Tim's Tantrum (in the Hoboken Reporter)

How do you know who's won a war-of-words?

It's the guy who's laughing.

And when GA spoke with Jake Stuiver yesterday, he was positively gleeful.  Want to know why?

He'd found himself in a war-of-words with 4th Ward dim-wit Tim Occhipinti on the pages of The Hoboken Reporter! 

Yes, Tim has responded to Jake's sharply critical letter of April 8th.   But instead of returning fire with (equally) keen verbal artillery, Timmy's chucked spears of boiled asparagus.    

Thoonk.  Squish.

Which explains Jake's mirth.

Though GA would argue that debating Tim is like clubbing a blindfolded baby seal, he's opened up all sorts of fronts with his childish rebuttal. Yes folks, this letter will keep bloggers busy for days. Even by Tim's own petulant standards he's reached new pink, frilly petticoats of sissy-hood.

WAAAAAAAH!  Jake is a meanie!

Oh yes, people. Stuiver's letter to the Reporter sent Timmy into full-blown, fists-and-feet pounding spasms in his bassinet.

How do we know this?  Occhipinti showed up at last week's HHA meeting and intercepted Stuiver (a Commissioner) on his way out.  True.  Here's what thin-skinned Tim  said:

"Do you have something to say to my face?"

Imagine that!

An elected official confronting a constituent over a LETTER published in a free and democratic press! (well, sort of democratic...)

Clearly Tim's feelings got hurt.  Boo-freakin'-HOO.  Sniffity-sniffle.

Tim's feelings are delicate.  Remember he's the sissy who called the cops over a blog-post.  Then read it aloud at the City Council like it was the Magna Carta.   

So when Tim got up in Stuiver's grill and tried to provoke him into an argument, Jake turned to see  Matt Calicchio filming the entire thing.   A set-up.  Timmy had tried to bait Stuiver, so he'd  lose his composure on film. Next stop: Hoboken411.   That's when Tim ratted out political strategist Tom Bertolli as the mastermind of the set-up.

Timmy tells Jake it was Tom Bertolli's idea. Isn't Bertolli a handsome devil?

Well, Stuiver left.  Another Timmy-stunt gone bad.   

Can you imagine?  What kind of BEHAVIOR is that from an elected official?   All because he didn't like a constituent's letter.

Personally, I think Jake was beating around the bush when he said:  

Dear Editor:   

 I am writing in response to the glowingly self-congratulatory letter last week from Fourth Ward Councilman Timothy Occhipinti. Mr. Occhipinti is always quick to itemize very real, laudable accomplishments, very few if any are his for which to claim credit. I wish to offer a different perspective on Mr. Occhipinti’s “service” to the ward. 

For the past 16 months, our ward has endured what can only by the most generously loose definition pass for representation by someone who has proven to be a developer shill and corruption apologist. 

The interests of our neighborhood’s people have languished under Mr. Occhipinti’s tenure as our councilman in virtually every way, whether through his attempted sabotage of the hospital that serves and employs so many Fourth Ward residents, ridiculing the new flood-pump technology that has so palpably alleviated a long-standing problem for our neighborhood, or his transparent and sophomoric attempts to co-opt credit for the accomplishments of Mayor Zimmer, Director Pellegrini and the rest of her administration. 

Soft, no?

Jake, next time try these words: Armageddon, pestilence, miasma, cholera, plague, pox, abscess, stinking corpse, noxious, corrosive, putrescent, vermin, pus, scourge, curse, infect, contaminate, virulent, locusts, evil, cur, wicked, fungus, damned, abomination.

For starters.

Well, whatever you said sure pushed some Dumb-inatrix buttons because now Tim's pelted you with a bucket of boiled vegetables.  We'll get to that.

But for a moment think about what a bad idea it is for a City Councilman to engage a 'lesser' public figure in a tit-for-tat.  That's an unwritten rule of politics: don't engage someone at a lower 'rank' than yourself in a public argument. Simply put: Tim looks like a jerk-off sniping back at a constituent. 

It's the lack of decorum, petulance and immaturity we've come to expect from  Dim Occhipinti.