Who says there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues? In the middle of the dog days (on August 1, 1997, to be precise), the malignantly perky and relentlessly wholesome Susan Molinari stepped down from her elected office as U.S. Congresswoman, leaving the House of Representatives for . . . a role as anchorperson for CBS News in one of the tube’s vaster wastelands, the Saturday morning slot. Yep, right in there amidst the other cartoons with their equally canned laughter. Real justice may be hard to come by nowadays, but poetic justice remains a perennial bumper crop.
The fear, of course, is that the U.S. public ― or at least whatever segment of it watches the Saturday morning news on CBS — will find something lovable in this appalling twerp and turn our Mustang Susie into the Rush Limbaugh of the preppie set. I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before. Meanwhile, the price we’ll pay for her departure from the hustings will be the inevitable comments during her network stint reminding the world that she comes from Staten Island.
It was embarrassing enough to have her introduced at the ’96 Republican Convention as an Islander, all smug and smarmy as she pimped for that great American hero Bob Dole. But, high-profile as that seemed, at least it was a one-shot. This is every week, and if she doesn’t catch the adult audience she may draw the kiddies with her remarkable impersonation of an all-American teenage babysitter on speed. I dread the thought that she’ll be one of those unfortunate things for which the Island is perpetually known — like the landfill, except worse. The garbage, after all, is created primarily by other people; but Susan Molinari is definitely Staten Island’s own. It will take generations for us to live her down.
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