Getting Grimm’s Bad Side: Who Really Overstepped?
THE ISSUE: Whether NY Rep. Michael Grimm was out of line when he threatened a probing reporter.
Rep. Michael Grimm (RSI/Brooklyn), while doing an interview at the Capitol, threatened to throw a NY1 reporter off of the balcony and break him in half if he asked again about possible improprieties surrounding his campaign finances (“Grimm in OnAir Rage,” Jan. 29).
Grimm sounds more like a Mafia enforcer than a politician. His behavior is absolutely disgraceful, and he should be reprimanded for it. From now on, just call him “The Grimm Reaper.” Kenneth Zimmerman Huntington Beach, Calif.
Does The Post feel it would be appropriate for a reporter to ask the chief of staff of the United States Army at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting how his wife feels about cupcakes?
Or asking President Obama after the State of the Union Address about the release of his Harvard grades or his birth certificate?
NY1 reporter Michael Scotto was deliberately provocative after the interview. In the video, I don’t see Grimm going “ballistic” or “charging back” at Scotto. Grimm confronted him about his lack of professionalism and intentionally incendiary remarks.
For NY1 to condone Scotto’s journalistic jab in that context cheapens the conventional terms of an interview to which Grimm had agreed — with the proviso the topic under discussion was the State of the Union.
Were viewers the slightest bit interested in what Scotto was asking about, rather than reactions to the address? It was a trick and doesn’t cast a flattering light on NY1’s journalistic motives.
Steven Wolosker
Manhattan
Yes, Grimm was way out of line when threatening a journalist.
But it is not nearly as bad as a sitting, married president having an affair with an intern in the White House, then lying about it to the American public.
It’s insulting to my intelligence when pundits are now questioning Grimm’s temperament to be a congressman, yet gave Bill Clinton a pass. Matthew Nugent
Staten Island