Booker and The Record are pissing off Democrats

The Statue of Liberty.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I still haven't forgiven Newark Mayor Cory Booker for putting his personal ambitions ahead of the crying need to defeat Governor Christie, the GOP bully whose myth making is aided and abetted by The Record of Woodland Park.

Fresh from his victory in the special U.S. Senate election, Booker greeted Christie enthusiastically at a supermarket groundbreaking in Newark on Thursday -- and The Record's columnists were all over the story. 

Charles Stile, the incompetent screwball who writes about politics, has two columns today on the so-called meaning of the election results, and how Booker and Christie "locked in a warm man-hug" (A-1 and A-6).

Stile doesn't explain how a "man hug" is different than a regular hug, and conveniently omits mention of all the damage Christie's conservative polices caused in Newark and the state.

Christie's cuts in state aid forced Newark to lay off more than 200 police officers, and he's vetoed everything from a hike in the minimum wage to the millionaires' tax to legislation allowing gay marriages.

Too many columns

So much for Christies' repeated claim to have worked with Democrats in the state Legislature, and The Record's endless reporting about "bipartisanship."

Meanwhile, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin claims in his column today that the good showing of Lonegan, the crackpot former mayor of Bogota, is a win for Republicans (A-23).

It didn't help that The Record used the word "passion" to describe Lonegan's extremism and racism in his campaign against Booker.  

Why two columns on the results of the U.S. Senate contest, and no town-by-town, county-by-county tally for the election?

Let's hope Booker uses his time before he takes his seat in Washington to campaign for Barbara Buono and help the Democratic challenger further expose Christie's war on the middle and working classes.

Suit settlement

In Hackensack news, Local reports a $495,000 settlement in a sex harassment suit filed against Construction Official Joseph Mellone and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono (L-1).

Marcella Sbarbaro, a former clerk-typist in the Building Department, claimed that Mellone forced her to have sex under threat of losing her job, and that Lo Iacono allegedly did nothing to stop the harassment.

Thanks to Production Editor Liz Houlton, the "Queen of Errors," a sub-headline and text say the woman filed her suit in 2011, but later the story says Sbarbaro "sued the city in April 2010."

Another screw up is acknowledged in an A-2 correction today.

The L-1 story doesn't say when the settlement was filed, meaning Staff Writer Kibret Markos, the Bergen County Courthouse reporter, probably missed it while he covered the Hudson News inheritance battle full time. 

Sinking feeling

Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Pier 115 Bar and Grill in Edgewater gives readers a queasy feeling from the first paragraph.

When the first half of her appraisal discusses parking, the view and the beer selection, the overpriced food must suck.

You also have to wonder about Ung's concept of dinner when she actually orders a $19 pretzel.

Despite all of the problems she encountered, she insists the view of the Hudson River saves the place.

But the sad history of another waterfront restaurant in Edgewater, the Binghamton ferry boat, forever put to rest that canard -- or so I thought.