Schumer's Guide
Tonight, the Independence Party will present Senator Schumer and state Senator Joseph Bruno its annual Anti-Corruption Awards. Mayor Bloomberg is scheduled to address what the group bills as a "gala fundraiser." It's alarming the extent to which Mr. Bloomberg and the others involved seem ready to lend credibility to a party that has trafficked with anti-Semitism. The mayor has already done too much to lend this party legitimacy by accepting its endorsement in 2001. He, and the others, would do the city a favor by staying home.
New Yorkers will remember that Mr. Bloomberg accepted the Independence Party endorsement in 2001,even after the co-founder of the party, Lenora Fulani, a former Marxist, publicly blamed the terrorist attacks of September 11 on "our government's aggression and arrogance." It was also in a deal with Ms. Fulani that Mr. Bloomberg agreed to push the issue of nonpartisan elections, which would have strengthened the fringe party's hand in local politics.
It is an odious alliance. Ms. Fulani ran for president in 1992 on the New Alliance Party ticket. In 1996, she made her way all the way across the political spectrum to back the conservative Patrick Buchanan. That alliance won her the attention of the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a report titled "A Cult by Any Other Name,"accusing her of, among other things, misusing campaign funds and "Jew-baiting." Last summer, Ms. Fulani met with Mr. Bloomberg's deputy mayor for policy, Dennis Walcott, to discuss education policy, bringing along Fred Newman, who in 1985, according to the Anti-Defamation League, called Jews "storm troopers of decadent capitalism against people of color the world over."
The extremism of this group is no secret. During the fight over nonpartisan elections this summer, Rep. Charles Rangel asked why Mr. Bloomberg "would go to someone like Miss Fulani to guide what's left of his political career." It's a valid question. And it's one that may now have to be asked of Messrs. Schumer and Bruno if they truly plan to join Ms. Fulani at tonight's festivities.
