New York City's GOP mayor is encouraging New Yorkers to roll out the red carpet for the Republicans when they come to town this summer. Our columnist has a different plan in mind
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Gersh Kuntzman
Newsweek
Updated: 4:37 p.m. ET May 03, 2004
. . .
Republicans are going to be crawling all over my decidedly Democratic hometown—and everyone is expecting the worst. (Forget the usual suspects; even the city's police and fire unions have announced plans to protest President Bush. If New York's 'Finest' and `Bravest' are screaming, you know it's going to be long, hot, New York summer for the GOP).
. . .
And Bloomberg is smart on an other level, too. He knows that New York's inclination would be to send these foreign interlopers—otherwise known as the GOP conventioneers—home on a rail, tarred, feathered and mugged. To avoid such a spectacle under his supposedly Republican watch, Bloomberg has started running ads encouraging the mostly liberal populace to treat the invaders—with their synthetic garments, their SUVs, their macho foreign policy and their bizarre notions of patriotism—with respect and kindness. He even got former mayor Ed Koch—a Democrat, no less!—to drive the welcome wagon.
"The Republicans are coming to town," reads one of the ads featuring Koch. "Make nice." The ad goes on to say that "delegates will be coming from all over the U.S. to stay in our hotels, ride on our subways, eat in our restaurants, and spend their money. Let's help them do it."
Never mind that many Republicans don't even want to be spending their money here. (Remember Rep. Tom Delay's plan to house the conventioneers on cruise ships for the duration, the better to prevent them from spending too much time in physical contact with heathen New York?) But "make nice" had a vaguely totalitarian ring to it, a frightening reminder of Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer's post-9/11 warning that Americans needed to "watch what they say and watch what they do." I didn't know what offended me more about the "make nice" ads: that I was being asked to put aside my right as a liberal to berate anyone wearing an elephant lapel about the horrible performance of the president or my right as a New Yorker to do it very aggressively.
Naturally, Koch disagreed with me (we split years ago when he, the supposedly consummate New Yorker, did a morally indefensible commercial for Dunkin' Donuts' reprehensible bagels). "I'm urging all New Yorkers to treat these visitors cordially," he told me. "If you see them with a map, help them out. Remember, some of these people are legislators. Maybe they can help us down the road. We want them to go back to their cities saying, 'We had a wonderful time,' and 'Those New Yorkers are wonderful people'."
Actually, I want them to go home thinking that their Red State views don't represent all of us. I want them to go home a little less smug and a lot more convinced that there is widespread hostility to the Bush vision of endless war, corporate control of the environment and lack of concern for our allies. I want them to feel uncomfortable—like their views are as foreign and repulsive as we New Yorkers believe them to be.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4891866/Right! You go New Yorkers. Be my voice.
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