as a parent, i feel for rachel noerdlinger, who today said she was taking a leave of absence from the de blasio administration after her teenage son was arrested on friday. youre only as happy as your least happy child, so im sure this is all weighing heavily on ms. noerdlinger, who served as chief of staff to nycs first lady, chirlane mccray. but shes been a lightning rod for controversy - including her live-in boy-friends past run ins with the law. its all been great fodder for the new york tabloid newspapers. curiously, today mayor de blasio, defending noerdlinger, likened the coverage of her personal scandals and trevails, as akin to what happened in this country during the mccarthyism era in the 1950s, when anyone who ever knew or walked by on the street a known communist was blacklisted. We saw this in the 1950s; we’ve seen this throughout the history of this country, said the mayor. If someone wants to smear people and use that for political purposes, there is a pretty easy playbook for doing it. It’s repulsive, but it’s become quite common. The idea is for those of us who have a sense of mission, we are not going to let it stop us. the mayor clearly feels strongly, but if anyone knows someone who couldnt work for years - many in the movie, tv and book business - because of their political beliefs, im thinking that to portray whats happening at city hall and how the tabloids covered a staff aides personal problems, with mccarthyism - well, im thinking it might be viewed as an insult by anyone who was actually blacklisted 60 years ago in what was one of the most troubling periods of u.s. history. call me nuts - and i get standing up for a staffer whom the mayor thinks is a loyal worker - but im thinking the people who were blacklisted for saying what they believed back in the 1950s and gave up promising careers wouldnt think much about being compared to a woman whose son was arrested and whose boyfriend was once jailed when he was a teen for killing a man. just sayin
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:26:00 +0000