Over the past year I’ve gotten a lot of emails from a lot of people who are highly critical of Barack Obama pointing to former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who has always been a blunt spoken political shooter cheered on by Republicans when he shows his independent streak. And, on a personal note, I’ve always respected Koch who I interviewed many years ago when he spoke at a synagogue in San Diego county. Us journalist types can smell political bull digested food a mile away and Koch was a joy to talk to. In my years as a journalist, the three interviews I enjoyed most were the quick one with Koch before his speech, a long sit down with then-Spanish Socialist Party worker Felipe Gonzales (all in Spanish…he later went on to become Spain’s Prime Minister) and the short but highly productive one with Milton Berle when the Three Stooges finally got their star on Hollywood Boulevard.
Since leaving office Koch became one of the American Jewish community’s highest profile officials who addresses issues of interest to them. Today he has endorsed Barack Obama in an endorsement that particularly talks to Jewish voters:
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.