Add Another Politician to the Mug Shot Book

Ah, 'tis that special time of year. Children await Santa. Parents scramble to put presents beneath the Christmas tree. The streets are lined with holiday lights. Good cheer fills the air.

Unless the air you're breathing is inside Queens Democratic headquarters where there are this morning fits of choking. It seems that Senator-elect Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens), handpicked by Queens political boss Joe Crowley to replace long-serving John Sabini as State Sentor, has joined the ever-expanding list of politicos whose mugs now appear in police photo books. The thuggish Monserrate, a City Councilman with a history of questionable behavior whose passion for the victims of domestic violence is matched only by his apparent willingness to inflict such violence himself, is out on bail after bashing his girlfriend in the face with a broken drinking glass. This is alleged to have happened late at night inside Monserrate's Elmhurst pad, after attending a party hosted by none other than Crowley himself. As blood gushed from his girlfriend's face, from a wound that required 20 stitches, Monserrate rushed the victim, not to Elmhurst Hospital which is seconds from Monserrate's doorstep, but to Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Nassau County. Who said chivalry and honor are dead? After all, Monserrate is an ex-Marine (that is, he is a Marine since once a Marine always a Marine).

We hear today, though, that it is all a mistake and that the girlfriend doesn't want to press charges--a syndrome only too common and well known to prosecutors of domestic abuse crimes.

But Monserrate's own colleagues are not so sure. At least one of them is quoted as saying that it was only a matter of time before Monserrate, a notorious hot head and gas bag, would publicly implode. Which brings us back to Joe Crowley, who pushed a dedicated Sabini aside to promote Monserrate in an effort to woo Hispanic voters. This proves one thing about Crowley: Quality and experience take a back seat to political expediency. When it comes to New York Democrats
some things never change.