Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Doctoroff and the NY Times

In the previous post on the ludicrous COIB ruling on Deputy Dan's conflicts of interest-in the Board's Alice in Wonderland world the word conflict apparently means only what it decides it to mean-we took the press to task for its failure to examine the interlocking relationships and unseemly logrolling that characterizes the Doctoroff universe. Clearly, the Times is an exception and should be exempt from the same harsh criticism.

Ray Rivera and Charles Bagli have made strenuous efforts to document the world according to Dan; where they haven't succeeded owes more to the opacity of the Doctoroff/Bloomberg power elite atmosphere, than to the lack of skill and vigor both men have brought to the effort. In particular, Bagli had the one exhaustive piece on Doctoroff/Ross that really came close to giving us all a glimpse of how really powerful operators help each other and avoid any public opprobrium.

Rivera has also been tracking the elusive Doctoroff butterfly but has yet to journalistically nail him to the specimen case. One way to explore this further might be to follow the money trail on congestion pricing. With all of the environmental groups in an advertising feeding frenzy it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Bloomberg's money and Doctoroff's deft hand are complicit in all of this new found wealth-and don't forget that the Steve Ross-led NYC partnership has been the congestion tax's biggest cheerleaders. Surely, it's not because they're simply good citizens. Is it?