Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Dumb, dumber and dumbest

It’s amazing how politicians, often groomed to avoid mistakes, tend to find the largest feet to shove into their mouths.

Joe Biden is feeling pretty dumb because of this statement to the New York Observer:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

The New York Times reports on the follow-up:

Earlier, in a decidedly nonpresidential afternoon conference call with reporters that had been intended to announce his candidacy, Mr. Biden, speaking over loud echoes and a blaring television set, said that he had been “quoted accurately.” He volunteered that he had called Mr. Obama to express regret that his remarks had been taken “out of context,” and that Mr. Obama had assured him he had nothing to explain.

“Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I’ve been around,” he said, adding: “Call Senator Obama. He knew what I meant by it. The idea was very straightforward and simple. This guy is something brand new that nobody has seen before.”

Foot remains in mouth, albeit in a slightly different position.

As I said: Dumb.

Then we have the governor, who managed to insert himself into a labor dispute at Rutgers raising questions about his ability to deal with the state’s labor unions.

After pressuring Rutgers University and a teachers union to sign a neutrality pact recently, Gov. Jon Corzine lent his support to the union’s organizing effort on campus yesterday.

“People ought to have the right to make a free choice when it comes to joining a union,” Corzine told about 300 workers at a meeting set up by the American Federation of Teachers in New Brunswick.

Although the governor stopped short of telling workers to sign union authorization cards, he said he doubted a new union of midlevel administrators would hurt Rutgers or drive up spending or tuition.

“Rutgers is a seat of excellence in research, advancement of science and intellectual thought, and we should be proud of what’s going on there,” Corzine said, “and I don’t think there is any reason to argue that somehow or other the choice of being part of a collective bargaining unit would undermine the credibility of the excellence of the university.”

While I agree that a unionized work force is good not only for workers, but for the economy, his appearance at a rally like this creates the impression that he is taking sides and leaves him open to charges that he will be all too willing to softball his upcoming negotiations with state workers.

That’s the point the Star-Ledger makes in today’s editorial:

Gov. Jon Corzine was the featured speaker at a union organizing rally on Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus yesterday. It’s appropriate for taxpayers to ask why. And to wonder whether he represents the “management” side in ongoing contract talks with state employee unions.

After outlining a year’s worth of behavior — giving a rousing speech at a rally during the budget stalemate, nixing a legislative approach to pension and benefit changes — the Ledger puts it pretty bluntly:

Employee benefits are negotiated by representatives of management and unions. Corzine seems to be on both sides.

Dumbest of all, however, was a so-called “guerilla marketing” campaign organized by Turner Broadcasting. I’ll let The Washington Post explain:

A guerrilla marketing campaign for a cartoon show about a box of french fries and his milkshake pal set off a scare that nearly shut down Boston’s commercial district yesterday, as bomb squads closed highways and two bridges in search of what turned out to be magnetic-light versions of the cartoon characters.

Turner Broadcasting, parent company of the Cartoon Network, said the small electronic circuit boards, which hang from girders and bridges, are part of a 10-city marketing campaign for the animated late-night television show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Such guerrilla ad campaigns seek to place products in unexpected corners and count on those who spot the characters to “get” the gag.

But much of Boston was not in on this joke. The packages were discovered near the New England Medical Center, two bridges and a tunnel. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Mass., and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, Mass., had each been arrested on a felony charge of placing a hoax device and a charge of disorderly conduct.

Perhaps they should have been charged with conspiracy to commit stupidity.

At least they win the award for dumbest move of the day.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Sad news: Molly Ivins has died

Molly Ivins was a rarity among political columnists — a real humanist who saw through the purely partisan manner in which most of the political world worked, a writer of uncommon clarity and a razor-sharp wit.

I first read Ivins when her collection of sharp-tongued columns — “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” — was issued. It was the first of her six books, which also included two books about the current occupant of the White House — books that, had we been a smarter nation, should have stood as a warning to those who might have thought electing the man from Texas made sense.

Her take on liberalism — true liberalism — stands as a guidepost for me:

To Ivins, “liberal” wasn’t an insult term. “Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left; there’s nothing you can do about being born liberal — fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed,” she wrote in a column included in her 1998 collection, “You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You.”

She said this last year about the Iraq war — a statement that really is about democracy itself:

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war,” Ivins wrote in the Jan. 11 column. “We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!'”

Her death today is a blow to all of us who care about the state of the world. Rest in peace. (Here is a tribute from her syndication service.)

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

Republican legislators are questioning the constitutionality of the Democrats’ plan for a 20 percent property tax credit, because it would be applied on a sliding scale — asking the majority to revise it to their liking or amend the constution.

Republicans claim a property tax relief bill that the Assembly approved 71-8 Monday is flawed be cause it would offer tax credits that vary based on a homeowner’s in come. That, they said, runs afoul of a provision in the state constitution that requires all property to be taxed based solely on its value, not on the income or personal characteristics of its owner.

The “uniformity clause,” they maintain, prevents policymakers from adjusting tax rates to discriminate against unpopular groups.

To clear up the problem, Republicans want Democrats to offer uniform levels of relief to all homeowners regardless of income — or to seek voter approval for a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing a graduated tax credit program.

The GOP plan, of course, has its own gradations (according to an AP story in The Record):

The Republican tax cut plan calls for amending the state constitution to guarantee the cut comes annually and giving a 30 percent cut for all households earning up to $200,000 and a 20 percent cut for all other households.

I’m not a huge fan of the tax credit program — it is nothing more than a Band-Aid — but it seems eminently fair to give the most relief to the people who need it most.

In any case, the GOP seems to be playing politics with this, playing to their economic base and offering a somewhat tepid version of the Democrats’ plan. It is, as Juan Melli on Blue Jersey called it yesterday, “blatant hypocrisy.”

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.