Image: Cadmus Fighting For Civilization
TWO-FACED VIPERS
Treacherous Hypocrisy in Miami Beach
October 9, 2013
By David Arthur Walters
MIAMI MIRROR
MIAMI BEACH—I have received a circulating email from a source, who insisted on remaining anonymous because he fears retribution, referencing what he called an “assault incident” involving mayoral candidate Michael Gongora and an aide to Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, who supports Phillip Levine, Gongora’s leading opponent.
“Attached is a copy of a July 12 e-mail from Commissioner Wolfson to Commissioner Gongora recounting an incident that afternoon in which Mr. Gongora ‘verbally attacked my aide, Leonor Hernandez, calling her a ‘viper’ and ‘two-faced.’ The incident caused a stir at city hall. There were many witnesses, and we are told that one of them had to ask Gongora to leave the building. Ms. Hernandez was very upset and filed a complaint with Human Resources.”
The email was forwarded to me without the attachment to see if I would stir up a scandal as publisher, editor, and sole reporter for Three Stooges Publishing, inasmuch as no one else would cover the story.
“First of all,” I responded, “HR has no jurisdiction. It should be reported to the Vipers of the Snake Pit (the City Commission). As you know, I take exception to rude conduct, but I have myself sinned. For example, for the first time in nine years I called a lady friend a bitch after she called me a low-class loser who cannot fix his own dinner. She usually calls me a journalist, but she was drunk on rotgut Russian Brand vodka, which tends to bring out the worst. Please send me the attachment.”
To which I received the following:
From: jonahwolfson.hotmail.com
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2013 6:53 PM
To: Michael Gongora
Cc: Ed Tobin; Weithorn, Deede; Jerry Libbin; Mayor's Office; Jose
Smith; Jimmy Morales; Crespo-Tabak, Sylvia; Jorge Exposito; Granado, Rafael; Christina Veiga; Hernandez, Leonor
Subject:
Dear Commissioner Gongora:
It has come to my attention that you entered my office this afternoon and verbally attacked my aide, Leonor Hernandez, calling her a "viper" and "two-faced". Beyond that, you indicated you were going to remove her son from a city board because she wasn't supporting your campaign for Mayor of our city.
You have sunk to a new level. I knew you were an ethically
challenged, transactional politician. But now it's clear you have no honor and are abusive to an innocent woman exercising her right to free speech and free assembly on her own personal time.
Clearly, the strain of your failing campaign has brought the worse out of you. But that is not an excuse and you have crossed the proverbial line.
From now forward, I demand that you stay away from my aide, Leonor Hernandez. In fact, stay completely out of my office. As a result of your assault on her today, you are not allowed to address or talk to her.
Govern yourself accordingly.
Sincerely,
Jonah M. Wolfson
I sent along a copy to Gongora and asked for his comment. He said he had no comment because the email was a “fiction,” and he feigned wonderment as to why it would be leaked to the public at this critical time, right before the elections. I asked him if he had responded to the email back in July or if the email itself was a fiction, to which he answered, “Fiction,” and then I remarked, “So it’s forged email. I never would have thought of doing that. Wow, what a dirty trick!”
I was unable to elicit the comment of the authorities by deadline because they do not consider Three Stooges Publishing to be a member of the beholden bona fide press. However, the email is obviously genuine inasmuch as it is filled with the sort of hackneyed phrases pettifoggers are accustomed to using, culminating with a demand and the usual veiled threat, “Govern yourself accordingly,” the “or else” being implied.
Forsooth, lawyers have a monopoly on legal extortion. As Jose Smith, the city’s estimable attorney once said in an executive session, lawsuits are by nature extortionate. A problem arises when attorneys resort to extortion outside of the legal process.
There was apparently no battery on the aide, and calling someone a two-faced viper is not an assault for which one can be arrested. Nor would the words themselves constitute sexual harassment without a Freudian analysis of why cross-dressing Tiresias, consultant to Cadmus, was blind. Such remarks would be rude if made by anyone, and might be a cause for disciplining a regular employee, but elected officials enjoy sovereign impunity. Furthermore, the pronouncement would be mere hyperbole, not actionable defamation.
No, we hardly expect much chivalry in a snake pit, or to witness vipers acting like civilized ladies and gentlemen. I am not the only one who has referred to the city commission itself as a hydra, a back-biting snake pit, and a den of vipers. Vipers, incidentally, have been worshiped for their treacherous wisdom since man was evicted from paradise. Cadmus, we remember, struggled with a serpentine dragon, planted its teeth (1), from which sprang warriors who fought among themselves for wealth until the surviving five founded Thebes.
A “two-faced viper” is a “treacherous hypocrite.” Wolfson’s aide may be innocent in that respect. Any viperous two-facedness could be the result of unconscious influences within her office. But her boss is as guilty as hell on wheels.
After all, he endorsed Gongora for mayor, and then, in a highly hypocritical and treacherous move, switched his endorsement when moneybags came along in the person of Phillip Levine, a wealthy businessman and developer who has reportedly spent a million dollars already for a job that pays eight-grand a year.
Wolfson fancies himself as the populist who scapegoated and brought down former City Manager Jorge Gonzalez after tolerating if not flattering him for some time. He is not the oppositionist he pretends to be, nor is he popular for his bad manners. His response to a reporter who asked about the local tow companies’ big contributions to his wife’s judicial campaign at about the time when the tow companies wanted a price hike was “Go **** yourself.” And he was recently caught on camera shouting “A-hole” from the audience at a genuinely oppositional candidate.
Gongora could take serious offense at being called a “transactional politician” if he construed that to mean that he solicits and accepts bribes, which is a crime. Falsely and malicious accusing someone of a crime is defamation per se for which damages do not have to be proved, with the possible exception of viperous attacks made in political campaigns, the courts nowadays tending to believe almost anything goes in those bloody arenas. In any case, the standard fee for getting a defamation suit dismissed in the early stage is $50,000, an estimate based on the $30,000 fee Jane Gross was billed for getting Club Madonna’s suit dismissed, plus inflation.
Most troubling is the accusation that Gongora threatened to remove the aide’s son from a board because the aide did not support his run for mayor. If true, that might constitute a violation of the conflict of interest ordinance, subject to a whopping $250 fine, but one never knows or even cares how the ordinance would be applied by the Ethics Commission, whose understanding of ethics is hampered by prejudices.
Also troubling is Wolfson’s implied admission that Gongora has been hanging out in Wolfson’s office. Were they discussing public business in the darkened room?
The bottom line is that man is an animal no matter how human.
# #
(1) Cadmus is credited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet. The warriors sprung from the dragon teeth planted by Cadmus may symbolize the letters of the alphabet used in civilized discourse or the war of words, just as the severed heads of Kali’s necklace in India may symbolize the Sanskrit alphabet.
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