It's hard to feel bad for Geraldo

LA Times ^ | 9/17/05 | TIM RUTTEN

[cubreporter]

Can't agree...Geraldo and Shep are both pompous. Geraldo though is worse. He can't let go. Always tries to upstage someone else. Don't like his ethics.

[ModelBreaker]

He's a blow dried blowhard no matter what network over pays him.

I have met him. Surprisingly, he was gracious and even humble.

[SunnySide]

He's perpetually breaking into Al Capone's vault to find . . . stale, dank air.

...

"stale, dank air", the opiate of MSM liberals

[OldFriend]

Geraldo has trumped sharpton and jackson on the race hustling front.

He can go straight to hell for all I care.

[Racehorse]

One of the funniest Geraldo stories I ever saw...

Not so funny a story, but the one where I began to loathe the guy.

He was in Thailand preparing to go into Cambodia to look for reported American POWs from the Vietnam War.

The whole segment was about the preparation.  Then, they crossed the river, but on the far bank, in hushed tones, he tells the audience something like, "There are reports of Khmer Rouge in the area.  Its very dangerous here.  Too dangerous to stay.  We'll have to go back."

So, after all that, they re-crossed the river and returned to safety in Thailand.

[TexasCajun]

I've liked Shep ever since he ran over that liberal down in Florida during the 2000 recounts.

[veronica]

I wonder how many people know about/remember this...

"In 1972, WABC-TV in New York sent rookie reporter Geraldo Rivera to Staten Island to infiltrate the Willowbrook State School. Robert Kennedy had visited the mental institution in 1966 and declared: "Willowbrook State School was not fit for even animals to live in." Geraldo gained entry using a stolen key and documented the brutal and horrific living conditions of its disabled residents, which included several mentally retarded children. The report led to an immediate government inquiry and won Geraldo the Peabody Award, forever changing the role of the state run institutional system. Rivera’s expose and book on Willowbrook titled, “A Report on How It Is and Why It Doesn't Have to Be That Way,” was the catalyst that brought about the class action lawsuit primarily responsible for changing this archaic system, New York State Association for Retarded Children, et. al. and Parisi, et. al. v. Rockefeller.

The Willowbrook case led New York State to adopt sweeping change. Moreover, it became popular opinion that these deplorable conditions were unacceptable for people in state-run institutions, regardless of mental disability diagnosis. In furtherance of the goal to better meet the needs of these distinct and vulnerable populations, in 1978, the state Department of Mental Hygiene was separated into three, diagnosis-based offices – The Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, and the Office of Mental Health."

[evad]

"...when we consider Rupert Murdoch's ceaseless schemes for global domination and the venal blood lust that pulses through Fox News,..."
Nope, no bias here...

Exactly..
when the premise is so blatantly false, what's the point in proceeding further?

[SunnySide]

It's a shame when journalists allow themselves to be consumed by their own celebrityism. It's a joke when journalists are left with no one else but each other (journalists) to interview. Gross ego is thy name.

[BenLurkin]

All I have to go on is his public persona.

[Gabz]

Thanks - I remember when he broke the willowbrook story - but had forgotten the year.

[melt]

Geraldo seems to have had a revelation after 911.

He's one of the good guys now.

[DogBarkTree]

Years ago I commuted with Geraldo on a Ferry from Wall St to the Jersey shore. He was a pleasant enough of a guy as I recall. I also remember c couple of times seeing him get on the boat still wearing his stage makeup. That was amusing.

This is an anecdote I feel is worth sharing here. One Friday afternoon the Ferry was just getting ready to pull away from Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street. There was a bunch of us on the back deck of the boat having a beer and a cigarette when we saw Geraldo running down the Pier after the boat. We all started yelling to the deck hand casting off the lines to "LEAVE HIM, LEAVE HIM". Of course the deckhand and captain of the boat waited for Geraldo to get to the boat. When He saw the boat was going to wait he looked back towards South St and waived on a limo. A few seconds later the stretch limo pulled up to the bottom of the gangway to the ferry. By now the guys on the back of the ferry were booing and hissing because the ferry crew was showing obvious favor to Geraldo. We got to eat some humble pie when Gerlado opened the door to the Limo to help that guy he got out of Willowbrook a few years earlier. This was the young man with cerebral palsy who was locked up in the horrible mental hospital known as Willowbrook. Geraldo's expose on the place help shut it down.
It was quite touching to see Geraldo help this severely handicapped man down the gang plank and onto the boat. It would certainly appear that he and Gerlado had become friends over the years and this guy was coming down to spend the weekend with Geraldo at his home on the Navesink River. I recall very well how the guys on the back of the boat (including myself) felt bad for yelling at the ferry crew to leave Gerlado on the dock when we saw who was with him.

[MinuteGal]

In this whole inside-the-profession flap involving a "fallout among thieves", one has to make a choice if one wants to side with one side or the other, however amusedly.

Since one of the parties is Geraldo and the other the NYT, I have to side with Geraldo.

I wouldn't side with the Slimes if it was fighting a takover by Al Jareeza.

(......but then, sometimes I think it HAS been taken over by Al Jareeza.....)

Oh, let's call the whole thing off.

Leni

[Ditter]

I am not very fond of Geraldo either but I will defending him against the LASlimes anytime.

[cloud8]

Alessandra is a real News Babe (tm).

Alessandra Stanley, chief television critic for the New York Times and panel moderator

[veronica]

Very interesting story! Thank you for sharing it.

[ModelBreaker]

All I have to go on is his public persona.

Agreed. As a news reporter, he is a self-aggrandizing jerk. That's why I was so surprised when I met him.

[johnny7]

I ain't got no dog in a Geraldo/LATimes fight... but this is all about dumping on FOXNews.

Between now & 2008, look for the MSM to do full-scale defication on FOXNews', 'right-biased' reporting.

[stockpirate]

I also do not like him, he is just a liberal fool hack.