Category: News and Opinion

I once heard Tom Seaver, providing color commentary on a baseball game, describe some advice a pitching coach had once given him. “What’s the best pitch in baseball?” the coach asked. “The fastball,” he said. “What’s the second best pitch in baseball?” he asked again. “The fastball,” he once again answered his own question. His point, Seaver said, was not to forget the fastball. Major league pitchers know they need a good second pitch to succeed, so often they focus on their off-speed pitch, whether a curve, slider or change-up, to the exclusion or near exclusion of the fastball. And that’s a mistake, because it’s the fastball that makes the whole thing work.

“Chris Callaghan just told me that when he first put out the press release accusing Alan Hevesi of chauffering his wife around on the state dime, he didn’t actually know if it was true. Had Hevesi denied it, Callaghan said, he would have dropped the matter. (Whether or not his sort would have sought another outlet is a different matter.)

In retrospect, Callaghan says, he thinks Hevesi owned up to the discretion for one simple reason:‘He didn’t know what I knew.’"

Azi Paybarah (9/28/06)

********************************************

Well, I’m not voting for Callahan. Not because he bluffed, but because he admitted it. Those who take smug satisfaction in bragging about winning a poker pot by bluffing never win another one. He clearly lacks the savvy to ferret out corruption and waste. Wonder who the Libertarians are running.

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!

Seeing these stories today, my question is – forget about Bloomberg leaving the GOP and running for President as an independent, is Rudy going to do it instead?

The political fallout for Jeanine Pirro was swift yesterday – a planned fund-raiser to be hosted by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was abruptly canceled.

"We’re not going forward," a source close to the former mayor said of the Oct. 3 event.

Giuliani Defends Bill Clinton After Heated Interview, Says Focus Should Remain on Terrorism

As I wrote here, one of New York City’s biggest economic problems is a shortage of jobs accessible to the unskilled, and thus its low level of employment and labor force participation. In many ways, Upstate New York is the city’s mirror image. It has a lower poverty rate and a higher employment rate, but it has a shortage of high-paid jobs and jobs for young college graduates, the very economic base New York City – primarily Manhattan – has in abundance. Among those growing up Upstate, the average person completing their education probably has more of it than the national average. It is migration – the type of people who move out, and the type of people who don’t move in – that is responsible for the fact that the share of Upstate residents with college diplomas is lower than in the rest of the state. Upstate college graduates, and those with exceptional non-scholastic skills, tend to leave, and few arrive from elsewhere. That is the real problem in Upstate New York.

I am a registered democrat; I vote in all of my party’s primaries. I generally vote along party lines in most general elections. I would say that I am over 90% loyal to my party line. I am not voting for Alan Hevesi this year. In last night’s gubernatorial debate Eliot Spitzer was wrong not to call for Hevesi’s resignation as New York State Comptroller. With Hevesi admitting to having taken a public employee and using him as a personal chauffeur (among other tasks) for his wife; and doing this for years, on public time and with public dimes, has rendered Hevesi unfit to hold this office. John Faso was correct in calling for his resignation. Hevesi has abused the public trust.

A place for those who want to send a message by voting for Alan Hevesi and Jeanine Pirro on the same line.

Once again a helpful reader has pointed out some errors I made in the Voter’s Guides I published before the primary. The specific complaint concerns the 74^th Assembly District. I had written:

“Former Council aide Gur Tsabar loses a Council race and opens a blog; former Council aide Brian Kavanagh loses the same race and runs for Assembly. Which one do you think is having more fun?”
Obviously, the insinuation I’d made has been proven incorrect.

For an additional correction concerning this race, click here.

On the Friday before the Tuesday (Election Day), the Christian Cultural Center located on Flatlands Avenue, near Starett City, Brooklyn, held a candidates forum. I am told that this church of Rev. Bernard has a membership list of about twenty thousand people; thus as could be expected, many candidates showed up. All those running for Congress in Districts 10 and 11 were there, with the exception of Ed Towns. I am also told that this wasn’t the first time that Ed Towns refused to debate his opponents in a race, that it happened in 1992, 1998 and also in the year 2000. He was re-elected in all those races. Does Ed know something that we don’t? What do you think?

September 25, 2001 was the only time Alan Hevesi ever wanted my vote that he didn’t get it. On September 11th, 2001, I rose early in the morning and voted for Hevesi for mayor, although I knew he’d lose. There was going to be a run-off, and I’d then get a chance to re-evaluate, so why not go for my first choice?

Of course, my vote for Hevesi that day never got counted, and newly sobered by the reality of what had just occurred and the enormity of what lay ahead, I decided to get serious in the rescheduled primary two weeks later. Between Freddy Ferrer’s insensitively premature remarks about moving businesses out of Lower Manhattan, and his public ass-kissing of Al Sharpton, I decided the run-off was now and switched my vote to Mark Green. It was the right thing to do, and I felt terrible. That November, Hevesi appeared on the Liberal line and I voted against him again, although this time, so did he.