I'm sorry, but he is.
Don't you think? He's got these crazy "chorus of deliciousness" and made up word platitudes. He might be a smart guy and a good Mayor, and maybe someone who lives in Newark knows him better, but these last couple weeks have been the first I've seen of him. He always comes on TV and the host serves him up a "are we living in in a post-racial society?" and he gets to say no no no.
Stephen Colbert just called him out in a great segment for his "luxuriating" metaphors, then had him on the show. Booker went on to plow through Colbert's softball funnyman questions and recite an over-excited epistle to the multi-culti cause. I love the message, but you have to admit he needs to relax for a second and play it cool. He's already a rock star and he's trying to sell me a CD outside of Amoeba.
I'll add some transcripts of his TV appearances below.
I'll demonstrate what I mean by using blockquotes. You can read them or not, it shouldn't make a difference in understanding the point of this diary. Mayor Booker gave an interview to Michael Arrington from the blog TechCrunch. They talked about some cameras and other surveillance equipment the city of Newark had invested in (for a project called Community Eye) to spy on and track the movements of Newark's rainbow of chocolatey, fruity and delicious urban population in order to prevent crime.
Arrington asks:
And how many cameras are we talking about?
And Booker says:
Well we’re hoping that this will be rolling cameras out for a while. We’ve got the first 109 cameras up, in about a 7-8 square mile area. And we don’t want to stop there. We realize they’re such powerful tools; the more we can get up, the more we can undermine crime in communities and ultimately begin to make criminals realize if the do something they’re going to get caught, either through traditional policing methods, through cameras, or some of the other things we’re deploying. Once there’s that knowledge, you begin to have people not as confident carrying a gun, or doing something illegal out in broad daylight. And what happened in New York, we talked to a lot of the criminologists involved in that effort, was it got to a point where the brazenness of criminals, gang members, drug dealers, out in the streets was so undermined, that they eventually drove a lot of the efforts to deal these drugs completely away or indoors. Driving things underground takes away a lot of the violence that’s associated with drug dealings and narcotics. And we’ve realized the majority of our shootings are narcotics related. So if you drive the narcotics trade underground, and we still have narcotics divisions that deal with major investigations, but just by getting people off street corners, and stopping narcotics folks from carrying guns because they realize there’s a high cost in doing so. Eventually we’re going to hit a tipping point in Newark where we’re not just going to see the dramatic reductions that we’re having now, but just spectacular reductions that will give residents the sense of security that they deserve.
He talks for SO LONG.
He does it again, almost the very next question. Simple, short.
Arrington asks:
In the 7-8 square miles that those cameras cover, what kinds of results have you seen in the crime rate?
Then Booker, without so much as a breath:
Well, we’ve experienced a dramatic overall decrease in violent crime. We’re pretty much the number one city in America right now for violent crime in 2008, a 40% reduction in murder, and a double digit reduction in shootings. That is unassailable results that we’ve had, through a collection of are tools and strategies. To measure precisely what one strategy does is very difficult, but the anecdotal evidence of the cameras, story after story, week after week of times that we’re able to prevent crime, where you see someone on a street corner present a gun to a friend, for example, flash it to them, put it back in their belt, under they’re jacket. We’ve had cases like that or where you see people case out a joint, or seeing people engage in narcotics trade. All of these things are helping us not only to prevent crime and respond to crime, but it’s also helping us in prosecution. We have shown some dramatic video the media about apprehending people who have been involved with crime or preventing people who are carrying illegal weapons. So, I am very confident. The other thing I notice, which is a good thing, but some people just think you’re displacing crime, is a lot of the high crime areas, we’ve put up cameras. The drug dealers have just gone away. Even today I had some residents come up to me and say they were so appreciative that their neighborhood that used to be plagued by drug dealing is now a lot clearer and cleaner. The cameras really help with that. That combined with law enforcement presence and enforcement can actually eradicate the problem or drive it very underneath where it doesn’t cause the public hazards the narcotics trade often does. People told me when I first came into office, that if I saw a 10% reduction in murders, that’s dramatic. And not just in 1 year, but as mayor for 4 years to accomplish that. This year alone we’re having 40%, not to mention what we accomplished last year. Overall, everywhere we’re seeing a reduction in crime. In some areas we’re seeing it completely stop. We picked our worst area in the city for the most shootings, and we took our police academy class and deployed a high level of them in that area. But look, near where I live, there’s a street where guys used to deal drugs on the main street. They don’t hang out on that main street, but on some of the side streets I see evidence that guys are hanging out over here, I’ve heard reports of that. They know where the cameras are and they move a little bit, but then what the police officers are doing is responding to that by being able to more strategically deploy the resources. So if you move them off certain areas, then you can understand that you have that force multiplier. So that street’s now covered, let’s move are police officers to address another area. That seems to be very helpful to us.
........................................
He did it with Bill Maher. If you scroll down and watch the interview, Bill Maher can hardly keep from laughing at the poor rookie when he hits the ground running on urban renewal but misses the jokes.
Respected diarist and Maher transcriber Relevant Rhino had this to say:
Wow. All I can really say is wow. This man has a wonderful career ahead of him. He passionately expresses Obama's message of hope and change in America. I look forward to watching his path through politics.
I think RR could be right, but only if they let Cory Booker to stop talking for a second JUST FOR A GOD DAMNED SECOND, you're on TV, the other guy is who we're hear to watch. The dude just seems so eager to gain my approval!
Not like my man 44 though, he already knows how awesome he is and I know I need his approval if I want anything in the next 8 years.
BHO, July 29, 2008:
I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.
Remember that one? It stung for a cycle, but the brother was right and all of us knew it. We need HIM to approve US. God, please love him and bless his beautiful family.
Cory Booker, on the other hand, feels like if you took Obama and put him late in the plot of Multiplicity.
I'm not afraid, though, until they do that same thing to Sarah Palin.
Snark.