THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED: Many grains of salt. That's what you need in these last days of the City Council race in Brooklyn's 39th district. People are flinging all kinds of crazy accusations about and you have to be careful what you believe.

Politics: it's wild and crazy and nasty and strange. Strange.
Strange. Strange. And there's a whole lot of curious stuff going on.

Much of it has to do with Borough Park, which is part of the 39th district. The candidates are vying for important votes in that community, which is largely made up of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews.

That said, who is fulminating this politics of attack? Is this sort of thing just par for the course during any race? I am assuming that the fake ad in a Yiddish newspaper and the following weird emails about the Dov Hikind Radio Show has nothing to do with the candidates and their campaigns.

Yesterday I got a very strange email from someone calling themselves Media Watch about Brad Lander. It was obviuosly ridiculous (the mispellings alone invalidate it in my opinion).

Clearly someone is sending weird emails to bloggers. Gatemouth of Room 8 received the following email on Labor Day. NOTE: Gatemouth has since concluded that the email was absolutely ridiculous. I could have told him that. Again, the mispellings… Who wrote it?  See Gatemouth's column at Room 8.

To: Gatemouthnyc(at)hotmail(dot)com

Brad Lander pledged to support getting public tax dollars for the
private schools.

Brad Lander was on the Dov Hikind Radio Show Saturday night (9-5-09).

Gatemouth had this to say In the Huffington Post and on the blog Room 8 

lf this were indeed true it would qualify as pretty amazing stuff,
since among other things, Mr. Lander's campaign has consistently
maintained that Israel is not a legitimate issue in this race, but if
this email is correct, the Mr. Lander has managed to evolve from the
lunatic left to the rabid right in a matter of a few short months. The
schools position would be news to his supporters at the UFT and the
other stuff would imply Mr. Lander sees no difference between marriage
and civil union.

Frankly, it is so mind-boggling as to make me dubious.

Therefore,
I am laying down both an appeal for help, and a challenge. The appeal
is to everyone out there. Can someone provide me with either a
transcript or a recording of this interview?

The challenge is to Mr. Lander and Assemblyman Hikind.

I
am asking that you provide me with either a recording or a transcript.
I am forwarding a copy of this column to Liz Benjamin, Azi Paybarah and
all the other candidates in this race. I believe at least some of these
candidates will join me in this request.

If by Wednesday at
6:00 PM a transcript or recording is not provided to the public, I will
assume that everything in this email is true and post an analysis. I
trust others will be making similar inquiries shortly after I've posted.

And who was responsible for placing an unauthorized Brad Lander ad in the Yiddish language
newspaper Der Blatt? The ad said it was "Paid for by Brad Lander for City
Council,” and it falsely claimed that Lander is against gay marriage; the article used homophobic and extremely offensive language.  

Lander sent out this message almost immediately:

We did not authorize, place, see, or pay for the ad.  As soon as the
campaign became aware of the ad last week, we publicly made clear we
did not have anything to do with it, denounced its gross and outrageous
content, and wrote letters to the NYC Campaign Finance Board calling
for an investigation of how it was placed (available here)
and to Der Blatt calling for a comparably-placed retraction.  I am
extremely angry that these homophobic statements were, in any way,
associated with me or my campaign. 

My consistent and strong support of marriage equality and LGBT rights
are widely known, including in Borough Park.  It has been a public
issue in the campaign, on our campaign website, and in multiple pieces
in the Orthodox Jewish press and blogosphere. 

And Today City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive
Director Alan Van Capelle, sent out this press release to make it clear that Brad Lander had nothing to do with the ad in Der Blatt. Here's their
press release:

For Immediate Release: Monday, September 7, 2009

Statement of Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle

New York — Today New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and
Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle released
the following statement regarding the campaign for the NYC Council 39th
District seat. Both Quinn and Van Capelle have made no endorsement in
the 39th District and are supporting no candidate.

“Homophobia has no place in our city and no place in any campaign for elective
office. The content of the ad placed in Der Blatt is offensive to all
New Yorkers. I know Brad Lander and am confident that he had absolutely
nothing to do with the ad. I was pleased that he took immediate action
to denounce it. Any attempt to use this ad against Brad is just plain
wrong. I urge all candidates to stop using homophobia for any personal
gain, and to engage in a discussion of the issues that are important to
the daily lives of voters in the District,” said New York City Council
Speaker Christine C. Quinn, New York City’s first openly gay City
Council Speaker.

“The contents of the ad in Der Blatt are
hateful and demeaning to our community, New York and especially our
families. I have reviewed this matter closely and I have personally
spoken with Brad. I believe his assertion that he and his campaign had
no knowledge or participation in placing this ad. Political attacks
against Brad, an ardent supporter of marriage equality, are unfair,
unwarranted and have no place in this campaign. When we lob charges of
homophobia that are without merit, we fundamentally undermine the
meaning of term when it is actually warranted," said Alan Van Capelle,
Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. ESPA and Alan Van
Capelle have not endorsed in this race.