His top aide allegedly beat up his girlfriend. He’s been charged with illegally taking free tickets to the World Series. He may have steered a state gambling contract to a bunch of crooks. And his cabinet members are bailing out like Puritans at a whore house.
So what did Gov. Paterson do on Monday morning? He held a dog-and-pony show at Borough Hall, of course!
OK, charitably speaking, the beleaguered governor was on hand to oversee a “Town Hall” meeting on the state budget — but it’s not much of a “public” hearing when the only advance warning anyone got was an e-mail sent out by the governor’s office to the press and Paterson supporters on Friday afternoon. (Even the MTA plasters signs all over its stations for weeks before it holds a hearing where its board members can ignore the public.)
This was a papered crowd.
But it didn’t matter, because no one showed up at Chez Marty to hear the governor talk about his budget plans. The 25 media trucks — and blood-smelling Andrea Peyser! — were there to keep houding the governor about his resignation plans.
The seppuku is still off, the governor said, dutifully. But maybe, just maybe, he hinted at something.
“The day of reckoning is here,” he said. “Many will have to pay the price.”
And later: “This is such a prohibitive situation that your suggestions may help us.”
Oh, too bad. He was talking about the budget — and its gap of $9 billion.
At that size, we might need a full-time governor and a state legislature that isn’t held hostage to whether another girlfriend abuser Hiram Monserrate wins his seat back in Queens.
Good luck to us all.
After the hour-long “hearing,” the governor emerged to meet his persecutors in the media. He had the nerve to spin his decision to remain in office, yet skip a re-election campaign, as a positive thing.
“The main hindrance to negotiating with the legislature is a governor that’s running for re-election,” Paterson said. There are other hindrances, though — namely a governor who could be behind bars before the end of his term.
Indeed, the governor isn’t making it easy for his few supporters, some of whom shouted, “Right on!” and “Run again” as the media asked its questions.
“I feel so alone supporting him,” added Rosalie Harmon of Canarsie. “People are really looking to take him down.”
One onlooker didn’t feel embarrassed, so much as disillusioned with Albany — a common theme in a state where a majority of people are so embarrassed that they don’t want to identify themselves as natives of the Empire State, a new survey shows.
“All the governors seem to try,” Evenly Valentine said. “But it never seems to work out.”
And whose fault is that?
