As readers know I am “longtime Californ’” and, yes, I have bumped into Jerry Brown personally on a few occasions and I have to say Jerry is one of the more interesting politicians I have ever met. He sometimes thinks out of the box and has interests that extend well beyond the political sphere.
But, Jekyll and Hyde, he can also be the most traditional sort of hack pol imaginable and right now – at the very moment he is aiming to reclaim the governorship of the Golden State – he seems to have brought a situation upon himself that could make the famed Medfly Scandal seem like so many gnats at a horse show.
He has made the mistake of tangling – consciously or not – with Andrew Breitbart. Worse yet – over ACORN.
What we know so far: Some bozo named David Lagstein – ACORN’s chief organizer for the San Diego area – made the dim bulb mistake of speaking out loud to a group of Democrats at the very public venue of a Coco’s Restaurant in El Cajon. Someone recorded his statements, including such doozies as Brown is a “political animal” and will find the fault to be “with the people that did the video — not ACORN.” And so forth. For those who don’t know, Brown, as California Attorney General, is supposedly conducting an investigation of ACORN prompted by the videos, which originally appeared on Breitbart’s site. These latest recordings are also available on Big Government. I encourage you to listen, if you haven’t.
On top of this, there is a complication for Brown in the attempt to “kill the messengers” (i. e. blame the clandestine videographers) for the bad news here. One of the Attorney General’s own spokesmen has just been accused himself of secretly recording interviews with journalists. But no matter. Even if this were not true, the attempt to blame the videographers is pathetic, since they didn’t for a second make up the horrifying revelations about ACORN available on who knows how many videos about the organization. ACORN and its personnel did that to themselves. Apparently the Attorney General was already questioned about this growing scandal on the radio, but avoided answering. (I didn’t hear it.)
So, hello Jerry Brown. History knocks. Who are you? Are you a man of courage able to think out of the box? Or a party hack? Surely, you of all people understand that organizations like ACORN, even leaving aside their potential enabling of child prostitution, are far more destructive than helpful to the people they are supposed to aid. They are part of the problem, as we used to say, not part of the solution. What are you going to do, Jerry? Who are you going to be? The citizens (and voters) of California are waiting.
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45 Comments
1. David Thomson:“What are you going to do, Jerry?”
Jerry Brown has probably made too many compromises to be an effective governor. He may very well feel obligated in some way to ACORN for past services. California needs a butt kicker willing to smash the far too powerful government unions. A call for widespread municipal bankruptcies is mandatory. The state has no other viable option. Those foolish salary and retirement contracts must be rewritten. It will get very nasty—perhaps even violent. I will pretend that I am some sort of second rate Joel Kotkin imitator and predict California is royally screwed for minimally the next five years. The task of union busting will not be easy. Many citizens should seriously consider moving to a red state.
Nov 10, 2009 - 10:18 pm 2. aclay1:Nevada, Idaho, Florida, and Texas look better every day.
Nov 10, 2009 - 11:53 pm 3. Alan Kellogg:There is an alternative scenario…
Pushed into a corner by the ACORN staffer’s assertion Jerry Brown prosecutes the case rigorously, and takes ACORN to the cleaners. By this action Brown shows he is tough on crime, gaining support for his gubernatorial campaign.
Never assume somebody has your back without consulting with him first.
Nov 11, 2009 - 12:20 am 4. David Thomson:ACORN is small potatoes. Compared to struggling against the government unions it is comparable to a full grown man engaging in hand to hand combat with a two year old child. Jerry Brown is currently being presented with a minor test. If he can’t handle this one—then he is most assuredly not ready for the governorship.
Nov 11, 2009 - 4:51 am 5. Mike_K:I agree that Jerry Brown is complex and capable of good work. He was behind the best solution of the medical malpractice crisis in 1975, a solution that has held for 34 years. His alter ego, however, is the evil twin that could promise ACORN a whitewash. I guess we will see which one wins. Even the people of California seem ready to revolt against the dominance of the left in politics. If not, the state will continue to lose taxpayers.
Nov 11, 2009 - 6:31 am 6. cfbleachers:Let’s think about this logically:
Jerry Brown wishes to run for governor on which ticket?
Which base is he going to need in order to prevail?
Is he more likely to obtain favor from the most vocal element of that base by prosecuting a meaningful and diligent case against community organizers?
Are there any community organizers we might know who now hold positions of great power and influence on the ticket in which he is going to run?
Some goof blurts out that the fix is in and that is going to change the dynamic of what actually transpires? Don’t make me laugh.
You are talking about a political faction in this country that has a mass information arm that lies and distorts daily. That watches 13 members of our defense apparatus gunned down in cold blood and turns the situation on its head, making the mass murderer out to be a victim of our society.
Anyone who believes that this incident is anything more than a minor irritation in the rigged game of absolving ACORN from FURTHER INVESTIGATION…whitewashing their array of criminal acts and voter fraud and eliminating from view their continuing theft of our fair election process…well, logic, rational thought, and reason for them has been captured in the Linda Ronstadt song…”Blew By You”.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:00 am 7. John:With the name recognition he has in California and the seeming desire by a majority of state voters to not face the hard problems of excess deficit spending, it’s tough to see why Brown would need ACORN — or at least, need the baggage ACORN would bring — in the 2010 primary and general election. His personality is pretty much set in the public’s mind as a ‘quirky liberal’, so if he actually follows through on Langstein’s claim that just strips away whatever appearance of difference Jerry has with every other liberal-Democrat in Sacremento or elsewhere in the state.
He can throw ACORN under the bus at least for the current election cycle and not worry about needing their extra help for turnout because Brown brings his own celebrity into play to juice the turnout. So he may be dumb enough to taint his image by going after O’Keefe and Giles, but I’d be surprised if he throws his own reputation overboard to make David Langstein look prophetic.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:01 am 8. Skip:When butterflies continuously circle ones head, judgment can become a bit skewed.
Nov 11, 2009 - 8:02 am 9. Charlie (Colorado):I’m guessing that is basically a rhetorical question.
Nov 11, 2009 - 8:37 am 10. RWE:Medfly!
That’s a good one!
Do your suppose that Jerry will go sleep in an ACORN office to prove that the insecticide used to cure the infestation is harmless?
What was remarkable the other day was Jerry talking to Fox News, I think it was, and saying how frustrating it is to deal with people who “have a movie playing in their heads” when it comes to allegations of police brutality. When I heard that, I thought that perhaps the man had matured since the 80’s. But perhaps not.
Nov 11, 2009 - 11:23 am 11. Pajamas Media » ACORN: Jerry Brown’s New Medfly Scandal?:[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
Nov 11, 2009 - 11:34 am 12. cubedweller:Amen, aclay1 (from a NJ resident).
Nov 11, 2009 - 12:04 pm 13. David Thomson:I have had a little more time to think about the threat of violence towards California’s leading politicians. It may very well demand physical courage to run for governor. Try to imagine the inevitable rage of countless prison guards about ready to retire at the age of fifty with an annual retirement package of over $80,000—when they are told that the good old days are over. The results are not going to be pretty. We are talking about a constituency that goes bonkers if it doesn’t get a sizable raise every few years. These folks have been spoiled rotten.
Nov 11, 2009 - 1:33 pm 14. Skyfox:I voted for Jerry Brown once. I was a stupid 18 year old eager to vote for the first time and thought he seemed sincere. The problem for Jerry is that I grew up. He didn’t.
Nov 11, 2009 - 1:38 pm 15. whyyeseyec:Jerry Brown is such an abomination as a politician. He has done so much harm to the State of Cailf over the years it`s painful to witness.
Anybody who is at least 45 years of age would have been 10 years old when Jerry Brown was elected Gov in 1974 and most likely these people have no idea the destructive nature of this individual. After all, when he left office in 1982 what 18 year old teenager would have paid attention to who was Gov at the time?
When Brown was Mayor of Oakland he along with Willie Brown, then the Mayor of S.F. spent several years arguing over the design of the replacement section of the Bay Bridge. Should it have a bike lane? A pedestrian lane? Should we put more train tracks on the bridge again? These two mayors delayed by years the rebuilding of the bridge after the 1989 earthquake and as a result the taxpayers are still paying huge amounts of money to fix the bridge. This is just one example of Jerry`s follies. I could go on forever.
Excuse me while I go throw up…..
Brown wants to run for Gov again next year and most Californians have no idea of Brown`s past dealings in the state. Jerry Brown is a state version of BHO.
Nov 11, 2009 - 1:53 pm 16. Dred Scott:Been following him since the Sixties. He has always been given a pass and will always be given a pass.
Nov 11, 2009 - 2:21 pm 17. Patrick Carroll:I expect Gavin Newsom is kicking himself for quitting the race too soon…
Nov 11, 2009 - 2:56 pm 18. Poor Citizen:I had to laugh, specially with number 13 above.
I too remember governor “moonbeam” man he was a real hoot back then, but I lived in the midwest so all we got was his headlines.
But hey, were.nt the 60.s and 70.s filled with some political ..characters..?
This guy fit right in back then, believe me, I was there. And also, dont you think he has changed a bit since the seventies? Havent we all?… so I guess the real question is..have we all changed for the better, or the worse?.. Who knows eh? Nice article.
Nov 11, 2009 - 2:58 pm 19. SukieTawdry:Brown has an interesting mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the blog he wrote while mayor–an ultimately ineffective mayor–of Oakland. I always thought it was kind of a shame that he went into the family business (for more reasons than one). A guy with as good and quirky a mind as his could have done far more interesting things with his life than become a political hack (remember when while governor he dashed off to lead the “anyone but Carter” campaign? it was incredibly lame). And as another “longtime Californ,” I really wish he had.
Nov 11, 2009 - 3:02 pm 20. Anyone Bother?:To talk to the Attorney General’s office? AG office spokesperson Christine Gasparac told the Chronicle: “There is absolutely no truth to the assertion that this office has come to any conclusions in the ACORN matter, in a preliminary way or at all.”
Nov 11, 2009 - 4:21 pm 21. Instapundit » Blog Archive » ROGER SIMON: Is ACORN Jerry Brown’s New Medfly Scandal?…:[...] ROGER SIMON: Is ACORN Jerry Brown’s New Medfly Scandal? [...]
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:07 pm 22. KMarx:I hope he doesn’t release millions of pregnant ACORN workers on the state – my guess is that malathion won’t make a dent in that infestation.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:10 pm 23. Mike_K:If you go into the Assembly house in the capitol, and look up at the ceiling, you will see medflies in the plaster cornice put there by the workmen as they renovated the capitol when Brown was governor. They are in the corners. Just a bit of California minutia.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:13 pm 24. Banjo:California hasn’t suffered — really suffered — enough to put someone in the governor’s office willing and able to take on big government and its big labor apparatchiks. The state will have to go bankrupt first like New York. Even then the cockroaches will scatter for their holes whenever the light goes on. Is Pete Wilson still alive? Even dead he’d be a better governor than Jerry Moonbeam.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:28 pm 25. Al Reasin:David Thomson:
Some Californians who saw this coming left long ago; count me among them. I suggest that the remaining ones who want to leave, because of what they have allowed to happen, will infect the red states with the PC and nanny state virus they carry.
I have seen that up front and personal in my area where those from crime ridden, big government and heavy taxed areas flee to rural America and then demand the very services that brought on the problems from where they fled. While we are certainly losing our freedoms under this Democratically controlled national government, Americans can still move about freely. So be prepared to defend your local freedoms and culture from those escaping big local and state governments who will, I’m afraid, be aided in their endeavors by this federal government.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:36 pm 26. K:Hey, don’t bash Jerry. He implemented the Medfly spraying that not only killed hundred of thousands of car paint jobs, but also knocked down the California flea infestation to the point that it never came back. The only problem is that you need something as powerful as California agri-business to get him to move his butt.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:40 pm 27. CatoRenasci:Junior Brown was a disaster as governor the last time around — I even heard a UC campus chancellor pine for Ronald Reagan after a meeting with Junior — and hardly the man to turn California around. I’ve only met him a few times – when his father Pat was governor (my father was at school with Pat), and when he was governor. I thought he was a snotty arrogant kid when he was a teenager, and I don’t think time has improved him one bit.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:43 pm 28. Joe G.:Yes, Texas is a Red state and we are proud of it. There are quite a few Californians heading here. My wifes’ family has moved here and they were big time union people in California. There bubble got busted when they found out Texas does not revolve around unions. Yes, they are here but, they do not have the pull that they have in California. I had to laugh, in their faces no less, when they came to the stark realization that union nanny state does not exist here.
Nov 11, 2009 - 7:48 pm 29. Rich Vietnam 68:If you residents of California want to come here you are more than welcome to do so. Just remember we are right to work state and keep your environmental laws in California, we do not need them here.
If Jerry Moonbeam Brown becomes the Gov of California, that is when I will become a citizen of the great state of Texas. Paying 12 % state taxes in this screwed up state should be enough to get more high earners to vacate to another state ( with low or no income taxes). When I retire (soon) getting to save 12 % (over $14 grand) a year is enough to get my behind in gear out of here.
Nov 11, 2009 - 8:18 pm 30. Remain Anonymous:Roger I’ve been reading your site for many years and I know you like Jerry Brown just fine. This article is so poorly reasoned you should really question yourself. Your premise is that some yahoo in a CoCos says some things about Jerry Brown including that he is a “political animal”, which I don’t think anyone would question is just a plain fact and that he “will find the fault to be “with the people that did the video — not ACORN.” which is just that yahoos hope, prayer and wish. Why does this implicate Jerry any more than if I said that about you? It doesn’t. This is a poorly reasoned article. Having said that I will share some insite from Jerry’s Oakland days of which I know of first hand, Jerry cleaned house in Oakland, many heads rolled. He did not go after the “poor farmers”, those who live by taking federal dollars and launder it through an Acorn like place and at the time I wondered why. Ideologically he hates them. I believe the reason is that they are too much of a hornets nest and you really don’t have much leverage to wipe them out unless you want to piz off a lot of people and win nothing. Why don’t you call him and interview him? Michael Savage interviewed him.
Nov 11, 2009 - 9:12 pm 31. InchoateOne:IT no longer bothers me to think of the depraved and corrupt public unions and their Sacramento “bitches” who style themselves as public servants, even as they serve only themselves here in California. Every member of my family has decamped from this once wonderful place. Thats enoughtaxes to pay the retirement of one whole corrupt, unskilled and illiterate prison guard who kicks back at 50 years of age. I am jumping the border to Arizona myself shortly. It doesn’t have the beauty of the coastline I live on, but Arizona’s people are serious people on the whole, not imbeciles engaged in wholesale looting of productive people. I have the same respect for Sacramento’s political vermin-class who feign service to California’s people and their interests, as I do for that pit-faced lard-ass that runs Venezuela. No difference. Brown is just another tin-pot representing the same democrat tax racketeers. So long, A**holes.
Nov 11, 2009 - 9:13 pm 32. cthulhu:Jerry Brown is, and always has been, somewhat erratic. As such, he has zigzagged his way across the political landscape.
His reputation is that he sees the world in some sort of funhouse mirror, but he calls things like he sees them. That got him the title of “Governor Moonbeam”, but a grudging respect from people on both sides of the aisle.
For him to be seen as rolling over for political expediency, to be tainted with hypocrisy, would put at risk any good-feeling left over from his apartment and Plymouth.
This ACORN issue is a shot across his bow. Lagstein has forced him into a corner — give up the Governor’s race or shoot off the foot that wears the ACORN shoe. I’m thinking that Lagstein isn’t old enough to imagine what Brown might do next.
Nov 11, 2009 - 9:26 pm 33. richras:I’m sure Jerry Brown will prosecute ACORN with same diligence he expended on Proposition 8.
Nov 11, 2009 - 10:03 pm 34. ked5:organizations like ACORN, even leaving aside their potential enabling of child prostitution, are far more destructive than helpful to the people they are supposed to aid.
~~~
Jerry is like any other ueber leftist politico who pontificates upon helping the downtrodden. He could care less about ACORN’s corruption as long as the coffer’s are full and ACORN pays him back by getting useful idiot’s to vote for him.
Nov 12, 2009 - 1:37 am 35. Sulla:A serious analysis of any of California’s current problems includes a reference that the problems did not happen overnight, but that they evolved “in the last 30 years”. And who was Governor 30 years ago? The once and future governor will eclipse the record set by Juan Peron who staged a comeback as President of Argentina after only a quarter of a century out of power. And do you remember what happened to Argentina after his comeback?
Nov 12, 2009 - 2:15 am 36. papertiger:If Whitman has any brains at all she’ll get Jaycee Lee Dugard to appear in her campaign ads. Then do a little examination of how a worthless excom scut like Phil Garrido aquired enough property to build a torture chamber in Jerry Brown’s neck of the woods.
Contrasted with why AG Brown failed to vigorously persue ACORN.
I’d love to see that conversation.
Nov 12, 2009 - 5:43 am 37. Paul -Indiana:Jerry’s former taste in women, particularly Linda Rhonstadt is his peak in my view. She’s still a babe.
Nov 12, 2009 - 6:13 am 38. wGraves:“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” — Archimedes
The fixing of elections is a very long lever indeed. ACORN is it’s fulcrum. It appears to be a political machine, a la Chicago or Tammany Hall, but national in it’s scope. If Brown is mixed up in it, then we have a problem.
Nov 12, 2009 - 10:03 am 39. twoninerkilo:Paul-Indiana# 37: Have you seen Linda Rhonstadt lately? If you have I wont comment on your taste in women, or your in dire need of a new pair of glasses. Couple that with the fact that she’s even more left looney than Moon Beam, and you don’t have a winning combination.
Nov 12, 2009 - 1:35 pm 40. tanstaafl:My California daze go all the way back to when Jerry’s dad was governor and I was in the Pageant of the Masters* and Pat came back stage and some of the Pageant’s nudes got autographs. (pretty steamy stuff to observe for a young kid
)
*reproductions of works of art, mostly paintings, using living models
But I digress.
My fondest memory of Jerry was his deep & heavy pot smoking daze.
He’s the guy who won’t go quietly into the night. If this is the best Californians can do as would be gov., God help us all.
Nov 12, 2009 - 4:07 pm 41. Barefoot Doctor:Got y’all beat: When we were kids with Jerry, we would say that he was so clueless that he would bring a roll of toilet paper to a crap game.
Nov 12, 2009 - 6:53 pm 42. betsy:Didn’t you hear Jerry Brown being interviewed on the 790 am morning show last week? If memory serves, he and the host agreed the filmmakers were in trouble because they filmed the ACORN people without obtaining their permission first. I don’t think that’s correct [does someone advocating criminal behavior have an expectation of privacy?] and even if it were, wouldn’t many other people [Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes comes to mind] be in line ahead of them?
Nov 12, 2009 - 8:47 pm 43. John:twoninerkilo:
True — Linda’s roughly the size of the State of California now.
Nov 13, 2009 - 1:06 pm 44. Paul -Indiana:#39. I stand corrected. The clips of her I had seen recently are those when she was a hot performer. I abase myself. However, she was a hot babe when she was shacking with Brown.
Nov 13, 2009 - 1:15 pm 45. DavidN:I’ve lived in California all my life, half a century. I remember Jerry pretty well, Pat (his dad) only vaguely, after he left office. Unlike most Dems, Jerry actually walks the walk instead of just talking a lot. He famously refused to live in the Governor’s mansion, and ever since the state hasn’t had one. Since we don’t have poor homeless people elected as Governor of the Golden State, this actually makes sense. The millionaires have to pay for their own housing. He also drove himself to work in a rather mundane car, as opposed to riding around in a limo with a driver.
On a more serious note, Jerry had an interesting influence on American politics (at least in my opinion) and it’s not all bad. When he was Governor, the Democratic party was almost exclusively focused, in terms of Law and Order and criminal affairs, on the rights of the accused. The words “victim’s rights” hadn’t been uttered yet, defense lawyers defending rapists were allowed to quiz victims about the length of their skirts, and California couldn’t pass a use-a-gun-go-to-prison law that didn’t get overturned by the state Supreme Court. Liberals had no time for straights who lost some of their vast wealth; most thought that many criminals in prison were reincarnations of Jean Valjean.
At the end of his governorship, Brown ran for Senator and lost. Just prior to, or after, his defeat, he made a speech to the state Democratic Convention, and lambasted the party for its attitude towards crime and criminals. He said that the party was “kidding itself” if it thought they could continue with this attitude indefinitely. Somewhere around the same time we had the Mosconi/Milk/Dan White fiasco, and between those two events, the liberal community became considerably less sympathetic to criminals and crime than they were before.
As an aside, Brown’s abortive campaign for Senator was marked by a couple of amusing incidents. At one point he was so short of money that Johnny Carson told his audience that if they gave money to the Hare Krishna at the airport, it might be Jerry. Around the same time, his opponent in the Democratic primary was (of all people) Gore Vidal, who dubbed Jerry “Lord of the Flies”. Unfortunately for Gore, the state isn’t that literary or literate, so he didn’t do very well against Jerry, who lost to … I don’t remember…
Regardless, one of the hallmarks of Jerry’s political career so far is what others mentioned in the comments above: quirky liberalism. He often espoused things that didn’t work, or that weren’t popular, because he thought them right. He’s not that effective a politician, and he’s famously willing to buck convention when it suits him. In a strange way, his being Pat Brown’s son seems to have liberated him: he doesn’t have to kowtow to various interests in the Democratic Party, and so he doesn’t. On the other hand, he can definitely be a goofball, and make serious boneheaded errors while in his goofy stage.
So my view on the scandals? I seriously doubt he knew the idiot was taping conversations; my guess is he was livid when it was revealed. As for this other taped speech where the guy opines that Brown will “do the right thing” and torpedo the investigation…I’d be surprised if he tried that, and I’m certain if he did he wouldn’t get anywhere. We have at least 3 journalists locally who specialize in the hidden camera “gotcha” school of journalism on our local news broadcasts, never mind 60 Minutes. Anyone can see the hypocrisy of prosecuting a conservative for doing it, but allowing everyone else.
Nov 14, 2009 - 11:19 am