Insecure New Yorkers lash out at Chuck Grassley
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley recently blamed Rudy Giuliani's "New York attitude" for his failure to connect with Iowa voters during the leadup to the caucuses last month. Apparently Grassley intended to make the point that in Iowa, voters expect to get to know candidates one-one-one, and that Giuliani really didn't make much of an attempt to connect with Iowa voters on a personal level.
No doubt Grassley's choice of words was regrettable. I see no reason for him to have tarred the whole city of New York with whatever brush he was waiving at Giuliani. And a certain insecure minority of New Yorkers- ever sensitive to a slight from those they stubbornly insist are their inferiors- have responded in an altogether unfortunate fashion, as exemplified by this piece of childish nonsense from the New York Daily News.
I've met Sen. Grassley on a number of occasions, and on none of them was he dressed as Curtis Sliwa describes. Iowa, of course, has the highest literacy rate in the nation, and is among the national leaders in the percentage of its population with college degrees. It ill-behooves New Yorkers to cast aspirsions on Sen. Grassley's intelligence on the basis of stereotypes as ill-founded as those reflected in the News article.
All in all, Grassley's choice of words was unfortunate. There was no need for him generalize about New Yorkers in order to make his point about Giuliani. On the other hand, former New York Mayor Ed Koch is inclined to agree with his point about the attitude Giuliani seemed to present. The reaction of the News and of those quoted in the story, though, is nothing short of childish- and symptomatic of the insecure, defensive posture toward the rest of America that makes us more secure folks in "fly over country" feel a bit sorry for the minority of New Yorkers who hold themselves and their city in such regrettably low esteem as to feel mortally threatened by comments like Grassley's.
That reaction is the sort of thing that gives New York City the regrettable reputation for obnoxious arrogance- or is it just immature, hostile defensiveness?- that invites such stereotypes such as those in which Sen. Grassley seems himself to have indulged. And that's really too bad.
No doubt Grassley's choice of words was regrettable. I see no reason for him to have tarred the whole city of New York with whatever brush he was waiving at Giuliani. And a certain insecure minority of New Yorkers- ever sensitive to a slight from those they stubbornly insist are their inferiors- have responded in an altogether unfortunate fashion, as exemplified by this piece of childish nonsense from the New York Daily News.
I've met Sen. Grassley on a number of occasions, and on none of them was he dressed as Curtis Sliwa describes. Iowa, of course, has the highest literacy rate in the nation, and is among the national leaders in the percentage of its population with college degrees. It ill-behooves New Yorkers to cast aspirsions on Sen. Grassley's intelligence on the basis of stereotypes as ill-founded as those reflected in the News article.
All in all, Grassley's choice of words was unfortunate. There was no need for him generalize about New Yorkers in order to make his point about Giuliani. On the other hand, former New York Mayor Ed Koch is inclined to agree with his point about the attitude Giuliani seemed to present. The reaction of the News and of those quoted in the story, though, is nothing short of childish- and symptomatic of the insecure, defensive posture toward the rest of America that makes us more secure folks in "fly over country" feel a bit sorry for the minority of New Yorkers who hold themselves and their city in such regrettably low esteem as to feel mortally threatened by comments like Grassley's.
That reaction is the sort of thing that gives New York City the regrettable reputation for obnoxious arrogance- or is it just immature, hostile defensiveness?- that invites such stereotypes such as those in which Sen. Grassley seems himself to have indulged. And that's really too bad.
Comments
Grassley is entitled to any ONE of those comments and his point would have been made. It's one thing to sling an insult to a defeated candidate, it's another to go on and on about him, his home state and "attitudes."