Here is a clip that will live in political history, to be shown again and again and again. Watch East Haven, CT Mayor Joseph Maturo, asked what he’d do for his city’s Latino community after four police officers were charged for using excessive force against undocumented immigrants and covering up abuses, say “I might have tacos for dinner.”
Even worse: his interview is with a reporter from WPIX, a major New York City market television station. Also note how he apparently has watched Newt Gingrich and — as the mayor digs his hole deeper and deeper with his mouth, seemingly unable to get himself out of stuck-on-stupid mode — tries to make the reporter and the question the issue and goes into a long riff about what he can eat for dinner.
How did this end? Like this:
Whether Matura did in fact enjoy some delicious tacos Tuesday night is unknown. But whatever he ate must’ve rankled throughout today. After Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy called the taco statement “repugnant” this morning (not a foodie!), Maturo issued an apology, saying that “I let the stress of the situation get the best of me and inflamed what is already a serious and unfortunate situation.”
He also has gotten some interesting input on his Facebook page..
Watching Maturo’s interview, I might suggest he forget about eating tacos, or spaghetti (and there are GREAT Italian restaurants in East Haven and West Haven: the New Haven area has some of the best Italian eateries in the country such as this one).
He should eat fish.
Brain food.
FOOTNOTE: I (proudly) grew up in New Haven, CT and lived a good part of the time in nearby Woodbridge. I know East Haven well and love it. I also did my first American journalism gig, as an intern on the West Haven City News weekly newspaper in the summer of 1971.
UPDATED: Here’s a CNN reporter later talking with the now-contrite Mayor:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.