March 22, 2004

IF I SAY IT, IT MUST BE SO.

By James Eugene*

I have noticed a disturbing trend in politics lately and it is quite damaging for discourse in this City and nation. My concern is the use of political statements that have no basis in reality.

On national basis, it is easy to trace the roots of this phenomenon: Ronald Reagan. Reagan was famous for making outrageous statements. Once he made them, his aides would scramble around trying to find some basis for the fact. Usually, they came up with something even if it was just another person's opinion. To limit these statements, Presidential press conferences, often held in the evening, were now moved to the day-time. The media excused Reagan because it never considered him an intellectual.

George Bush the First continued this tradition but less so than Reagan and with less success. He did have his shining moment when he talked about "a thousand points of light". No one had any idea what the guy was talking about, but quickly a charitable foundation was found (The Thousand Points of Light Foundation) to convey the President's thought. Ugh!

Next came the master of statements that had no basis in fact: Bill Clinton. Fortunately, Clinton lied about his private life, not public policy. But by then it had become okay to lie about government work, you just couldn't lie about your private life. Clinton never learned this.

George Bush the Second has. In fact, I have problems finding statements where George Bush the Second is even close to being accurate. Weapons of Mass Destruction, jobs creation, stem cell research, the list goes on. It is one thing to be on the right side of an issue and there are policy issues that one can make for each of the Bush policies. But those arguments are not the ones the he makes. Instead, he makes arguments that are the popular ones, even though there is no connection between the popular argument and his policy.

Now what does this have to do with City government? I say this because I have just been to various hearings by the City Council on Mayor Billionaire's administration. Simply put, the Council has no clue. Agencies testify on how things are progressing at their agency and ultimately everything is just peachy. They cite statistics and frankly, I want to question those statistics.

I said earlier that Miller can get out of the box and into seriously challenging the Mayor if he focuses on management issues. So can Bill Thompson, who can legitimately audit these City agencies. I don't believe many of the statistics that are being spewed forth from these agencies. I wonder if some of these statistics are being created to make it sound as if progress is being made. Why is no one auditing this situation? Where are the great reports that we used to see from our other City officials? Is everything really so hunky-dory?

Flaks also play a role here. The press offices of all these politicians seem more interested in belittling facts than responding to them. The Mayor's press office never met a fact that it couldn't claim was just pure politics. A recent example came when Jerry Hauer, former head of the Office of Emergency Management, wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times criticizing the recent shift in policy at that Office. Ed Skyler, the Mayor's press secretary, did not respond to the merits of the arguments made by Hauer. Instead, he attacked Hauer's personal integrity and political motivation. But Hauer's Op-Ed piece was full of facts, none of which were rebutted by Skyler. Hauer's response to Administration's tactics: "Just grow up." Unfortunately, Mayor Billionaire's Administration shows no sign of doing that.

One of the disheartening things about the Mayor Prosecutor regime was that I could not tell if the press office was a campaign press office or a government press office. There used to be a difference. There no longer is. Mayor Billionaire's press office is nothing more than a campaign office. I would have hoped that the Mayor would not have followed his predecessor's example. If our Mayors want to use their government press offices in such a fashion, then their campaigns should pay for it, not the taxpayers.

In the end, I can only surmise that Orwell's "1984" has come twenty years late, but it has arrived. What scares me is that the public has seemingly accepted it. Be afraid, be very afraid.

WE EAT OUR OWN.

It was with sadness that I read about the resignation of Chad Vignola, General Counsel of the Department of Education. His resignation struck me as unnecessary, but that is the common practice in the Billionaire Administration. His connection to the Diane Lam scandal struck me as minor (as did her transgression as well…. I dare anyone in City government to tell me that similar situations do not exist elsewhere, but Lam's arrogance got the better of her).

Vignola previously worked as general counsel of the Trade Waste Commission and helped oversee dozens, if not hundreds, of investigations of "family-owned" waste haulers. And he worked in the US Attorneys Office where I also believe he worked on criminal matters. After doing a good job going after real criminals, it must have felt weird for him to be a target over something so overtly political.

And that gets back to my problem with Mayor Billionaire. Good employees like Vignola are expendable. They cannot have one mistake that even comes close to bad publicity or else they are asked to resign. (And don't tell me this resignation was not orchestrated by City Hall. It fits too much into a classic pattern with this Administration for these situations.) I have complained about this in prior columns, and once again I ask: why would anyone want to work in City government.

To paraphrase Ed Koch: Vignola will get a better job, the Department of Education won't get a better general counsel.

AND SPEAKING OF GOVERNMENT JOBS.

Politics is a chummy business. And I do not think Lam was corrupt. After all, would this have been a problem if Lam tried to place her husband in, oh say, CUNY, since he wanted to be in education? Or SUNY, back-scratching as things may be between City and State officials? Or even in a private university or school? Chances are there would have been no conflict in any of these places, but political courtesy would have landed her husband the job.

How many State or Federal elected officials have friends or relatives on the City payroll or some other off-budget payroll and those jobs are obtained due to political influence? Is not that just as wrong as Lam's transgression? Yet, there is a nary a peep as to whether this should be subject to scrutiny.

Lam was stupid, she did it all wrong and as a result she was led to the slaughter. But there are more like her. They just do it legally. But morally, they are just as bad.

* James Eugene is the pseudonym of a veteran of NYC government affairs. Inside The Big Apple will appear exclusively on the Empire Page. If you want to send tips or column ideas to James Eugene, email them to jameseugene@empirepage.com.