Virginia, get the picture
Neil Steinberg
Columnist
NY Daily News
July 10, 2005

What's the one most important quality you want in a mayor? The very basic, bottom line?

You don't want the mayor to be a screwup. And, should the mayor make a mistake, because people occasionally do, you want him or her to take the blame. Mayoral hopeful -- or should it now be "mayoral hopeless" -- Virginia Fields failed on both accounts, first by allowing her campaign literature to use Soviet-style doctored photographs showing her cheered by multiethnic New Yorkers (and, I assume, airbrushing out a scowling Trotsky). And second, by trying to duck the embarrassing snafu with the old "mistakes can be made" mealy-mouthed dodge.

Yeah, Ms. Fields, mistakes can be made, and they were, by you, in failing to vet your own campaign literature. It isn't as if you have that much of it. A brochure is a small thing compared to oh, for instance the huge honking city of New York, over which you would like to reign. But if you can't even get your own brochure right, or take the heat when you mess it up, what makes you think you are qualified for the infinitely more difficult job of mayor? Normally, I'd be a little hesitant to light into the Manhattan borough president so. But I was hanging with my posse and they assure me I'm on solid ground here.