Cardinale slams reporter on column

Read an e-mail sent to The Record's Charles Stile and Alfred Doblin by State Senate Gerald Cardinale, in response to Stile's column on Cardinale's re-election campaign against Joseph Ariyan:

Subject: politically biased style oops stile

You were right on target. We might have designed a mailer with Osama bin Laden but we did not.  The brochure proposal depicting Ariyan with a terrorist was vetoed by me. Ariyan stood alone on that cover.

"Terrified of losing his seat" That's laughable what's your basis? Did you see me in the final campaign days? No. You are skillfully creating an unsupported conclusion.  My poll showed us up 18. You  were privy to their pole showing us up even more. Some terror. Even with 2 million in broadcast TV 20 pts in 10 days can't happen to a known candidate with 93% name id.

You persist in nit picking every detail of the ADC connection while  you ignore the big picture.  Khoury has enormous influence over Ariyan.  He helped fund raise, see the ELEC report charges for Khoury's efforts.  He helped plot strategy, see the ELEC reports taking the law  office rent as a campaign contribution.  He even helped draw that ridiculous ethics complaint which your paper ignored when they became convinced it was simply a ploy.

But you sprung it on me at the debate. You did better than Ariyans staff could have hoped to do on their own. If they did not reward you, perhaps you should file an unfair labor charge at them. That complaint is being heard on Thursday. If you were a journalist instead of a sensationalist you would acknowledge that It will be summarily dismissed. It isn't even new. It’s been brought up in 2 prior campaigns. The voters spoke then as they have spoken now.

You are right that I am unapologetic. I have no reason to be otherwise. Your abuse of your position thru this contest warrants an apology to your employer, your reader, and to my constituents.  My constituents are not incensed at me despite your best shot at inciting. Judging by the calls we are getting they are unhappy with you and your employer. Nor is Tom Wilson unhappy. He is used to dealing with sleaze like you and Doblin.

You are selective on the authorities you quote. Your test seems to be if they agree with Ariyans position they can be cited, but if  they do not they are unworthy. Why did you not call a conservative Jewish source like the "Jewish Voice" for comment? Dr. Daniel Pipes is another credible expert on Islamic fascism. You ignored him. I told you its not just Ibish but many members of the ADC who spout the same vile pro jihad pro suicide murderer propaganda.  But you ignore all that either because you are too lazy to do your job or because you don't want to risk finding Ariyan staff propaganda is flawed.

I put the facts before the voters and let them do their own extrapolation. I did not "accuse.”  It’s amazing you don't recognize that the FBI sweeps after 9/11 were meant to protect you and me from additional terror attacks. They did not pick up landscapers in Pal Park or Fairview.  They picked up likely terrorists or potential terror supporters. These folks were deported to keep you and me safe.

In America all are entitled to a lawyer. But we draw conclusions about firms that seem to be a magnet for certain types of cases.  Bruce Cutler was often identified as a mob lawyer. The firm Ariyan says he founded attracted many clients picked up in the post 9/11 sweeps.  If you won't draw the connection you are particularly dense.  And then you have the gall to nit pick a typo in our brochure cite  even after being given a proper cite, an innocent error but you use  it cleverly to undermine my credibility . Did you check other sources or just play gotcha.

You did come up with one thing I did not know. You mention a blistering mailer from the JDL. I would like a copy but I will ask them, not you to provide it. And you take off on Allen Rapapport first denigrating him as a "flooring contractor". What has that got to do with your story?   Allen was one of many Jewish and Christian folks who became aware of Ariyan's ADC connection and were sickened. Allen called the ADL himself and got a far different response than you wrote. They told Allen the ADC was not as bad as CAIR. Not exactly what you have been saying although you did fudge a little bit about occasional disagreements between the groups.

You can speculate about Ariyans future candidacies, I will not. I  will give him credit for a significant major accomplishment. He has taken Joe Ferriero's organization broke. I will share some of the credit for that feat with him. He has also proven that money alone can’t win all the time.

Joey is broke and more and more impediments to no bid contracts are being enacted.  It will be a little harder to restock that warchest.  The campaign is over and thank God I won't have to put up with your pro Ariyan rhetoric much longer.