OH NO! IT HAPPENED AGAIN.... In the weekly “Battle of Columns” between the Special Ks of the Home Reporter and Spectator, Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Kassar, Chief of Staff to State Senator Golden, lost the “Battle of Ideas” to Democrat Brian Kieran for the second week in a row

This week both of the Op-Ed-styled columns started off on the right track with both commentators making their own references to the ambush killings of the two volunteer firefighters in the town of Webster, N.Y., allegedly committed by a past-convicted killer William Spengler, also killed at the site of his burning house on the shores of Lake Ontario   —   

Whereas Brian Kieran’s “We The People – After Newtown [II]” stuck to his post-Newtownian presentation throughout, Jerry  Kassar’s “Common Sense – PURE EVIL” column quickly went off the rails and veered into being purely a political hack’s piece for the exclusive benefit of his two bosses, Marty Golden and Mike Long

Last week I had said that Brian Kieran had been “... all over the gun control thing and the NRA lobbying, and all the rest.” And then I continued, “He not only correctly identified  it all as part of the issue of the day, he gave out the routine Democrat talking points with both moral certainty and a righteous indignation appropriate for the aftermath of the Newtown-Sandy Hook School massacre of innocents by a madman with guns. Unfortunately, there was nobody like Kassar around to slam lobs like this back over the net right at Brian’s ....”

This week  with the added impetus of the shootings of the firstresponders in Webster,  Mr. Kieran doubled down and even took on the Second Amendment militia argument. At first, it looked like Kassar was in a perfect position to smash what were still relatively easy lobs from Kieran, but instead of smashing Kieran’s serves directly back at the smiling Democrat’s family jewels, Kassar’s smash went straight off the court and completely out of the arena of play.

Since Kassar did initially attempt to address the issue of the shootings of the  four upstate firemen, I can’t say that Mr. Kieran lucked into this week’s win by default.  To the contrary, Kassar’s ridiculous attempt to change the subject to one about capital punishment almost seemed like an intentional effort to avoid a gun rights debate completely. There was no mention as to how Spengler’s neighbor Dawn Nguyen got him the Bushmaster AR-15, meaning that no law other than a complete prohibition against the guns used might have avoided the shootings of the four firemen on Lake Road in Webster. That avoidance of the real issue, which is part and parcel of the ongoing legislative battle over intensifying the panoply of Draconian gun control laws already in place in New York State, ties directly into Kassar’s employment as the Chief of Staff to State Senator Martin Golden.

You see, State Senator Golden has already been terribly embarrassed on specific gun-control issues  — and he has even specifically cited the effects on unemployment in New York State if companies like Bushmaster were negatively impacted by stricter state gun-control laws. It is quite interesting that Kassar’s boss, Golden, has often tried to  pivot away from his history of opposition to tougher gun-control legislation and onto arguments about post-gun-crime punishment. Plainly, this is exactly what Kassar’s argument about Mr. Spengler morphed into in his Home Reporter-Spectator column this week. So, even though the question of gun-control following the Newtown, Connecticut and now Webster, New York shootings  remains the hottest issue of the day in New York City and State, Kassar can't bring himself to touch it with a ten foot pole.

As a conservative-minded independent Republican, I’m constrained to admit that Democrat Brian Kieran has yet again carried the day, even though I still believe  much of his argument depends on an appeal to emotion and false historical citation, and that it does not contain the compelling logic or solid reasoning based upon historical precedent that Brian Kieran seems to think that it does.

In order to further demonstrate the full extent to which  Kassar wasted another opportunity to counter Kieran’s column this week  —  I have to point out that the rest of the Kassar “Common Sense – PURE EVIL” column was used to shill for a New York State Conservative Party event that is no longer relevant to anything. This event referred to by Kassar as The New York State Conservative Party Annual Albany Political Action Conference  is nothing but a throwback to the good old days when D’Amato, Pataki and Vacco were winning state-wide races by virtue of having the Conservative Party line.

Contrary to anything Kassar asserted in his column this week, it would be safe to say that there will be no panels or discussions at the Albany CPAC which might be relevant to the most meaningful currents in the contemporary conservative movement in or out of the Republican Party in New York or nationally.  Such contemporary currents might better be found instead at the events of conservative-minded independents, Democrats and Republicans; for example, in events like those run  by The Tea Party and/or the Tea Party Patriots.