Is the Star-Ledger’s Jon Salant a handjob? He re-wrote a hit piece for Menendez using old news.

There is a lot of real news floating around out there.  Certainly enough to prevent a writer from needing to plagiarize an early hit piece by the Menendez campaign for reuse as “fresh” news three weeks out from an election.  If the headline reads like the title of an attack piece put out by Menendez – that’s because it is: 

“Hugin says he's a different kind of Republican, but his campaign donations show otherwise.”

Breaking news… Republican Bob Hugin donates to the campaigns of (wait for it)… Republicans!!!  No shit. 

And this differs from (name ANY partisan candidate for office – Democrat or Republican) how?   

As evidence for his screwy contention, Jonathan Salant actually attacks Republican Bob Hugin and HIS WIFE for failing to support a Democrat Senator from Washington State.  Salant claims the Senator is bi-partisan… the record shows that she is the 5th most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.  Maybe we should just change Jonathan’s name from “Salant” to “Slant”.  What a pissbrain!

(Speaking of wives, as they have now been made fair game by Jonathan Slant, old Mrs. Slant is a kind of lobbyist/crony capitalist out on the hunt for taxpayer dollars for “deserving” corporations.  Yep, you can’t make this shit up.)

Salant’s hit on Hugin was all addressed earlier this year in a series of campaign attacks against Hugin by the Menendez campaign.  It is now being repackaged by the Star-Ledger and Salant in order to give it an “objective” slant – three weeks out from Election Day.  Salant’s goal is simple:  He wants to influence those women who have been turned off by Menendez’s trafficking of Eastern European women for his pal’s sexual purposes or the Obama Justice Department’s allegations about sex with underaged girls in the Caribbean.  Salant wants them to put that aside and pull the Big “D” lever (as they used to say).

Jonathan Salant wants reform Democrats to forget what kind of corrupt POS Bob Menendez really is.  Salant wants them to forget the bank scams and the Medicare fraud and stare straight ahead while they yank that Big “D”.  And the best he can come up with is that Bob Hugin is… a Republican. 

And that’s a big deal to a religionist like Jonathan Salant, who sincerely believes that being a Republican is a kind of original sin.  Salant, as his writing shows, will not be comfortable until the last of these venomous creatures is driven from the public square.

Every candidate gets stuck in the ass by the media.  It happens.  But there’s a difference between getting stuck by what was once a generally “uninvolved” or “non-partisan” press and getting stuck by a partisan writer like Jonathan Salant.  Salant is the kind of guy who will stick a candidate in the ass and not have the common courtesy to give him a reach around.  It’s an act of violence with him… and he’s going to make sure there’s nothing in it for the object of his attentions.

Cory Booker hearing Jonathan Salant’s confession.

That is our critique on the writing of Jonathan Salant.  We acknowledge that he is a “writer” of some standing and craft.  We dispute the title “journalist” being applied to him, because he has ventured so far from it.  Others may disagree… particularly the more “clubbable” members of the Establishment.  Nevertheless, these are our opinions.  If Jonathan Salant would like to dispute them on these pages, we will gladly publish what he writes, UNEDITED, which is a courtesy the corporate arse-lickers who run the Star-Ledger would NEVER extend to anyone with whom they disagreed.