NEW YORK: The Mayor’s Lip

Every Sunday afternoon, over Manhattan’s city-operated radio station WNYC, Mayor Fiorello (“Lippy”) LaGuardia speaks “nonpolitically” to his seven and a half million charges, exhorting them to follow him up the steep, stony path of municipal rectitude. Not many of his charges bother to listen. But on the Nov. 7 broadcast, His hen-shaped Honor extended his audience by tripping over his extended lip.

Said he “nonpolitically”: 1) the G.O.P. was wholly to blame for the recent scandal-scented election of scandal-scarred Supreme Court Justice Thomas A. Aurelio (TIME, Nov. 15); 2) the recent G.O.P. state victories really meant nothing.

GOPsters were outraged at this partisan use of a city-owned station. They demanded equal radio time for an answer. The Little Flower virtuously appealed to FCC Boss James L. Fly for advice. The Fly decision: “The public is entitled to a balanced presentation. . . .”