THE FEEDING FRENZY BEGINS

I picked up the Sunday morning Hartford Courant and almost thought that Al Capone had been reincarnated and landed in Hartford, Connecticut in the form of Eddie "Willie Nunez" Perez. Although two people at the Courant have been in the forefront on the corruption investigation, Jeff Cohen spending many hours researching tips and standing outside the Grand Jury room and Helen Ubinas' columns being critical of el Jefe. And while I'm at it, a lot of credit should go to Len Besthoff from WFSB and his I-Team reports shining light on what goes on at City Hall from the Mayor's Office to John Rose and his flagrant disregard for transparency and the Freedom of Information Act. The Courant has been relatively silent on the culture of fear and intimidation that has been, and still is, the hallmark of the Perez Administration. The Hartford Courant pretty much refused to consider an ongoing corruption investigation, including a search of Perez's home by state investigators, when they issued their endorsement of Perez for re-election in 2007. A key point of this endorsement to consider is that David Medina, who was sitting on the Courant Editorial board at the time of the decision, landed a lucrative position with the Hartford Board of Education shortly after the election. The catch phrase of the week has been "quid pro quo", in this case it appears pretty obvious, you endorse me Dave, I'll endorse you. Although the field of candidates for Mayor was large, and the Courant would have never endorsed a Republican, many thought that in light of the allegations against the Dark Emperor, oops that was the name for the marble he chose for the judgement lapse, I mean Mayor Perez, that the Courant would have remained neutral and not make an endorsement. Yet, in their endorsement they pretty much said, and I'm paraphrasing, "we know Eddie is bad, we know Eddie is divisive, we know Eddie is not a leader and a unifier, but we endorse him anyways".


Well, what changed in less than a year and a half? Although most agree additional charges and additional arrests are coming, as stated in the release from the States Attorney's Office, the facts contained in the arrest affidavit for the first round of arrests were well known to the Courant editorial board in 2007 when the Courant made their endorsement. Although Jeff Cohen and Helen Ubinas have seemed to remain on point from the beginning, it was somewhat disingenious to see the "All Perez Corruption Edition " of today's Courant.


Don't get me wrong, I want to see every last fact about this corrupt administration in the public domain, but not to sell newspapers. The behavior has been obvious to many of us for a couple of years and didn't begin on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 10:00am on the steps of Troop H in Hartford. The Courant endorsed Perez and must now share in the blame along with the Hartford City Council and others, for allowing his corrupt activities to flourish unchecked for so long.