Spin Cycle

Stop calling Rep. Gary Ackerman a Queens Democrat.

The 20-year resident of Jamaica Estates has sold his house after waiting months for a buyer, for just over $1 million, less than the $1.3 million he’d asked, he said.

Ackerman bought a condo in Roslyn Heights about 9 miles away for $950,000 in December, records show. He said he and his wife wanted to downsize. “Rita was alone most of the week in a big old English Tudor,” said the 12th-term Democrat, who occupies a houseboat on the Potomac River when in Washington. “It was just too much house.” Ackerman stayed in his district, which runs from northeast Queens to Roslyn.

Janie Lorber

Jamaica Estates Democrat Gary Ackerman got props for his Queens grit from conservative TV host Bill O’Reilly after the two jousted on the U.S. troop surge's effectiveness in Iraq.

"So you were wrong and you’re a savvy Middle East guy," O’Reilly said, opening Tuesday's episode of "The O'Reilly Factor."

"Well, I don’t know that I was wrong," said Ackerman, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. He argued that the post-surge decrease in violence could be attributed to several factors, and not solely the increase in troop levels.

"It could be that the Iranians aren’t providing the IEDs (improvised explosive devices). It could be the terrorists are just laying low, the insurgents are just laying low. It could be that the surge is working. It could be a combination of all or some of those things."

Beth Murtagh