Los Angeles Times, CA
Dec 6 2009
L.A. council candidate Paul Krekorian assails 2 mailers by Christine Essel
Her hit pieces accusing him of sexism and anti-Semitism are called
‘disgusting and grotesque.’
By Maeve Reston
Prominent supporters of Los Angeles City Council candidate and
Assemblyman Paul Krekorian denounced two mailers sent last week by the
campaign of his opponent, former Paramount Pictures Corp. executive
Christine Essel, that accuse Krekorian of sexism and anti-Semitism,
based in part on comments on a blog.
Tuesday’s runoff race for former City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel’s seat
in the San Fernando Valley has grown increasingly caustic in the final
weeks, but Krekorian condemned one of Essel’s new mailers as "the most
disgusting and grotesque political communication" he had ever seen.
In the first mailing, Essel’s campaign said a previous Krekorian
campaign mail piece had portrayed her "hog-tied with arms and hands
held back by heavy rope." Krekorian’s spokesman said the mailer, which
depicted a smiling Essel with ropes lifting an ankle and her wrists as
she stood on a DWP bill, was intended to portray the candidate as a
puppet controlled by the union that represents Department of Water and
Power employees. That union has independently spent more than $244,000
to boost her campaign bid.
Essel’s campaign consultant, John Shallman, said Krekorian should
apologize for the portrayal.
The mail from Essel’s campaign also charged that Krekorian and his
supporters "have unleashed a shocking barrage of nasty, sexist and
anti-Semitic personal attacks" on a website. Shallman provided a list
of comments that the campaign had collected from readers of Mayor
Sam’s Sister City blog as examples.
Krekorian’s campaign stressed that it has no relationship to the
independent blog, created in 2004 by Valley resident Michael Higby. In
a telephone interview, Higby said he supports Krekorian but has no
official role in the campaign. He and two other writers on the blog
have authority to approve reader comments, he said.
A second Essel mailer late last week showed an image of City Hall
wrapped in barbed wire and accused Krekorian of "intolerance." The
piece criticized "anti-Semitic hate speech" on the website of Asbarez,
an Armenian newspaper, that Essel’s campaign said was owned or
controlled by Krekorian supporters. The source listed was a report in
Asbarez about an Essel event at the home of a Turkish American. The
Essel campaign said the reference to "hate speech" stemmed from reader
comments posted below the article that now appear to have been
removed.
Krekorian’s spokesman said the campaign has advertised in the
newspaper but has no other connection to it.
Shallman said Krekorian and his supporters have misrepresented Essel’s
position on the Armenian genocide, which claimed the lives of more
than a million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)
starting in 1915. The Turkish government disputes that a genocide
occurred.
Because of the misrepresentations, Shallman said, Essel put out a
statement in the Armenian press underscoring her condemnation of
anyone who denies the genocide. He added that Krekorian should have
publicly condemned the comments on both websites.
"Paul Krekorian’s silence on the sexist remarks and anti-Semitic
remarks has been deafening," Shallman said.
Rep. Brad Sherman, who recorded an automated phone call criticizing
the Essel mailers, said it was "utterly absurd" for Krekorian to be
blamed for comments by "some lunatic" on a website. He said he
believed the mailers would backfire: "It undermines our efforts to
fight hate speech and anti-Semitism."