"Lee Brown still refuses today, six years later, to face up to not only what his responsibilities were at the time, but what the failings were," Rosenbaum said from Melbourne in a long-distance conversation with The Insider.
Brown, opines Rosenbaum, "is not fit to hold any public office, let alone the mayor of a city the size of Houston. I don't think this guy is competent to collect change from parking meters."
Rosenbaum's late brother Yankel was on a history graduate scholarship from the University of Melbourne when the Crown Heights riot erupted after a car in a motorcade escorting a Hasidic religious leader struck two black children, killing one. At the time, Jewish residents of the neighborhood complained of lax police protection, and a report prepared two years later by New York Criminal Justice Director Richard Girgenti blamed Brown and his top assistants for a "vacuum of leadership" in moving to quell the unrest.
Brown, of course, has taken issue with Girgenti's conclusions, and he's also warned that anyone invoking Crown Heights in the mayor's race would be trodding on "sacred ground" between the city's blacks and Jews, early allies in African-Americans' civil rights struggles.
You might say that Norman Rosenbaum isn't impressed by that argument.
"This is the great crock of all time to say it has to do with black-Jewish relations," says the lawyer. "For him to have the audacity to raise it and play the race card is a negative reflection on the type of person he is and the cheap type of politics he will resort to, as opposed to facing up to what the truth is."
Brown's campaign passed on the opportunity to respond to Rosenbaum, no doubt hoping he stays a hemisphere away until the election is over.
Bush League
Houstonians generally yawned or politely applauded last year when City Council voted to rename Houston Intercontinental Airport in honor of part-time resident George Bush. But not everyone views the former president as such a deserving fellow: Up at the University of Toronto, a sizable portion of the faculty is steamed by the school's decision to bestow an honorary doctorate on Bush next month.
A letter signed by 105 professors declares Bush to be "an inappropriate candidate for such an honor." It cites illegal actions taken by the CIA when Bush was its director, the World Court's condemnation of the mining of Nicaraguan harbors when Bush was Ronald Reagan's vice president and the invasion of Panama when Bush ran the White House.
"I feel the university honorary degree committee really didn't take into account the very negative aspects of Bush's record," says English professor David Galbraith, one of the organizers of the effort to stop Bush from getting his degree. "The typical reaction [here] when you tell people Bush is getting an honorary degree is either laughter or shock and horror."
One of Bush's defenders on the Canadian campus is political scientist Jean Smith, who has written a book about the Bush years and sees nothing wrong with the university laying an honorary sheepskin on the ex-prez. He described the protest to a Canadian TV reporter as "picking flyshit out of black pepper."
Bush, meanwhile, has confirmed that he'll be in Toronto on November 19 to accept the honor, according to a university spokeswoman. Galbraith says he and his allies are still trying to convince the university's administration to retract Bush's welcome mat and haven't decided whether to stage "a dignified protest" at the awards convocation. It would be the first faculty demonstration at the school since 1965, when 200 professors protested the awarding of a degree to then-U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson just as the Vietnam War was heating up.
Trenchant Opposition
Harris County Democrats usually manage to stage entertaining contests for their county chairmanship, what with followers of Lyndon LaRouche and a convicted murderer being among the past winners or contenders. And next year's election for the job promises a certain entertainment value, if not quite the colorful cast of years past.
Former state lawmaker Sue Schechter, who has been laboring for free as the party's executive director under Chairman David Mincberg, has quit and plans to seek Mincberg's post in the March primary election.
Schechter and several other volunteers jumped ship several weeks back, says one Democratic operative, after tiring of doing all the grunt work for the party office while Mincberg got all the credit. Schechter confirms she will run for the chairmanship and says she will try to raise $50,000 for the effort.
For now, she's muting any criticism of her former boss.
"I think that David is a great statesman for the party," purred Schechter, alluding to Mincberg's alleged penchant for grandstanding on the backs of others. "But I just think the party needs trench work."
Let The Insider know everything the folks in power don't want him to know by calling (713) 624-1483 or (713) 624-1496 (fax), or by e-mailing him at Insider@houstonpress.com.
