An excitable lad over at DailyKos apparently got a look at Scene’s cover story this week, “The King of Spin,” about young Dennis Kucinich’s rise, fall, and re-rise through Cleveland politics. Here’s his glowing review: The Scene is a yellow rag that I wouldn’t let my birds crap on, for fear the ink would spatter on their delicate parts. The people the author quoted are people who hated Kucinich then, because he challenged the status quo, and they were the status quo Dennis was challenging.
I, too, lived here in Cleveland during that time, and I believe Dennis was a visionary. In the end he was vindicated for all of the decisions that folks like Mike Roberts and Brent Larkin (both complete right wingnutted hardcore conservatives, by the way) vilified him for. They probably both lost money while banking on CEI becoming the power monopoly, and lost their bets when Cleveland Public Power was born.
This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2007.
A “race-baiter”? A “borderline socialist”?
Kucinich rewriting his own history?
I gave this piece a few reads, compared it with my own considerable research, and I’m sorry to say that it appears Scene’s editorial board is attempting to offer their own skewed rewrite.
Would it surprise me to find some link between the advocates of this piece and the movement to remove him from his congressional seat? Not at all.
It would be nice if the article tied up the considerable inconsistencies (which it never comes close to doing), offered some substantiation of it’s “facts”, and didn’t undermine the presentation’s appearance by the admissions of Kucinich’s own hard work ethic, intelligence, and drive.
Perhaps the writer should have taken a broader historical context (even 2 decades of distress leading to his mayoralty) and would have realized that Cleveland was already on the track it found itself on (like so many other major urban areas during that era).
It seems so easy to place the blame and pace the game to Kucinich’s approach, but to me praise seems due because at least he did attempt to take a different approach that so many other city leaders employed in cleaning up their own blighted areas experiencing their own “nervous breakdowns” (many of these cities still suffer this blight dementia).
Granted Kucinich was young, and it wouldn’t be hard to be diverted from a path of diplomacy when you see behind the velvet ropes. Any young person would be frustrated. Any sensible person might have a lapse in judgments because of the mess they might inherit. But I doubt the staff of Scene could name one perfect politician.
If anything, Kucinich should at least be allowed some latitude for attempting the job of righting the wrongs, something that would have been an almost impossible job for anyone of any level of experience.
And as I mentioned, the same thing happened in cities across America from Buffalo to Oakland. So what did the diversion from communities looking inward ultimately bring? 8 years of Ronald Reagan and a new way to appoint blame. Trickle down economics (like a leaking urinal), and a decade of other mayors and municipal politicians scared to challenge the monied interests that profited from leaders fear of being added as “one of the ten worst”.
Kucinich sought to ask (and act) on what the role of local government is in a very public manner. And for that he is punished for it?
Perhaps the author should run for mayor and give an itemized list of thier achievements.
In the meantime, I’d be happy to see Kucinich enter the White House. He might have been confrontational as a mayor, but he has never sought to line his pockets with the position in which he now serves. If the only skeletons in his closet are early managerial ones, then that is fantastic. It’s better than the hypocrisy, questionable ethics, and quite possible criminal pasts of the other candidates in this current presidential race.
Get some perspective – please.
regards,
Stephen
Is it true that he fired the police chief and replaced him with a 21 year old college sophomore? That’s incredibly irresponsible in a major city. And if “the only skeletons in his closet are early managerial ones” with nothing concrete to offset them, it surely suggests he is not qualified for a role requiring significant managerial, consensus-building and decision-making skills.
I didn’t read “The King of Spin” because I’ve felt for some time that Scene is a worthless rag. I wouldn’t use it to line the cat box. The only way it could be any better is to recycle it into paper for a superior publication.
This is not the Scene I loved as a college student and aspiring journalist who was new to Cleveland. This is a snarky, irresponsible, disgusting piece of garbage that has lost all sense of responsibility to the community. Your writers hate everything and everyone, especially your readers. Your editors are worthless, especially your copy editor.
The only reason I was reading your paper was for “Savage Love.” Now that he’s not even worth reading, I won’t be going back. The Free Times isn’t much better — I’ll stick to CoolCleveland.com, thank you very much.
Do yourselves a favor and stop running the phone sex ads and classifieds from scam artists posing as legitimate advertisers. Then the whole lot of you will have to go out and get real jobs.