“Well, nobody could have foreseen this, surely.
[S]tate elections officials in Albany say that Mr. Espada did not register his campaign for Senate this year; and he could face more than $6,000 in fines. It is not the first time he has run afoul of the State Board of Elections: His 2000 Senate campaign was fined for failing to submit finance reports.
In 2005, three employees of a Bronx nonprofit health care company run by Mr. Espada, the Soundview HealthCare Network, pleaded guilty to diverting $30,000 from programs for family care and AIDS treatment to one of his campaigns. Mr. Espada was never charged.”
“A Completely Unexpected_Problem” by Michael Bouldin- on Daily Gotham 12/6/08
Sometime shilling for money tends to cloud one’s memory:
“SD 33: Spare yourself the worry about who’s under indictment; if Pedro Espada is currently free from such worries, it is only a matter of time before he faces them again. It can be argued, in fact, that the legal process is the only option which may improve the quality of this district’s representation.”
Gatemouth 9/8/08
UPDATE (A Note To Michael Bouldin):
Your latest piece is a vast improvement, in that it shows a keen grasp of the painfully obvious—a quality missing from the article refered to here, in which you express shock about facts which were in the headlines before the November election.
UPDATE & EMBARRASSED CORRECTION (OOPS): Oh, I see now, your last piece was a JOKE. I do owe you an apology.
I feel a little silly here, but only a little. One reason for that is that others made the same mistake, as is verified by the comment posted by your TDG colleague, Mr. Millstone. The other reason is that I thought you were joking when you wrote this to an enemy earlier this week:
"One thing you're about to learn is that some trash talking is fine, but creating powerful enemies needlessly is kinda stupid. And you, fat boy, had no need whatsoever to make an enemy out of me; I used to support your work on Daily Kos. Now, I'm going to do something else."
As it turned out, you were as serious as a heart attack, or perhaps in that case, an attack of delerium tremons. Therefore, I've stopeed assuming that anything you say is a joke even in those frequent instances when everything you say is a joke.
However, in the spirit of collegiality, let me recomend a better way for letting people know you were joking:
NEXT TIME, BE FUNNY!
To be fair, I think the enemy Michael attacked deserved much, but not all, of the abuse. From all evidence, Michael was being harassed by what appears to be a fat, ugly stalker with delusions that he is a political sage.
Been there, done that. When the same thing happened to me, I thought of getting a gun. It ain't fun.
Bouldin responded with bravado, posting the guys's name and (not too pretty) picture (complete with derogatory remarks about his appearance). Saner elemenrts at TDG eventually intervened, and Bouldin's foe issued a half-hearted excuse for an apology. Bouldin was livid:
Submitted by Bouldin on 1 December 2008 – 11:25pm.
I don't recall giving you permission to call me a racist, either, Weintraub. And if you keep on bringing your meta bullshit here – do mommy and daddy know how you're spending your billable hours, fat boy? – you'll face the consequences. I'm not scared of you; you're not the first third-rate lawyer to mutter about lawsuits to. Problem is, I win, always.
So yeah, either offer up a groveling apology and retraction, publicly, or face the consequences. Your call."
Very appropriate. When you falsely call someone a bigot, you better grovel. This bastard did not, so he deserved what he got.
Funny thing is that a similar incident occurred recently on TDG, where Bouldin took a diametrically opposite stance. He posted the following:
"If that seems reasonable and doable – we're talking about a cut of $5 billion out of, as noted, $200 billion – you don't know New York. The unions are already screaming at the top of their lungs that whatever cuts need to be made need to come out of a slice of the pie that is not theirs. The Senate republicans dragged the legislature to Albany, threw a hissy fit, and sent everyone home. Our friends at WFP have an answer as well, and it's the familiar one: raise taxes on millionaires. Meanwhile, Bigoted Shitbag – that's Martin Dilan to those unfamiliar with the loving nom de guerre – is holding the entire state hostage to his fear that the Democrats may give the queers basic civil rights."
The problem is that Martin Dialn, whatever one thinks of his other qualities (and I think his shrewdness and savvy are way underrated) is not a bigoted shitbag–he even supports same sex marriage. Bouldin meant to say Ruben Diaz.
Some would say that Ruben Diaz is not a bigoted shit bag, but merely a crazed religioius fanatic, but at least the point is arguable–with Dilan it is not.
And some would say that a bigoted shitbag is somene who thinks all Latino State Senators look alike. However, I don't think Michael is a bigot, he just forgot that he hated Dilan for entirely different reasons. Dilan is close with Vito Lopez, and since Michael believes that evil is a seemless garment, there was really no malice aforethought.
This may account for Michael's response. He did not, as he suggested under remarkably similar circumstances, "offer up a grovelling apology and retraction, publicly" he merely deleted Dilan's name and substituted that of Diaz, without any effort to repair the damage he had done to the reputation of a man without a bigoted bone in his body.
Of course, Michael never apologizes in his columns, except for really important mistakes, like mixing up when La Guardia died. He certainly never "offer[s] up a grovelling apology and retraction, publicly" when he prints slandarous lies about people he doesn't like–at best, he just removes them without acknowledgement and moves on. Called on a lie this summer that Marty Connor had endorsed George Pataki against Carl McCall, Michael did the exact same thing.
The difference in Michael's situational standards is accounted for by the fact that Michael believes that only the Progressive Elect like himself are worthy of a "grovelling apology and retraction, publicly", while evil Democratic regulars deserve what they get.
But, I was wrong here and I admit it. I therefore offer up to Michael" a grovelling apology and retraction, publicly" for falsely (even though without intent) implying that he was naive about Pedro Espada.
That's the difference between me and Michael.