Thank sje for calling to your attention the terrible, just terrible, the way New York Press just railed on Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President:
“Once upon a time, when the Board of Estimate ruled graft and contracts in New York, the five borough presidents had power. Today, it’s a no-show job. The bad news with Markowitz is that he shows up, and so do his 116 employees, his multi-million-dollar budget and his four SUVs equipped with police sirens. Not content with doing nothing, Markowitz finds time to advocate for the downtrodden, such as Ikea, Home Depot and developer Bruce Ratner in their noble quest to cannibalize mom-and-pop neighborhoods. The porcine oaf is also known for racing around the city in HOV lanes with police lights flashing, en route to handing out a plaque. Markowitz is up for reelection next year. Instead, he should save taxpayers millions of dollars and fire himself, fire his employees and turn Borough Hall into a methadone clinic. At least then we’d have a better class of people hanging around the place.”
PICTURED: Marty Markowitz and “AB2IZ”
OF NOTE: Markowitz narrowly edged out Weblogs, Inc. chairman Jason Calacanis, who is #23 on the list: “His is a blog company that will make money from advertising while allegedly paying his army of typers a pittance in a ‘partnership’ that promises a payday from future earnings. Hmm, where’ve we heard that before? … it’ll be tough to find talent out there when all of the naive bloggers holding their breath for their big breaks will have long since reconciled themselves to temping.”
Ooh, that article was delicious! Now what to do with all this hatred?
Marty is a scumbag, if he was really working so hard for us taxpayers theres no way he’d be so fat!
i think it would have been funny (and appropriate) if ny press had listed their former editor jeff koyen as one of the loathesome. but marty will do fine in his place. but no mention of bruce ratner? or the guy who keeps telling people his mother just had a car accident and he needs money for the tow truck? so many eligible folks. maybe dailyheights should starts a PH-specific loathesome list!
Ah, but I have fond memories of that free concert series he used to host on Coney Island in the summers. A few (four?) years ago he brought that Beatles cover band (uh, Rundgren, Entwistle, Parsons, Wilson…) out and the show was splendid.
Marty is also one of the few politicians to actually try and do something about obesity; I don’t know if his campaign was helpful, but it was nice to see him try.
I don’t know the list from the article, but I presume Kerik is higher on the list than Markowitz. Saying a lot, I know…
Bernie Kerik (the guy who almost got the job as head of Homeland Security) didn’t make the list, but #47 or so on the list was Judith Regan, publisher of ReganBooks, who paid Kerik “more than $75,000 in royalties for 11 sentences he wrote that opened a book advertised as a charity for 9/11 families.”
What did Jeff Koyen do? (WDJKD?)
Ratner was in last years list, don’t remember the number.
Marty got my vote at last election and he’ll get it at the next. I love his enthusiasm! He may be unpopular amongst a subset of folks in gentrified Brooklyn, but borough-wide he is well-liked and will easily get re-elected.
Besides, getting news from the NY Press is like relying on the National Enquirer.