18 February 2005
Spectator
Greed and inconsistency in Amherst, and fraud and stud-service at the White House
Amherst can't do better than this?
While the Spectator has been given way too much fodder for the cannon by the whipsaws at County Hall, one burning question needs be answered: can't Amherst do better than the representation they have sent to Rath Building?
Barry Weinstein and Elise Cusack? Give me a break. I always thought that being a county legislator in a city district was legalized theft but I'm doing an entirely different take on things now. Barry Weinstein isn't exactly a slumlord. By definition, to be a slumlord, you need a slum. Amherst doesn't qualify - yet. But if Dr. Weinstein continues in his role as a "problem property owner," Amherst could be getting closer to having a slum. The Spectator has been informed by several people that Weinstein's vacant property abuts a lot of residential development in the town and that it is an impossible task getting him to clean up that property. But if Al DeBenedetti can't pay property taxes, why should Barry Weinstein clean up his property? In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed legislator is, indeed, king.As for Ms. Cusack, she appeared on the Feb. 18th edition of Channel 2 - Today to tell Jody and Pete that it is, indeed, a fact that she was one of the first legislators to come out against increasing the sales tax. In the same breath, she also informed the two anchors that she did, in fact, vote against the $108 million in cuts enacted by her colleagues on Feb. 17. No revenue, no cuts, no brains? It will be a cute ploy to use at election time: "I voted against raising the sales tax" when taking to constituents and "I voted against the budget cuts" when talking to aggrieved county employees. Cusack's inability to support or propose a workable solution smacks of political opportunism at its worst.
Why neither Gallivan nor Johnson chose to pursue what solution Ms. Cusack might propose to deal with the crisis is a commentary on the state of morning news. It should even be more embarrassing for Channel 2 based on the good reporting they have been doing on the budget crisis on the evening newscasts. By the way, it is a bit ironic to see Scott Brown reporting from the same County Hall where he once held reporters at bay as the keeper of the journalistic gate to then-County Executive Dennis Gorski. I wonder if the issue of a pay cut ever surfaced when Brown was a county employee?
Amherst's "give me mine and screw yours" attitude
Speaking of Amherst, is the Spectator the only one who sees the inconsistency in the posturing of Cusak and Weinstein against sales tax increases and the aggressive posture taken by the town in pursuing a federal bailout of the "sinking homes" problem? The county needs money to operate but Cusack and Weinstein say no. Amherst residents need money to repair their homes - homes built when the town itself ignored warnings not to build - and all of a sudden a government bailout to the tune of $5 million is a good thing. The "give me mine and screw yours" attitude prevails.
Family values and stud service at the White House
How many times have we all heard that the nation is at war? How many times have we heard that there is a crying need for greater domestic security? How many times has the White House issued press credentials to someone they new was using an alias? How many proprietors of gay websites have been granted press credentials by the White House? How many tax delinquents has the White House authorized for full access to the press room? The Spectator hopes the answer is just one. But the mere fact that it is at one is very problematic for a security minded national "at war." I refer, of course, to James Guckert who was credentialed as "Jeff Gannon." Guckert/Gannon is a conservative (which seems to absolve most other sins in the current climate) flack who was regularly called on in White House press conferences to ask questions like how can the President work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." Forget the irony inherent in a White House that pays journalists for positive press coverage questioning "reality," what the hell is going on? The Bush Administration paid $88 million last year to create the illusion of reality. It isn't enough they have an entire "news" organization devoted to making them look good. They had to buy reporters too. Some mandate, huh? These guys can't trust the American people to make a legitimate determination of the worth of their programs. They stick plants in the press room - plants like Guckert/Gannon who wrote mockingly of John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform." That would have been bad enough if the same writer hadn't been taking full frontal nudes of himself for gay websites offering himself, as Maureen Dowd said in the NY Times (2/17/05), as a gay stud service for $1200 a weekend. But this is the White House of moral substance and family values, right? This is the White House that promotes itself as God-fearing and Christian and has made homophobia a participation sport. This White House let this pretender into the gates of the residence of the president of the United States after he showed one identity and legitimized him as a member of the press corps while he used another identity. Ms. Dowd's column ended on Thursday with these words: "Even the Nixon White House didn't do anything this creepy. It's worse than hating the press. It's an attempt to reinvent it." She said it best for all of us.
These guys are creepy.
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.