“Boss” Ryan’s Big Mistake
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- November
- 2
Ten years ago, when Westchester County Board Chairman Bill “Boss” Ryan ran for re-election in the fifth legislative district, his opponent released a last-minute mailer that was so below the belt that it cried out for rebuke.
I slammed Ryan’s Republican opponent, Denise D’Ambrosio, in a Oct. 31, 1999 column that carried the headline, “Campaign flier defies facts, fairness, common sense and good taste.” Yes, I defended Ryan.
The flier in question basically said that Ryan stalled on a proposed gun control law and set Westchester up for a Columbine-type disaster. What made the ridiculous charge even more outrageous was that the flier included a photograph of two boys—one white and the other black. The white boy had a very real-looking gun pointed at the black boy’s head.
D’Ambrosio lost the election.
But now, what do you know? Ryan has essentially done a similar jobbing on his 2009 opponent, Bob Hyland. A flier “paid for” by the Westchester County Democratic Committee went out late last week that smears Hyland and his business, the Sports Page Pub in White Plains.
The flier, reads “Not paying his taxes, violence at his bar…that’s Robert Hyland.”
This is a sign of desperation and it’s the subject of my column which will appear in tomorrow’s edition of The Journal News and posted on lohud.com. You would think Ryan would know better.
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 5:51 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
