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Political Insider: Just when things looked like clear sailing for Menendez
At the start of the new year, things looked bright for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, Hudson County's federal legislator by way of Union City, Hoboken and North Bergen. He won re-election in November and he is in line to take over as chairman of the ultra-powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Now the committee is a punchline. Menendez has suddenly become the media's Lindsey Lohan of the Capital Beltway.
I've known the senator since he was a teen aide for his mentor, the late state powertician Bill Musto, who was mayor of Union City and a highly influential New Jersey state senator. ("I take my coffee with cream and no sugar, thanks Bob."
His rise to the exclusive club we know as the U.S. Senate is a novel in the making with a number of very Runyunesque characters.
I have no concept of the fauna he mingles with since he left for Congress, but it seems the rough and tumble politics he was anxious to leave behind in Hudson County have followed him to D.C. Either that or his county DNA has surfaced. Whatever the case, Menendez has serious Bill Clinton-like problems.
Now the committee is a punchline. Menendez has suddenly become the media's Lindsey Lohan of the Capital Beltway.
I've known the senator since he was a teen aide for his mentor, the late state powertician Bill Musto, who was mayor of Union City and a highly influential New Jersey state senator. ("I take my coffee with cream and no sugar, thanks Bob."
His rise to the exclusive club we know as the U.S. Senate is a novel in the making with a number of very Runyunesque characters.
I have no concept of the fauna he mingles with since he left for Congress, but it seems the rough and tumble politics he was anxious to leave behind in Hudson County have followed him to D.C. Either that or his county DNA has surfaced. Whatever the case, Menendez has serious Bill Clinton-like problems.
http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index.ssf/2013/02/political_insider_just_when_th.html#incart_m-rpt-1
