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Air-Brushing Complexity

To the Editor:

I searched in vain for The Chief’s hard-hitting, balanced and thorough editorial endorsement of Mike Bloomberg on the candidate’s Web site, but could not find it. The next day, the New York Daily News reported that the Bloomberg campaign would not list The Chief alongside 60 other editorial endorsements because it was critical of the Mayor.

Bloomberg campaign press spinmeisters in Orwellian fashion did provide generous publicity along with circulation figures and convenient email and print buttons for Illyria, New York City’s only bilingual Albanian newspaper, the Irish Echo and a Polish daily, among other listings. Lavishly praise the Mayor uncritically and your small ethnic press or weekly community newspaper wins a free publicity link, and the likelihood of a fair number of “eyeballs.”

But in an “Animal Farm”-style cyber propaganda world, critics need not apply. Shame on the Bloomberg press people for not abiding anything but high praise for their candidate.

Finally, for those many voters who will hold their noses and pull the Bloomberg lever, and for Teachers who need a formidable illustration of what Alexander Pope meant when he invented the expression: “to damn with faint praise,” The Chief’s memorable and outstanding 2009 mayoral endorsement is simply a must-read.

RUSS SMITH