Christie would go to war with Russia in skies over Syria

Two images from the Aug. 6 GOP debate are said to show Sen. Paul Rand's eyeroll, right, as Governor Christie delivered "a saccharine line about how 'the hugs I remember are the hugs that I gave to the families who lost their people on September 11th,'" The Nation.com reported.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The first successful terrorist attack in the United States in 14 years was enough for The Record and other news media, along with Governor Christie, to strike fear into the hearts of Americans.

And Christie claimed at Tuesday's GOP debate he would shoot down Russian planes if they violated a no-fly zone he would unilaterally impose over Syria, according to The Record (A-6).

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky countered:

"If you're in favor of World War III, you have your candidate," Paul said, putting the threat in the same category as Christie's poor judgment in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal (A-6).

Still, Record Columnist Charles Stile ignored much of that, eager to report in his very first, slanted paragraph that Christie "stood apart from the rest of his rivals as the lone candidate who had hunted down terrorists" (A-1).

Broken record

In his desperate bid for the White House, Christie reacted to the November terrorist attacks in Paris by talking about his experience as U.S. attorney for New Jersey after 9/11.

After the San Bernardino attack early this month -- the first successful act of terrorism since 9/11 -- he hasn't mentioned anything else, especially not how his mean-spirited budgets have struck terror into the hearts of New Jersey's middle class.

Keep Syrians out

The Record's otherwise upbeat coverage today also is the first time since Christie vowed in November to bar all Syrian refugees, even widows and orphans, from New Jersey that he is reported saying he would bar all Syrians from the rest of the country, too.

That echoes Donald Trump's wanting to bar all Muslims from crossing our borders.

Stile and The Record's editorial page haven't denounced Christie as a hate-monger or a bigot or someone who sounds exactly like all of the maniacs who have persecuted Jews throughout history. 

Instead, the paper's local editors reluctantly assign reporters to interview Syrians and other Muslims in Passaic County to show how peace-loving they are, as a front-page story by Staff Writer Hannan Adely declared on Tuesday.

Cantor murder

The guilty verdicts in the slaying of Robert Cantor of Teaneck matter most, but The Record's coverage of the love-triangle case has been filled with flawed headlines and other sloppy work, as readers can see again today (A-1).

The big, black headline is almost as bad as the one that ran on the day the jury got the case:

"Execution or puzzle?"

Today, the A-1 headline basically says a "killer" was found guilty of "murder."

"Love-triangle killer

guilty of murder"

But there is a bigger problem that was missed by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, aka "The Queen of Errors."

Photos on both A-1 and A-6 claim to show Cantor's relatives "reacting" or "listening" to the verdicts.

But the one on the continuation page (A-6) shows a son-in-law standing next to the victim's widow and sister instead of seated apart from them, next to Cantor's daughter (A-1).

Did the judge allow the son-in-law to stand up during the reading of the verdicts or was the second photo posed after the verdicts were read?  

Local news

In Teaneck, officials rezoned land next to railroad tracks to allow AvalonBay to seek approval for a 248-unit apartment development (L-1).

In effect, the Township Council is saying that ratables are more important than the safety of tenants.

They would be living near what The Record calls "volatile" oil trains in a building prone to the same kind of quick-spreading fire that destroyed AvalonBay's Edgewater complex in January.

And people who buy shares in AvalonBay, a real-estate investment trust, will be laughing all the way to the bank with a reported 14% return.

The Local front today carries two Passaic County stories that are of little interest to Bergen County readers (L-1).

Meanwhile, the Hackensack news embargo continues.

Editor's note: After publication, this post was edited to eliminate dated material from The Nation.com, and to correct the photo caption. The images are from the GOP debate on Aug. 6, not the one held in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

Editors ignore wreck left by Christie, our homegrown terror

Radio City Music Hall on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Since the Paris attacks, The Record and other news media haven't explored why New York City and North Jersey have been safe from terrorism since 9/11 or whether Syrian refugees already living here have been anything but law abiding.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page of The Record's Sunday edition is filled with news of global terrorism, Syrian refugees and New Jersey's own terror, Governor Christie.

But Editor Martin Gottlieb and Columnist Charles Stile still are trying mightily not to alarm readers with daily reports of the nightmare the GOP bully has left behind as he pursues his White House dreams.

Stile's boring political column today focuses on the distant future, the 2017 gubernatorial election (A-1).

Readers might be confused by another Paris-related story, today's column by Travel Editor Jill Schensul on her indecision over flying there for her annual vacation (T-1).

After all, she arrived there on Wednesday, and has already described the changes in the city she calls a second home in a Page 1 column on Friday and again in today's paper (A-6).

The attack on a hotel in Mali still has not prompted the news media to explore France's colonial rule in West Africa, Algeria, Syria and other countries as the possible root of today's terrorism (A-1).

Local schools

Englewood's new superintendent is telling parents whose children attend minority schools to eat cake (L-1).

That's the only conclusion readers can draw from an interview with schools chief Robert Kravitz, a former cake and dessert executive, who doesn't mention the challenge of elementary and middle schools filled almost completely with minority students.

Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke mentions poor test scores, limited English proficiency and other problems, but says nothing about whether Kravitz is hoping to desegregate those schools, as his predecessors did at Dwight Morrow High School.  

Other stories on schools in Edgewater and Wayne have Hackensack readers wondering when Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza are going to get off their asses, and assign a reporter to look at all of the problems in Bergen County's biggest school district.

They include high salaries for administrators and thefts of computers, two of which were allegedly traced to the home of teacher, who has never been charged.

Seats for homeless

Road Warrior John Cichowski, the so-called commuting columnist, continues to ignore the lack of rush-hour seats on NJ Transit buses and trains.

Today, he goes on and on about the cat-and-mouse game between NJ Transit cops and the homeless using seats at Newark Penn Station and other rail hubs.

At a total loss on how to lure readers who long ago became bored with Cichowski, the veteran reporter compares a homeless man nervous about a cop kicking him out of a train station to "a driver parked overtime at a meter" (L-1).

Crazy Kelly

Columnist Mike Kelly already showed readers what a wimp he is on Saturday, when his Page 1 column was completely devoid of criticism or condemnation of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the wake of the Paris attacks.

Today, the best he can manage is to label Christie a "crazy uncle" for saying he would not even allow Syrian orphans under the age of 5 to enter the United States (O-1).

Who is crazy? I'm betting it's Kelly, a burned-out columnist who has been pushing around words and desperately filling space for more than 20 years.

He has bad company in Cichowski and Stile. 

What can be said for a daily newspaper that gives precious space to so many stale journalists, and doesn't foster younger, more courageous voices?

See the Christie cartoon by Margulies on O-2.

Tipping guide?

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's Better Living column on tipping today ignores a question on every restaurant customer's mind (BL-1).

Is 15% still considered the standard tip or should we be adding 18% or 20% to the pre-tax total as a matter of routine?

And when will Ung or any other reporter explain how wealthy restaurant owners managed to get regulators to go along with a system of extremely low hourly pay for their staffs and tips from customers to make up the difference?

If something goes wrong in the kitchen or the owner misrepresents the food he serves, the only recourse customers have is to stiff the server.

'I'll always have Paris,' top editor says

The Louvre Museum in Paris.

When Editor Marty Gottlieb retires from journalism, he'll always be able to look back with pride to his years at The New York Times, including his editorship of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.

I can see him sipping a glass of vintage Bordeaux and sighing, "I'll always have Paris."

But if he keeps turning out front pages like the one in The Record today, it's unlikely he'll ever say, "I'll always have Woodland Park."

I can't think of a bigger waste of space than the overlong Page 1 story on how Giants player Victor Cruz is enriching himself with endorsement and book deals after the team's victory in the Super [Toilet] Bowl.

I don't see anything about an endorsement that would have real meaning for Cruz, an unwed father who pulled himself up from a poor Paterson neighborhood: a reliable brand of condoms.

Odd couple

And what was Gottlieb, who is 64, thinking when he created the Odd Couple who reported and wrote the Cruz story -- local obituary writer Jay Levin and sports writer Art Stapleton?

At least Gottlieb saved part of the front page for a non-profit expose from Staff Writer Harvy Lipman and two stories on Governor Christie's proposed budget and income-tax cut.

But I'm certain "RINO" is a reference to Christie's ballooning waistline, not a criticism of his conservative credentials (see A-4 photo).

And Gottlieb certainly won't ever wax nostalgic about Editor Liz Houlton's news copy editors, judging from a photo caption on A-3 today that doesn't tell readers anything about what is going on in the photo.

Racist layout

Was it Gottlieb or head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes who decided to lead today's Local section with the thefts of unlocked luxury vehicles (L-1) and bury an upbeat feature on Jordan Coleman, 16, an African-American Hackensack High School filmmaker (L-6)?

If anything, Road Warrior John Cichowski's same-old Black Hole pothole awards on L-1 should have been buried or spiked. He's the ultimate black hole on the staff.

On L-3 today -- in contrast to Cichowski's car-centric coverage -- transportation reporter Karen Rouse has a rare commuting story, exploring NJ Transit's regressive policy on allowing riders to bring bicycles onto platforms and trains. 

Good job

Staff Writer James M. O'Neill saves L-1 with his bright, well-written rendition of a onetime Local section staple: a local barber who seems to go on forever.

Of course, I would have liked it even more if O'Neill explained how South Hackensack barber Tony Joe D'Ambrosio and his customers have been able to reach their 80s and 90s on a diet of McDonald's, pull-pork sandwiches and tiramisu. 

Only the trite headline lets down readers. It's likely a story this good wasn't handled by Sykes or one of her incompetent assignment-desk minions, Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph and Rich Whitby. 

Out to lunch

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's column errs on the pricing policy at most Korean barbecue restaurants, where customers who want to cook meat or seafood on the table are required to pay for a minimum of two orders -- a total of $50 to $60 or more (F-1).

Such a restaurant is a better value than Picnic Garden buffet in Englewood Cliffs, where each person pays $26.95 to $29.95 for dinner, because three or four people can share a meal at a traditional barbecue restaurant.

Seeing the light

In Opinion, an editorial urges extension of NJ Transit's light-rail service to Leonia, Englewood and Tenafly -- contradicting several years of negative news coverage from Sykes' assignment desk (O-1).

Last Sunday's paper

Staff Writers Colleen Diskin and Rebecca D. O'Brien, and three staff photographers did a beautiful job on Whitney Houston's funeral on Page 1 last Sunday.

On L-1, the Road Warrior column continued to rely on readers' e-mails, showing once again Cichowski long ago ran out of energy to do any original reporting.

No Hackensack news appeared in Sykes' Local section.

In Business, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais explained to puzzled consumers that Tropicana quickly stopped using banned orange juice from Brazil in its Pure Premium product and added the phrase "100% pure Florida Orange Juice" to labels.

On the Opinion front, couldn't news Columnist Mike Kelly find anything else to write about than Jeremy Lin, the Chinese-American pro basketball player everyone is sick of hearing about?

I enjoyed Staff Writer Kathleen Lynn's Japan story on the front of Travel, but wonder why she didn't mention restaurant meals or food safety in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.

Readers are familiar with all of Travel Editor Jill Schensul's food phobias, but this omission is ridiculous.