Torricelli on The Record, aka the 'Hacks of Hackensack'

Torch dont you think you sound a bit mean here? I like reading Torch defending himself-that part of this was fun. But this entire argument between a washed up political footnote and a dead newspaper is hardly news

It's funny that in responding to a post about how the Record got Toricelli's story wrong, you get his story wrong.

Toricelli finished out his second term, he just dropped his reelection bid.  He did that because he was getting crushed in the polls, largely due to all the newspaper articles accusing him of guilt.

He would have lost, innocent or guilty, so he took one for the team and dropped out of the race.  Only after it was all over did he get the letter from the US Attorney saying there was no evidence supporting the accusations against him.

I don't know if he was guilty or not, and I am happy he dropped out.  But that doesn't change any of the facts.

put away the bitterness here Torch and you maybe on to something. Everyone knows that the Records influence in the political arena has been declining for some years now. Just look at the success rate of the county candidates that they endorse. Even sloppy journalism and half baked editorials do not seem to excite the letter writers anymore.

Why do you guys at Politicker continue to provide disgraced individuals a forum to (lamely) defend their heinous and shameful acts?  The antics of Karla Katz and The Torch are well-known; these people are a joke. 

Are you going to give Sharpe James a column next?

 "I figure people drift toward liberalism at a young age, and I always hope that they change when they see how the world really is.”
- Johnny Ramone

Torch was a crappy Senator.
The Record is (was) a crappy newspaper.

Let's all move on.

...Cry me a river. Though, it has struck me that the thought of Torch running for Lt. Governor with Corzine at the top of the ticket would be an intriguing combination. If they win, then everyone knows there is no way in Hades a Republican will ever win a statewide election for a generation to come.

If the fact the Record is struggling financially is supposed to be revelatory, then color me stunned. At Bob’s lack of astuteness, anyway. There isn’t a single daily newspaper in the country, including the vaunted New York Times, that hasn’t been facing the same pressures, for a variety of reasons. If you’d been paying attention, Robert, you would have seen references to this playing out in the form of layoffs or cutbacks at dozens of papers over the past few years, from Philadelphia to New York alone. Lots of others have noticed it, anyway. So trying to make it seem as though the Record is alone in this -- losing ground because of its marginalization or poor quality -- is such an obvious case of sour grapes that I’m sad for the unimaginative brain that cooked it up in column form. Sad for you, Bob-o. How transparent. You wield a little power (very little) here in the form of this venue, and like a true politician, you’re using it to settle perceived old scores.

Shakespeare indeed.

And of course, you’re thin on details. Your files “include an almost unprecedented letter from prosecutors informing (you) that there was no evidence to warrant proceeding and the matter was ended.” Of course -- no one ever succeeds in concealing their misdeeds. All crimes are punished. What were any of us thinking? (And as to the “almost unprecedented” part, please. More hyperbole. These letters are issued all the time. Your literary license should be revoked.)

Then there was the time you took money from the publisher ... what are the specifics on that, exactly? And the reporter who was taking “outside income”? Details, Robert, details. The name, source of the income, etc.? At least present the case and allow an objective reader to determine for themselves the validity of the claim.

Or no ... maybe not. Maybe it’s better to let the irony here -- your opacity revealing your transparency -- do the talking for you. Yes, we're accustomed to that around here ...

Spenk is a paid employee of the North Jersey Media Group. S/he comes close to the ethically necessary step of disclosing his/her perspective, as Torricelli certainly does, but no cigar.

"We're accustomed to that around here..."

"What were any of us thinking?"

As for the fallen giant taking on the falling giant, I say bring it. I'll supply the popcorn.

No, s/he is not a paid employee of NJMG, nor have I ever been. Nice try though. The quotes you pulled are references to “us” being accustomed to political idiocy and thuggery “around here” in N.J.

Bob who?

I read Stephen Borg's staff memo and thought the concept of mobile journalists was a good response to major structural problems in the newspaper industry. Record's main problem is the loss of institutional knowledge. Also, frankly, their lower-level reporters are a mixed bag.

Torch, some day the Record will have a mean editorial obituary about you. :-)

The answer is simple: This site is bought and paid for by Charles Kushner, the corrupt Democratic fundraiser who financed the state Democratic Committee and the party's leading candidates during the McGreevey years. The Record wrote often about Kushner, revealing how he illegally used his network of real estate companies to pump money to the Democrats, and how McGreevey accordingly awarded him with a top Port Authority post. Kushner went to jail and now is attempting to create a media empire to exact retribution on the newspapers who so cruelly exposed his schemes. To that end, Kushner has hired the Democratic party's designated media handler, a professional p.r. manipulator named Bob Sommer, who is now the President of The Observer Media Group, owner of PolitickerNJ. Yes, The Record is indeed suffering an identity crisis under the myopic and mean-spirited leadership of Stephen Borg, a cloddish dilettante with no sense of journalistic mission and no real accomplishment outside that of his fortunate birth; he treats the paper like a business school project. But the newspaper's self-inflicted embarassments aren't really what has Torch so upset. And it's not why all of Torch's insider buddies are angry either. It is because all these "public servants" -- Torch, Dennis Oury, Len Kaiser, Joe Ferriero, etc, etc -- abused the public trust to enrich themselves, and now the whole rat's nest is coming apart at teh seams. Jail just has a way of bringing out a mean streak in people.

Whose rear end are you trying to blow smoke up? What you wrote is not close to being accruate. In a Pittsburgh tribune-Review article it clearly shows that Torricelli may be the luckiest man alive. Six guilty pleas were obtained through the investigation. Just because Torricelli wasn't "found guilty" doesn't mean he isn't. OJ wan't "found guilty" of killing his wife and her friend, but it is clear he did it.

"Mary Jo White announced that she had ended the three-year criminal probe of New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli for alleged campaign finance violations. Since the probe began, six people under investigation have pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to the senator, three of the senator's staffers were told that they faced indictment, and a wide range of highly credible witnesses attested to a variety of facts that would jail most lesser men than Torricelli.
Furthermore, the attorney general agreed with Ms. White, who in terminating the investigation made a bold move that should earn him a Democratic medal for stupidity and the total gratitude of Torricelli. Obviously, with Ashcroft's blessing, White referred the investigation to the Senate Ethics Committee, that cozy cabal of three Democrats and three Republicans whose chairman, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, is a Torricelli supporter."

Ah, the fallen Senator gets his licks in. Fact is, Bob was disliked by the reporters who covered him long before there was a hint of scandal. The Record staff held him in the lowest regard because, well, they covered his congressional district and had to deal with him more than the rest. Poor old Bob has fallen far enough, and if he wants to tell stories on The Record, Wally Edge, his old pal from MWW, has provided a fine soap box.

Bob can be a charming guy. He’s smart as they come, energetic and very capable. But there’s something jagged and poisonous beneath. Spend more than a little time with him and you will see it, feel it, experience it – unless, of course, he feels you can help him in some way. I remember being on the receiving end of a threatening phone call from Bob in which he itemized how he would bring me down personally and failing that, would destroy my employer. I could almost feel his spittle coming through the speaker. What was it all about? Bob believed I had inconvenienced him.

But it isn’t just The Record or its editorial staff who find Bob a bit distasteful. I recall a casual dinner with most of the New Jersey congressional delegation’s Democrats (minus Bob, who was off running for senator at the time) where the subject of raising money turned into an exchange of views on the delegations’ least favorite member – our Bob.

Maybe management should not have allowed that "Douse the Torch" sign in The Record news room despite its popularity. But Bobby’s diatribe on “The Hacks” demonstrates that he still has some growing to do.

I have problems with the Bergen Record but coming from Toricelli makes me want to sell papers door to door. He is a wanker. The Records main problem is that they are in bed with the courts and no one takes their journalism seriously. The Record is not necessarily mean but right wing. That's my two cents and i am stickin to it.

You go, Torchie. You had to give up your senate seat because of corruption. (At the last second, somehow handing the senate seat off to Lautenberg, ‘though he wasn’t originally on the ballot – how was THAT legal, anyway?) But you lecture OTHERS on ethics.

Now, I’m sure you’re upset at that newspaper (The Bergen Record) that apparently did its job: investigate and report. (Can you imagine if someone actually did that to Obama? Now THAT would be refreshing.)

And you write that you wanted to “take a shower” after, you SAY, the publisher offered you a bribe? Why, because the amount was so small? How much did David Chang give you? And did you feel like taking a shower then?

And don’t think that we missed your disrespect to the readers of The Record (your former constituency): “Its readership is aging and limited to the least educated and lowest economic base of Bergen County.”

Said like a true hack who doesn’t mind burning his bridges behind himself. But then again, you have no future in politics anyway, so why not, eh?

By the way, the Shakespearean quote you butchered is actually a subtle, deft one: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

In other words, you tried to show superior intellect over editors of The Record by implying that they don’t know the Bard like you do. (You scholarly sage, you.) But, in fact, you’re the one who doesn’t even understand the quote itself.

It isn’t a straightforward statement of fact: “The woman complains too much.” – as you used it in your screed. But rather, the quote makes a profound, counterintuitive insight: “The woman’s obsessive complaining reveals that her true feeling is the exact OPPOSITE of her rhetoric.” For more on the subject, research Freud’s pioneering work on “projection”.

But your obsessive complaining about The Record is also so rich on its own, coming from a corrupt pol as yourself. In fact, speaking of projection, the entire Northern New Jersey Democrat machine is completely corrupt from top to bottom. Flim Flam Florio, McGreevey giving his lover the state’s HOMELAND SECURITY CHIEF’S position (despite Golan Cipel being a FOREIGN citizen), Corzine, Menendez, Sharpe James, all the local pols in Hudson County, etc. who have been convicted, it just runs on endlessly.

As CBS’s BNET published: “New Jersey not only is a place where politicians talk the talk but, increasingly it seems, they also walk the perp walk.”

Ibid: “Within the last several years, law-enforcement agencies, particularly the FBI, have raided the offices of Hudson County Executive and rumored gubernatorial aspirant Bob Janiszewski, Irvington Mayor Sara Bost and erstwhile comer Essex County Executive Jim Treffinger, among others. A jury recently found that the mob had a friend in Camden's former mayor; the Bergen County sheriff scooped up campaign cash in exchange for ‘honorary special-deputy’ badges; and the chief of the West New York police admitted to protecting prostitution and gambling rings.”

Not to mention the state being forced to take over the Jersey City public school system.

Tony Soprano is comfortable living in New Jersey for a reason.

I live in Queens, and I can rattle the majority of these scandals off the top of my head. And I know that there are a LOT more scandals that I can’t remember.

Wherever the Democrat Machine creates a one party fiefdom, the people have no chance at a fair and free government: Northern New Jersey, DC, Philly, Detroit, Chicago, Tammany Hall NYC, et al.

And you’re simply one corrupt example of the mendacious Democrat machine of Northern New Jersey.