Fix Is In For Nguyen In Recall

If you look closely toward the end of a report that aired Sunday, March 1, on KPIX-TV, CBS 5, you'll see a San Jose fire engine festooned with signs urging voters not to recall City Council Member Madison Nguyen. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed recently returned from a trip to Washington where he begged for stimulus money for his financially-troubled city. Yet the City of San Jose apparently has plenty of money to send a taxpayer-funded emergency vehicle into the streets to campaign for the dimwitted douchebag Nguyen.

Nguyen pissed away a promising political career by refusing for many months to go along with a majority of her fellow Vietnamese-Americans in San Jose's seventh council district. The constituents wanted an area along Story Road named Little Saigon. Nguyen insisted it be called Saigon Business District. Despite overwhelming support for the name Little Saigon in a survey Nguyen herself commissioned, she fought for Saigon Business District for months while Vietnamese-Americans in her district protested. Finally, she gave in, but it was too late.

When I saw the fire engine on CBS 5 Sunday evening, I e-mailed the reporter who did the story, Lisa Chan, her news director, an editor and reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, campaigns both for and against the recall, Reed, the entire city council, and the fire chief. I have yet to hear anything from anyone.

Am I the only one who believes that it is a bad idea -- nay, a corrupt idea -- to use a publicly-financed emergency vehicle to support or oppose a candidate or issue? Apparently so. San Jose has long occupied a position atop my list of shallow, fetid trenches full of corporate excrement. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that city government and its lapdog PR hacks in the mainstream press believe it's fine and dandy to use public funds to shill for their girl.

Win or lose on Tuesday, the people of San Jose would do well to make sure that Nguyen's political career ends with one term on the city council. Reed is a beady-eyed little bastard who needs to be kicked to the curb, as well. As for the media, well, it looks as if they're taking care of themselves. I'll bet the Mercury News will exist only in the archives of the local historical society in five more years.