Rochester's Democratic-Media Complex must be worried. The real story of Mike Green's judicial nomination keeps spreading by word-of-mouth, radiating outward from the Hall of Justice like a rising sun.
In the last 10 days three Democrat and Chronicle stories and an editorial recite rigidly the Official Story that unspecified "Republicans" blocked Green.
But truth, like sunshine, has a way of seeping through the smallest cracks.
In one more effort to seal it off, the paper today trots out widely-admired former DA Howard Relin to lend his prestige to the Party Line.
We don't think for an instant that Mr. Relin would state publicly or privately anything he didn't believe to be true. We think he's being used by people whose word he thinks he can trust.
Mr Relin's op-ed piece tells us "the nomination never came before the full senate for a vote." But it never tells us why.
No senator put a "hold" on Green's nomination. No filibuster was tried or threatened. One or the other had happened to every other judicial nomination the Democratic leaders of the Senate sent back to the President.
Neither happened to Mike Green. Yet the Senate Democrats sent it back.
Mr. Relin tells us "there was a local push back" against Green's nomination.
Not from local Republicans, there wasn't. Local Republican Party leaders wanted Green on the federal bench, to eliminate him as competition to any of their upcoming candidates for state judgships.
What the people who briefed Mr. Relin didn't tell him was that the pushback came from local Democratic Chairman Joe Morelle.
Democratic Senate leaders were happy to give in to it, as it avoided embarrassing information about Green coming out had the nomination come to the floor for a vote.
Morelle is furious at Green for not cooperating with Morelle's effort to make Judge Frank Geraci the next DA.
Defying Morelle, Green reportedly told the Chairman that he didn't owe anything to the Democratic Party. That was in the spring. Morelle then had to find a candidate and run a campaign. Payback would come later.
It came two weeks ago. And don't confuse Morelle's payback to
Green with petty vindictiveness alone. It's payback with a specific purpose.
As we shall report to you tomorrow.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
|
"When bad men combine, the good must associate." -- Edmund Burke |
FEATURES
Local
Albany
National
Big Media
Above Politics
Rochester Life
Blog Archive
-
▼
2012
(81)
-
▼
January
(24)
- Larger Lessons from Kodak's Fall?
- Weekender
- Proposed Redistricting Maps
- Redistricting
- Gannett Conference Call on Monday
- Weekender
- The Tips Pour In
- The Real Thatcher Legacy
- Comments, Comments, Comments
- "Civility" is for Other People
- Weekender
- County Legislature: Investigate the DA Scandal
- Upstate Vote Fraud
- First They Came for the Cigarettes
- Firings and Cars in the DA's Office
- Transition Watch
- Senator Brooks?
- Not Even Trying
- Weekender
- Real Journalists in Rochester, After All
- Green Light to Green Stuff
- An Apartment on Water Street
- One Last Kiss-Off
- Signs of Panic
-
▼
January
(24)
Contributors
THE ALMANAC OF MONROE COUNTY POLITICS
12 comments:
I work at the Hall of Justice and what you say here is what everybody is talking about there. And the "embarrassing information."
Local TV news has a lot of reporters with integrity (unlike D&C). Why are'nt TV news shows checking out real reasons why Green was refused? the political part and the "embarrassing information" part?
Philbrick. First, Happy New Year.
Second, in your last post on this topic, Morelle owns Sandra Doorley because he can command her to insert an underling into her office. In this post, Morelle is on the sidelines fuming and lashing out because his pick, Geraci, didn't get a chance to run the DA's office.
If Doorley is not Morelle's pick, why is she beholden to him and therefore required to appoint one of his boys to her office?
In general, though I believe that you have good sources, there are too many moving parts in your theories of late.
Rottenchester, Happy New Year to you.
There are lots of different aspects to this story but they're not inconsistent.
Morelle wanted Geraci to be DA. Green wouldn't step down as Morelle had asked him to, so Geraci could run as an incumbent. Between that and having only one line on the ballot if he ran, Geraci decided not to run.
That doesn't at all mean that Morelle harbored any resentment toward Doorley, either before or after her impressive win. I would think just the opposite. She wasn't his first choice, but she was right there, able to be the candidate when Geraci declined, then ran a great campaign.
One reason Doorley is beholden to Morelle is the $100,000 the Monroe Democratic Committee pumped into Doorley's campaign. Somehow this didn't make the D&C's story on how much the different campaigns spent.
Notwithstanding that, it might have been entirely possible that Doorley could have been standoffish to Morelle and the party organization. But her appointment of MCDC Executuve Director Adam Bello to her office strongly implies that the opposite is so.
For all we know, Bello may be the Steve Jobs or Bill Gates of whatever it is he does. But any elected figure, especially one who just ran on a platform of being independent of politics, would be likely to shy away from making such an overtly political appointment, or an appointment that could be perceived as such. That Doorley went ahead with Bello shows that there are at least warm and fuzzy feelings between the DAs office and party HQ.
We don't think Doorley is a person who would simply take orders from Morelle. But -- again as the Bello appointment shows -- he will certainly have influence in her office.
He never had such influence over Green. Green only went ahead with the unconscionable Moore and Smith prosecutions because he had to, in order to get the nomination for federal judge. Other than that, the beef at party HQ all along was that Green wasn't a team player politically.
Green only became a team player when he had to, for Morelle's support for the nomination.
I just want to know which Monroe County Republican has the juice to run roughshod over President Obama, Chuck Schumer, and the Democratic controled Senate.
My money is on Monroe County Legislator Robert Colby.
Rottenchester,
Many months ago, I was told by Democratic party insiders close to him, that Bob Duffy was quarterbacking the killing of the Green nomination. My source, a long time Democrat elected official pointed to the day that Green appeared before Judiciary and neither Schumer or Gillibrand attended. His premise, which in retrospect I agree with, is that the Democrats locally had bailed on him. Joe Morelle may have been angered by him, but, the truth is, his own party could have backed him off earlier because they knew that his nomination was DOA, instead, they kept him thinking he was going to get the senate confirmation hearing he wanted.
This is not the work of Republicans, but, the Adam Bello appointment is the work of Democrats who were scrambling late to secure the WFP line for Doorley as well. My guess is that Morelle, in return for petition passers (paid by him, by the way) extracted a number of promises for the work. So, I think Phil is on point!
oh, before Roten tells me I am wrong because she did not get the WFP line, he needs to know that the committee of vacancies of WFP selected Taylor and that Morelle battled the designation in their state organization to kill it!
Philbrick, thanks for fleshing that out.
I guess the question on Bello is if he was a one-time quid-pro-quo for the $100K from MCDC, or if he's Morelle's man inside.
Anonymous, the question I have on the Duffy theory is what does Bob Duffy gain from screwing Green? Did Green do him wrong in some way other way? I never got the impression that Duffy was close with Morelle, or beholden to him. Duffy never seemed like a loyal partisan - he seemed mostly interested in Bob Duffy's success. He would just as easily have been a Republican if Rochester were a Republican town.
Rottenchester,
I was not saying that Duffy was acting on Morelle's behalf. My understanding is that Duffy and Green share a dislike for each other. It may well be that after Duffy started down the road he was on, he was joined by Morelle, for different reasons.
Here is the rest of what I was told. Duffy had the support of David Gantt in the take out. The deal was that Green gets knocked out and Theresa Johnson could be the next nominee.
What apparently changed post Morelle getting angry was that no one on the Democratic party side gave Green a warning that he was in trouble so he could either bail out and run, or save face. Since I heard the Duffy story late July (or early August, I am not sure of the date) there was a lot of time for Green to have the information, withdraw, and run for relection. So, what is the question is what did Morelle as chairman know and when did he know it? If he knew of the problem around the same time I heard of it (and he should have sooner), he may have decided to sit on the information to be sure that Green was finished, both as a candidate, and a nominee!
Rottenchester, maybe one of green's affairs was with Duffys wife or daughter? ( joke )
Green was in denial; his ego never let him believe that after all those months and the FBI check and finally the Senate confirmation hearing, that something could go wrong. Put another way, he underestimated the underhandedness of Morelle, Duffy and Schumer.
Green has a history of denial and acting in a self-destructive way, though. His personal life is sad and tragic (for his family) but entirely self-inflicted.
How can someone who has such an awful personal life expect to be appointed to a judgeship?
Seriously? Thank God he wasn't confirmed.
Any how many others are like him? Already serving on the bench in this community?
Doug Randall for one, last anonymous. If our media would do their job in an unbiased way and cover the TRUTH in stories... he never should have won that election. He is both professional and personally corrupt... a real Green and Doorley prodigy.
Post a Comment