Segal, who is usually the rock-and-pop music critic for the Post -- but like many liberal media types, worked at the liberal magazine The Washington Monthly before hitting the major leagues -- started with an entertainment writer's breezy attack style:
If there were a drinking game whose rules required a swig each time Tom Kean Jr. asserted that his Senate race opponent is "under federal criminal investigation," you would be drooling drunk 10 minutes after meeting the guy.
Kean says "under federal criminal investigation" about once every 28 seconds, uttering the words as if they were tragic and beyond dispute. After a day in Kean's company you are prepared to think terrible things about Robert Menendez, the Democratic incumbent.
Segal reported that when he asked Kean about his famous name, Kean said "federal criminal investigation" twice in two sentences. (Segal did arrive at the obvious reason: a pundit noted "whether or not these charges against Menendez are serious, they are hurting him.") Segal did acknowledge in the midst of describing "the vicious, pile-driving style of New Jersey politics," that without a win in New Jersey, the Democratic Party "doesn't have a real chance" of taking the Senate, which has handed Kean "a breakout role in the midterm drama."
It's too bad that the Post is handing him a role as a Crip, a member of what one Internet encyclopedia called "one of the oldest, largest, most violent and most notorious gangs in the United States...involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing." (So much for Post political editor John F. Harris saying last week that the grand "old media" is distinguished from the bumptious new media by its "rhetorical restraint.") Segal proclaimed:
The whole investigation matter, which we'll get to, is hardly as cut and dried as Kean indicates. But Kean, who looks like a Mountie and fights like a Crip, isn't selling honesty and integrity so much as a brand name that represents honesty and integrity. It's a pitch with resonance in this state, where politicians routinely scamper offstage chased by ethics charges and mortifying headlines.
Segal went on to write breezily that "Americans love a good up-from-nothing bootstrap bio, but when it comes to politics we tend to become shameless nepotists." He added the names of Democrats Bob Casey Jr. and Harold Ford Jr. and Jack Carter (son of Jimmy), as well as Republican Lisa Murkowski...and President Bush. Segal found Kean a little hard to take seriously:
He is tall, smart and so cautious that on a few occasions he stipulates as "off the record" thoughts that are almost laughably benign. He has a slight speech impediment that muddles his R's, so that when he laments corruption in the state it sounds a little like "cowwuption."
Like Katie Couric last month (who also compared the Keans to gangsters, the Sopranos), Segal pressed Kean on whether he wanted President Bush to campaign for him, just to watch Kean squirm and say he has an "open invitation," and not exactly an eager request. Segal then cracks that Kean gave him "that rictus of a grin." Rictus? That would be another colorfully negative word, meaning "gaping grin or grimace."
It's paragraph 36 before Segal bothers to get specific about the Menendez probe, after charging again that Kean sounds "body-snatched by his own sound bites" on corruption.
Kean was referring to the $320,000 in rent that Menendez earned over nearly a decade, starting in the mid-'90s, by leasing a Union City property he once owned to a nonprofit that accepted federal grants. The allegation is that Menendez might have improperly benefited by steering money to the nonprofit, which was then able to pay its monthly rent.
Word of an investigation into this deal was published in September in the Star-Ledger of Newark, which reported that U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie had subpoenaed records related to the lease. In a subsequent TV interview, Menendez seemed to confirm the basic details when he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News's "This Week" that he welcomed the investigation and looked forward to "its successful conclusion." Later, Menendez told reporters that he'd misspoken, noting that not every subpoena leads to an investigation.
For a liberal take on this, Segal brought in columnist Matthew Miller (another Washington Monthly alum) to denounce Kean as overreaching, guessing -- against the current evidence -- that it will hurt Kean in the end. At least, we think that's the Matthew Miller he's quoting, since he never really described him:
"It's just mindless negativity," says Matthew Miller, referring to Kean's "investigation" talk. "A few weeks ago, Kean had a slight lead and then he went into this mindless repetition and he's gone backward. Hopefully, [the Kean campaign] won't be smart enough to realize that voters want a candidate who'll tell them what he'll do as U.S. senator."
Segal concluded his article the way it began, mocking Kean for loaning himself money for further milking of the corruption issue:
Last week, Kean announced that he had lent his campaign $400,000 -- money that will be used, among other things, to buy air time for his latest ads. One of those ads shows flickering video of Menendez projected on a concrete wall, as if it's cinema night at the local penitentiary. A voice-over accuses Menendez of helping mobsters and consorting with a cocaine trafficker and notes in bright bold letters that Menendez -- take a swig -- is under "federal criminal investigation."
