergate, and an effort to get the Sen Dems to complain about Bruno to the IRS (which Kruger dropped the dime about). If one is to believe Constantine, the despondency over Bruno is what lead to the prostitutes. Spitzer, already softened by Choppergate, could not survive another scandal.
All traceable in its way to Carl Kruger.
After the fall of Spitzer, Kruger pretty much continued to function as a member of the Republican Conference, up until the point where the Senate became Democratic by one vote.
Kruger then set up the “Amigos,” using his balance of power to throw the Senate into chaos until he became Chair of the Finance Committee.
Extortion, pure and simple.
Later, the next summer, when Amigos Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate attempted to repeat the trick, Kruger basically served as their negotiator with the Senate Democrats, helping to make Espada the Majority Leader.
The whole two act fiasco was perhaps the greatest New York political disgrace of our lifetime, and Carl Kruger was pretty much the ring master of that three wing flea circus.
And I’ve documented pretty much all of it right here on Room 8.
Truthfully, no one writing on the blogs today has a longer and more distinguished record of hatred for Carl Kruger than I do..
Not only the tales just discussed, but others as well.
Until this week, there was no other place on the web to go for details of Kruger’s 1979 indictment for extortion. No other place to get the details of the disgraceful race Kruger ran to elect John Duane to the Assembly in 1982; no other place to learn of the investigation which followed. No other place to learn of the fomenting of hatred against people of color or the mentally retarded. Few other places discussing Kruger’s role in the Nick’s Lobster imbroglio.
And let us not forget same sex marriage.
Here’s what I said about the closeted gay Senators who voted no.
“As one wag told me, “we’ve gone from three men in a room to three men in a closet.”
Three men in a closet.
I will not name names, because I do not have the moral standing to do so, and because even though they may deserve it, I still find it distasteful. But they know who they are. They are cowards, whose lust for power apparently exceeds their power for lust. Cowards who are amigos in Lark Street bars, but enemies on the Senate floor. Cowards who tremble in secret at the thought of doing the right thing, and then tremble publicly in the act of doing the wrong one. Cowards who gladly take the Greek position, but bear no gifts.”
I lacked the moral standing to name names, though no more so than the New York Post, but now that the Post has called a spade a heart, I’m not going to retrain myself.
Lincoln Restler says Carl Kruger should resign now?
I’ve been screaming for his resignation since at least 2002.
But, unlike others, including not only Restler, but Kruger, I have an aversion to joining everyone else in playing “Johnny-on-a-pony” and treating those who are down as a piñata.
Perhaps it’s my contrarian personality, but I yield to no one in my respect for the presumption of innocence.
Yes, I can hardly disagree that the standards the justice system maintains concerning the burden of proof for criminal liability may not necessarily be the same as each individual voter’s standards for fitness to hold public office.
But Kruger’s lack of fitness for office was established long ago, and the voters of his district have consistently felt otherwise.
The stupid saps.
Perhaps those voters will get the opportunity to judge Kruger again, in a trial we call democracy, where the standard for punishment is somewhat less stringent than guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I can’t wait.
When that time comes, I assure you that, as in the past, I will be among the loudest calling for the removal of Carl Kruger from politics.
Until then, though, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt would seem to be the operative standard for Kruger’s removal.
So Lincoln Restler should just shut up.
Interestingly, Restler’s club, “New Kings Democrats” is composed largely of people who backed Howard Dean for President. During Dean’s campaign for President, he was ridiculed for stating his belief that even Osama bin Laden was entitled to a fair trial before we pronounced sentence.
But aiding and abetting the slaughter of thousands of innocents is one thing; being a Brooklyn hack who is the subject of a criminal complaint is apparently quite another.
Silly me for assuming that a person, whether an Islamo-fascist terrorist accused of mass murder, or even a Brooklyn hack accused of being a Brooklyn hack, was presumed innocent until proven guilty.
I do not extend this anathema to the removal of Kruger, pending trial, and even if he is acquitted, from his position as Ranking Democratic Member of the State Senate’s Committee on Finance. Ranking Memberships on a committee are not a right, converted by the voters, but a privilege, conveyed by a party conference, entitled to consider not only questions of political expediency, but substantive factors as well.
Without getting into specifics, which I can’t, there appears to be some concern that, under the present circumstances, the presence of Kruger in a leadership position whose jurisdiction includes deciding questions relating to the allocation of money might create the appearance of an impropriety.
Avoiding such an appearance is clearly sufficient reason for Kruger to have to surrender such a position, at least temporarily and maybe even permanently.
I also note that legisilative bodies do have an independent obligation to police and sometimes remove their members (even for reasons which do not involve criminal charges), after a fact-finding hearing(s), even while keeping in mind that removal of someone duly elected by the voters is a power not to be the taken lightly. But, even when justified, such proceedings must, in cases where criminal charges are pending, defer to the judicial process, because to require a member to defend both proceeding at once would jeopardize their Fifth Amendment rights.
Keeping all this in mind, Restler has gone a bridge too far.
He’s not even consistent. Upon Restler’s election as Leader, there was already a member of the State Senate from Kings County under indictment for a felony, yet no one can find any statement by Restler calling for Kevin Parker’s removal.
In Restler’s defense, since that time, Parker was acquitted of a felony and convicted of a misdemeanor. However, given Restler‘s harsh stance on the matter of criminal complaints, he now has two choices; he call now call upon Parker to resign as well (something which I think can be argued either way) or he can say that Parker’s acquittal upon felony charges, and conviction for a misdemeanor only, is not sufficient under the circumstances to justify expulsion.
Of course, if he does that, he only confirms that the operative standard is not the filing of a felony complaint, but an actual felony conviction. And an actual felony conviction requires either a guilty plea or a trial, neither of which has yet occurred (and may never occur) in the matters of Kruger or Boyland.
Less importantly, I think Restler has gone too far in laying blame (if blame is even merited–there has yet to be a trial) for Kruger and Boyland upon Lopez.
“As the Chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Committee, Vito Lopez consistently supports candidates focused on self-enrichment, rather than the needs of our struggling neighborhoods. We need honest leadership in Albany, Senator Kruger and Assemblyman Boyland should resign their seats immediately.”
To be fair to someone I also dislike (albeit, a lot less than I dislike Kruger), Vito Lopez is not responsible in any way for the incumbency of Kruger and Boyland.
Both Kruger and Boyland attained their seats after nominations by local party committees during the tenure of Lopez’s predecessor, Clarence Norman.
Neither Kruger or Boyland has needed Lopez’s help to hold their seats, and neither has received much of it to do so, other than the pro forma backing for all incumbents the Party’s duly elected Executive Committee (to the extent that the Party’s Executive committee still qualifies as being “duly elected”) expects to be rendered as a matter of course (though Kruger surely has benefited from Lopez’s help in Albany, and the exact nature of Lopez‘s role in the various disgraceful Amigo episodes is a legitimate matter for further inquiry and discussion).
In fact, rather than aiding Boyland, last year, Lopez helped Boyland’s most potent local rival, Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, retain her District Leadership over Boyland’s choice for the position.
Restler seems to be implying that an ideal party leader should be conducting probes of duly elected incumbents and dumping those who do not meet his standards.
In actuality, the problem with Lopez is exactly the opposite; rather than deferring to the wishes of those chosen by local voters in each jurisdiction, Lopez seeks to impose his will from the top down.
Really Linc, speaking as a resident of a district upon which Lopez’ has visited his tender ministrations, I strongly prefer a County Leader who defers to the local status quo, rather than trying to impose the Lopez/Restler model of using the position of Leader to enforce upon others one’s own non-indigenous vision of a better world.
But Lincoln at least has his heart in the right place (even if, in this case, his head is up his ass). State Republican Chair Fast Eddie Cox has also called for Kruger and Boyland’s resignation.
I suppose that, in some ways, Cox’s statement is more defensible than Restler’s, as Republican do not even pretend to support the right to due process.
But Cox’ statement, and other’s like it are strikingly hypocritical.
Which is where I will end it, until part two.