The Era of Making Things Up: Postmodernism, Conservatism, and the Assault on Reality

A very popular conservative blogger recently wrote the following, about the so-termed Ground Zero Mosque project (which, by the way, as we all know by now, is not quite a mosque and isn't quite at Ground Zero either):

Yes it will take years and years but that did not stop Bloomberg and "Big Brother" Obama making it national issue in under 1 minute.

Except that this isn't true. It was Republicans, that party's New York State gubernatorial candidates in particular, who made the project a “national issue.” Republicans well outside of New York State were making it an issue well-before President Obama's remarks. (I'm not counting Bloomberg, because he's the Mayor of New York City, last I checked, and he of course addressed the issue in that capacity. Any Mayor of New York should have addressed it.)

Note the headline of this Fox News story, and note the date, 11 days before President Obama's remarks.

Other mosques, nowhere near Ground Zero and not in New York State, have also caused controversies. Note the date of that story too. The project (Park 51, Ground Zero Mosque, whatever you want to call it) was clearly a national issue well-before Obama's remarks.

On a probably not-unrelated note, a growing percentage of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim. But he isn't. Not that a Muslim President would be a bad thing in and of itself. But, Obama is not Muslim.

I keep reading about how Andrew Cuomo wants to shut down local governments and the people will reject it. But when you actually read Cuomo's plan, which mirrors very closely one pitched by his father in 1994, you'll see (I should hope) that it isn't at all like it's sometimes portrayed.

That last example isn't as extreme as the others. Distorting your opponent's position is a long-standing tradition in American politics, as long as you remain more or less within the confines of reality. Ok, fine. One would expect Andrew Cuomo's opponents to distort his plans and ideas. If a plan of his would cost, say, $2 Billion, you'd expect his opponents to say it would cost "nearly $5 billion." 2 is nearly 5, right?

Fine.

But Barack Obama being a Muslim, when he isn't? Or him making the mosque a national issue, when it clearly already was one before he spoke? Those go beyond being distortions. Oh, let's try the one about the drapes in the Oval Office being switched to a Middle Eastern color. Nope, that one's not true either.

It's easy to say what you want when you, in essence, construct reality as an opinion. Opinions can be freely rejected, and everyone is entitled to one. Dinosaurs walked the Earth with humanity, and humanity domesticated dinosaurs, right down to putting them in English saddles for Dinosaur shows. (See Charles Pearce, Idiot America 2009, pages 1 to 12.) Except that neither of those things is true.

When you recast fact and analysis as opinion, all bets are off.

Al Gore wrote a book called The Assault on Reason (2007) wherein he outlined....Well, look at the title. But in fact what's going on, I would suggest, isn't an assault on reason, but on reality itself. The assault on reason is simply a technique. It makes the assault on reality easier. Without reason, reality becomes an opinion, and everyone's entitled to one.

Andrew Cuomo should investigate the funding stream for the Ground Zero Mosque (which again is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero). But we now know publicly what, it seems, has been known privately for a long time: There is no funding stream to investigate.

The project could not yet have been funded in an illegal, or even morally questionable, manner because it hasn't been funded yet at all, not to any substantial degree. This doesn't stop Rick Lazio from saying he should investigate that funding stream, even after the revelation that it didn't really exist.

Political Theorist Sheldon Wolin wrote in 1989 about how the conservative Philosopher Allan Bloom, who was extremely influential in conservative intellectual circles, was defined largely be a rage against Postmodernism (Sheldon Wolin, The Presence of the Past 1989, pages 47-65). Postmodernism is an academic movement that has sought over the years to challenge some very fundamental things about reality, about science, about reason. As Wolin put it:

Although the postmodern mind, as yet, hesitates to provoke a head-on confrontation with modern science . . . the subversion of the supporting culture of science is clearly under way. The postmodern individual has pretty much renounced the objectivist view of scientific knowledge, indeed all forms of knowledge. (Sheldon Wolin, The Presence of the Past 1989, page 70.)

Postmodern Philosopher Richard Rorty, exactly the kind of thinker against whom Allan Bloom was raging, once wrote that abandoning Western rationalism “has no discouraging political implications.” Society can abandon rationalism, the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment, and retain the Enlightenment's politics of human dignity and liberation. (Richard Rorty, Truth, Politics, and 'Post-Modernism' 1997, pages 36-42.)

But there's an important thing Rorty and other Postmodernists didn't think of, and thus didn't account for. And that is that when the sources of reality and the very nature of empirical observation are questioned, when you can no longer accept the results of an empirical test (like dropping 2 objects at the same time to see if 1 falls faster than the other) all that you have left is power. Someone with the power to enforce his or her vision can ram it down the throats of everyone else. To use an exaggerated example from literature, if Big Brother says that 2 plus 2 is 5, then it's 5, even if it's not. Who are you to say otherwise?

In the absence of thought or reason or empirical observation, all that's left is power. Who has it, who doesn't, and how those with it can enforce their ideas upon those who don't.

The Federalist Papers repeatedly remind us that, in the American system, the base of power is with the people. Federalist Paper # 46 (attributed to James Madison) reminds us, for example, that a reliance on the people as the ultimate source of authority means that the American system can get away with having both a national government and state governments, and yet expect the two layers of government to work together and not against each other. The more-famous Federalist Paper # 51 (attributed to either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton) reminds us that, in a system where the people are the ultimate base of power, the people are also a source of potential oppression.

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.

In later years, this concept would come to be known as “the tyranny of the majority.”

Outside the offices of the Minority Leader of the New York State Assembly there once sat (and for all I know still does sit) a plaque with a quote:

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

The quote is variously attributed to either John Adams or Samuel Adams; I forget which one the Assembly Minority's plaque attributes it to. At first, this sentiment may sound healthy. And in fact in many circumstances the sentiment has been as healthy as it sounds like it could be. An irate minority can be a check against the potentially tyrannical majority feared by the authors of The Federalist Papers. Black people fighting for Civil Rights were nothing if not an "irate minority."

The dark side of the sentiment, however, is that you might not need a majority to do something horrendous. Sometimes an irate minority can do the trick. Majorities, after all, can be expensive and time-consuming to achieve. But an irate minority is pretty easy to come by these days, now that reality itself can be called into question so easily. Reality is expensive, almost as expensive as majorities are. But an irate minority that's been spoon-fed semi-plausible falsehoods? Cheap. And effective.

There were no death panels in the Obama health care bill. To bring things back to New York State politics, David Paterson is not “a drug addict,” any more than Carl Paladino is “addicted” to bestiality porn or “addicted” to fathering children out of wedlock.

These are two flawed men, who did what they did, and we judge them according to our wit and our expectations. But neither is, so far as we can reasonably know, addicted to anything.

“As far as we can reasonably know.” Reasonably know. Quite a concept there.

It even comes close to an objective fact that Thomas Jefferson is an excellent example of an important political philosopher. Indeed its hard to imagine someone whose political philosophy has been of greater importance in practical politics. Jefferson more or less invented what we now call American political values.

The Texas Department of Education, however, disagreed,

and agreed to replace Thomas Jefferson as an example of an influential political philosopher in a world history class.

Thomas Jefferson's thought, it seems, also didn't influence any important revolutions:

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

I can't think of any revolutions Thomas Jefferson inspired, can you? If you can, E-Mail the Texas Department of Education.

Reason has made America great. Our country was founded on reason, and New York State led the way for a very long time. Reason helps us deal with reality rather than bury our heads in the sand.

But now, New York State, and the nation as a whole, are losing reason, and reality along with it, and, while I suppose I could find some examples of liberal irrationality (in fact, with the crowd that's currently in charge of the New York State Senate I'm all-but-certain I could), conservatives are clearly leading the way. Fortunate for them that the abandonment of reality ensures they won't have to admit that they're abandoning reality.

Soon, we'll have conservative Christians turning the Bible into a wiki, editing their own Holy Book according to their preconceptions, rather than reading it, or hiring a professional to do a professionally done translation that's more to their liking. (There's plenty of conservative Bible scholars, after all.) Oh wait, that's already happening.

Thomas Jefferson wasn't an important political philosopher, it's President Obama's fault that the Park 51 project is a national issue, David Paterson is a drug addict, and the Holy Bible is a wiki.

Welcome, readers, to a new political era: The era of making things up.

Every Petition Tells a Story

Gubernatorial petitions, like pictures, tell stories.

In New York State, 15,000 petitions, it seems, are required to run for Governor without the endorsement of a major party. 15,000 to launch a third party or independent bid, and to force a major party primary. (Unfortunately, I can't find where in the State Election Law it says this, so I have to go off of press accounts. The State Board of Elections Internet site doesn't seem to have a “how to run for Governor” pamphlet or anything, which is regrettable, if unsurprising.)

Further, the conventional wisdom seems to be that one really needs 3 times the required number, or 45,000. Challenges to ones petitions are seen as almost inevitable, and 3 times the required number should render one about challenge-proof.

There's several high-profile, or at least medium-profile, gubernatorial runs going on that are reliant upon petitions rather than upon major party endorsement.

Charles Barron, a former member of the Black Panthers, has gathered 44,500 petitions to run for Governor on his new Freedom Party line. Libertarian Party candidate Warren Redlich filed 34,000 petitions.

Redlich and Barron can fairly be described as fringe candidates. However, the much-ballyhooed Carl Paladino, who is considered a serious candidate, has filed only 28,000 petitions, less than double the required amount, and well under the preferred “3-times what's required” standard. In fact, Paladino's petition numbers are most comparable to those of Kirsten Davis (22,000), the Eliot Spitzer-affiliated madam-turned-candidate. And even Davis's highest-profile supporter, Republican operative Roger Stone, referred to Davis as a “protest candidate,” and expressed support for Paladino, the 28,000-petition man.

In polls, Paladino scores about as well against Cuomo as Lazio does. (Which, it must be said, isn't a great showing.)

Interesting that Roger Stone's “protest candidate,” Davis, and his other favorite, Paladino, who in his words “has a chance” to win, managed to garner a comparable number of petitions. The other fringe candidates, by contrast, managed to garner noticeably more than either Paladino or Davis.

So who really has a chance here?

Petitions tell stories. They tell stories about who has some degree of popular support, and who has the ground operation that's necessary to rally that support. To get people to openly support a candidate on record. Sure, someone might sign a petition in the name of having an open process, and not intend to vote for the candidate. But I think, and the press seems to agree, that signing a petition is really a display of support for a candidate. (One day I should see if any studies have been done on that, actually.)

What stories do these petitions tell us? Well, let me tell you what I think.

I think either Paladino's ground operation is horrid and ineffective, or that he has more support in the context of an anonymous poll than he does when people actually have to stand behind their views. Fewer people will support Paladino in public than in private. And voting, perhaps even in a primary election and definitely in a general election, is, secret ballot regardless, ultimately a public act.

And I think that, either way, Paladino remains a fringe candidate. If Lazio loses the nomination to him it will far more speak ill of Lazio than it speaks well of Paladino.

Identifying, and Addressing, New York State's Local Government Problem

New York State has a local government problem.

I think that's a fair statement. Almost more important than the statement being fair is that most of New York's political class would appear to agree. New York has a lot of local governments. No one really knows how many, but Andrew Cuomo, several times in his policy book The New NY Agenda, cites a figure of roughly 10,000.

This plethora of local governments has various consequences, few of which good. Political accountability is too-difficult to establish, because it's too difficult to know who answers to whom, who is supposed to do what, and who did what. Certain important political and governmental decisions are in effect subject to no scrutiny whatsoever, because few know who is making them. Further, all these layers of government get expensive. It doesn't take a Tea Partier, or any kind of conservative, to understand that.

I suppose all these local governments might make increase the points of access to citizens. If the citizens know where to look for that access, of course.

New York State has a local government problem. And it isn't new. Look at the following quotes.

The term “county government,” as applied in the commonly accepted sense of a single governing body for county affairs, is misleading. There is no such thing in New York State as a single, or a unified, government for an entire county. Instead, there are for each county several independent governing departments and officials, the functions of each being territorially coextensive with the county boundaries in general. (County Government, Page 85)

And:

For the purpose of government, which means for purpose of raising and expending money for the advantage of the people, we have in this State and within its counties many units or districts. Many of these districts are included within others and many overlap each other. Each has certain officers and certain powers of local government and support. Consider a typical New York county, my own [Oneida County], containing 2 cities, 26 towns, 19 incorporated villages, 23 special districts and 355 school districts outside of the cities. (County Government, Page 27)

The book those quotes are from, County Government, was published in 1915.

The Oneida County official who made the second statement, the one from page 27, went on to point out how all of the 400 or so governments within Oneida County had the power to tax the citizens. In 1915, there were roughly 400 taxing entities within Oneida County alone. It's undoubtedly more now.

79 years later, in 1994 (the year of the so-called Republican Revolution) the situation had not improved. Then-Governor Mario Cuomo raised the issue in his Message to the Legislature (State of the State message).

Trading the unaffordable luxury of autonomy for the substantial economies of consolidation is one of the most constructive steps communities can take to lighten their tax load . . . I propose giving local voters the power to insist that the merits of consolidation be studied—not by politicians with a personal interest in the outcome but by forming Citizens' Restructuring Initiatives (CRIs) . . . The people would have the power both to launch a CRI and to determine, in the voting booth, whether to go forward with its recommendations. (1994 Message to the Legislature, pages 119-120)

It's scarcely deniable that one of the reasons local taxes are so high in New York State is that there are so many entities that can, and do, tax the State's citizens. Even if reducing the number of entities would somehow not reduce taxes, then at least the people would know who was taxing them, and what for.

Mario Cuomo lost the 1994 election to George Pataki, who rode the wave of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution and entered office spouting a lot of Reagan-era rhetoric about reducing the size and cost of government. Pataki uttered the phrase “the heavy hand of government” again and again during his administration.

One indicator, not a perfect one of course, of reducing the size of government is reducing the size of the government workforce. It's even better if this can be done without layoffs (and State layoffs did not happen under Pataki) because layoffs hurt local economies more than high taxes.

By this measure, during the Pataki era the size of State government did indeed shrink. According to an annual Rockefeller Institute of Government publication called the New York State Statistical Yearbook, the State workforce had approximately 17,419.89 fewer full-time positions on January 1, 2007, when Pataki was replaced by Eliot Spitzer, than on January 1, 1995, when Pataki replaced Mario Cuomo. (The Rockefeller Institute's State workforce data uses a thing called a “Full-Time Equivalent.” 2 half-time workers would count as 1 FTE.)

On the surface, we can congratulate George Pataki on accomplishing one of his policy goals. (Even though this figure doesn't include the public authorities, or the Legislature, or private sector consultants hired by the State.)

However, during that same time period, according to the same publication, positions under the jurisdiction of the County Civil Service agencies, outside of New York City, actually went up by 31,506. And there's a lot besides New York City that this figure doesn't include: certain political appointees; employees of cities; local elected officials; employees of local legislatures such as Town Councils. Somehow I doubt that the increase noted by the Rockefeller Institute was somehow compensated for by a decrease in areas not recorded by the Institute.

New York State has a local government problem.

There are currently 3 major candidates for Governor of New York State. Andrew Cuomo has the Democratic nomination. Carl Paladino and Rick Lazio are currently in a bitter contest for the Republican nomination.

As far as I can tell, neither Rick Lazio and nor Carl Paladino have a plan for dealing with New York's local government problem.

Lazio, in his policy book (entitled Building a Better New York), outlines a plan for a property tax cap (Building a Better New York, pages 4 and 12). He also professes a desire to “end” State unfunded mandates on local governments (Building a Better New York, page 9). But I see nothing there for the problem of there being simply too many local governments and too much overlap between them all. We know that these issues are not simply byproducts of unfunded mandates, because as far as I can tell unfunded mandates were not considered a big issue in 1915, and we know that New York's local government problem goes back at least that far and probably a lot further.

Paladino makes no mention of the local government issue whatsoever in the plan for New York (which consists of 8 bullets) that is posted on his website. The one mention of property taxes on the site appears to come in reference to Medicaid spending.

By contrast, however, Lazio's campaign website mentions the word “mosque” 33 times, and Paladino's 294 times, according to a Google search on both sites.

Andrew Cuomo has, by far, the most detailed plan to reform local government. It's found on pages 82 through 92 of his policy book, The New NY Agenda. The details are available for anyone to read, so I won't get into them, but broadly speaking it revolves around allowing local governments, and local voters, to initiate and lead efforts to cut layers of government and share services. It would ultimately, it seems, be up to the voters to decide if they prefer the unaffordable luxury of autonomy, or not. While he also deals with unfunded mandates (The New NY Agenda, pages 55, 56, 155), and has a fairly detailed property tax cap plan (The New NY Agenda, pages 42-45), it's clear that Cuomo is placing most of his faith in this area in the local government reform plan.

Importantly, Cuomo also appears to have a good handle on the depth and extent of the local government problem.

Our system of local government was constructed hundreds of years ago and is the product of historical accumulation.109 As a result, at the local level there exists overlap and duplication, resulting in high taxes, inefficiency and waste.110 In fact, there are more than 10,500 local governmental entities --- including 62 counties, 932 towns, 555 villages and more than 7,000 special districts --- imposing taxes and fees across New York State. (The New NY Agenda, page 82)

If there's a similar understanding of the issue displayed, or a plan for the issue outlined somewhere in documents on either Carl Paladino's or Rick Lazio's websites, I somehow missed it completely. E-Mail me a link and I will take a look.

It should be noted that Andrew Cuomo's local government reform plan has a lot in common with the one his father outlined in his 1994 Message to the Legislature, as cited above. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it might suggest that Andrew, like his father before him, understands that the local government issue isn't totally the fault of Albany, but rather in part is the fault of the localities themselves, and thus the solutions might also be found locally.

But, I have to wonder if anyone could really solve this problem. It's long-standing, and to the degree to which Andrew and Mario Cuomo are correct, the local government problem is one in-part of local government's making. And therefore, indirectly, of our own.

Andrew Cuomo, at least, appears to recognize that a problem exists, and that it goes beyond the “unfunded mandates,” a term which during the Pataki years was used so often that it effectively lost all meaning.

Whoever wins the Gubernatorial election will have to deal with the issue, one way or another. Andrew Cuomo, it seems, will at least have a head start.

Sins, and Gifts, of the Father: Andrew and Mario Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo is very likely going to be New York State's next Governor.

His father, Mario Cuomo, of course was Governor in his own right some years ago (1983-1994). Radio commentator Alan Chartock in 1995 called Andrew and Mario's relationship “one of closest father/son relationships and collaborations in all political history.” (Me and Mario Cuomo: Conversations in Candor, page 104.) Andrew's likely Republican opponent, Rick Lazio, has attempted to use this relationship against Andrew in a variety of ways. Andrew has attempted to use it in his own favor.

There's an aspect of this important father-son relationship that's unlikely to be seriously explored, and that's the way the political similarities between the men could play out in Andrew Cuomo's Governorship, if he wins. I suppose Lazio will try to address this issue sooner or later, but the issue deserves more serious consideration than it can possibly get in the context of a political campaign.

It's widely believed that Andrew and Mario have always been close, which is very near to, but not quite, the truth. According to Robert S. McElvaine's 1988 book Mario Cuomo: A Biography, Mario was working too much during Andrew's early years for the two to be close then. Mario did not, for example, know how well Andrew was doing in High School. When Andrew went to Albany Law School in the late 1970s and early 1980s (he graduated in 1982 and was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1984, according to the State Office of Court Administration), Mario was to be working in Albany as Lieutenant Governor of New York State, and he insisted that the two men live together in an apartment on State Street. They have been close ever since, and Mario has made a conscious effort to make up for his not being around much during Andrew's early years. (Mario Cuomo: A Biography, pages 157-159.)

Andrew was a close adviser to Mario throughout Mario's tenure as Governor, but especially during his first term, when Andrew had an actual job in the administration (for $1 a year). After that, Andrew left to work for the Manhattan District Attorney's office. (Mario Cuomo: A Biography, page 130; “About Andrew Cuomo” from the Cuomo campaign's Internet site.) When Andrew got married, Mario lamented to Alan Chartock about how he would lose the ability to consult his son during the early morning hours. (Me and Mario Cuomo: Conversations in Candor, pages 103-104.) Andrew book-ended Mario's tenure as Governor, by first encouraging him to run after perceiving then-Governor Hugh Carey's position as vulnerable (Diaries of Maruo M. Cuomo: The Campaign for Governor, pages 66-67), and then twelve years later by informing Mario of his loss to George Pataki in 1994 (Andrew Kitzman, Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City 2000, page 139).

The close relationship carried into Andrew Cuomo's 2002 attempt to run against George Pataki. In Andrew's own words:

My race was great political theater. I was running last year in a primary to challenge George Pataki, who had defeated my father, Mario Cuomo. The New York press had choreographed the campaign into an Italian opera in which the son was to avenge the father's death. Unfortunately, the conclusion did not support the premise. [Andrew lost the Democratic nomination to then-Comptroller H. Carl McCall.] There is no romance in the opera: father dies, and then son does. (Andrew Cuomo, Crossroads: The Future of American Politics 2003, page xi.)

Based on this passage, Andrew seems to be well aware of the political importance of his relationship with his father. Note that Andrew in no way implies that the way the press had “choreographed” the race was inaccurate or inappropriate.

The relationship continues into Andrew's current gubernatorial race, as do the potential comparisons. In calling his political program “The New NY Agenda,” Andrew Cuomo in effect invited the comparisons to continue, and intensify. Because, as public radio reporter Karen DeWitt remembered, this slogan was first used by Mario. Karen trotted out a license plate from early in Mario's 1994 campaign that bore the phrase.

Mario Cuomo's use of the slogan went much further than a license plate, however. It also graced the covers of the official printings of Mario's 1993 and 1994 Messages to the Legislature. (Copies were located in the New York State Legislative Library.) That means “New New York” was more than just a political slogan to Mario. It was an attempt at a governing strategy. Andrew appears to view it similarly. After all, the phrase isn't just on Andrew's bumper stickers and buttons; it's the title of his policy book.

In addition to the title, some of the content of Andrew's policy book is also echoed in his father's long-ago Messages to the Legislature. To pick just one example, the embryo of Andrew's proposal for locally-led consolidations of and service sharing among local governments (The New NY Agenda, pages 85-92, also a policy concern of his as Attorney General, see here) is found in Mario's 1994 Message to the Legislature (pages 119-121). The proposals are not identical, but there are more similarities than differences.

The two men also appear to share similar overall political philosophies. In a 1999 speech to the National Press Club, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo argued for a positive role for government, spoke of how part of his role as a government official was to convince the people that government could be a positive solution to a given problem. He had a well-conceived, supportable analysis of why government-based solutions to social problems had or had not worked in the past. His analysis reflected eloquence, intelligence, and (and this is critical) a bureaucrat's appreciation of the necessity for competent public administration. (Andrew Cuomo, “Remarks at the National Press Club,” 28 April 1999, pages 7-9.)

Mario Cuomo has long-held to a similar pro-government philosophy, and by pro-government I mean a firm, anti-Reagenite belief that government can be a positive good. Many of Mario's written works, including 1995's Reason to Believe, 1994's The New York Idea, and 1974's Forest Hills Diary are nothing if not impassioned defenses of that philosophy. If it sounds a bit obvious to say that government “can” be a force for good, it must be remembered that Mario Cuomo's tenure as Governor overlapped with the Reagen era, wherein America's top government official, the President of the United States, paradoxically proclaimed “government is the problem.” Merely to defend the idea that government could do good for people, as Mario did, was to swim against the political tide, and risk drowning.

Much is made of Anderw Cuomo's current anti-tax and “rightsizing government” rhetoric. In this interview with Alan Chartock, for example, Andrew comes out staunchly against both new taxes and new government borrowing. Further, point 3 of Andrew's “New New York” agenda is the following:

Rightsizing Government. Government in New York is too big, ineffective and expensive. We must enlist the best private sector minds to help overhaul our more than 1,000 state agencies, authorities and commissions and reduce their number by 20 percent. We must make it easier to consolidate or share services among our more than 10,000 local governments. (The New NY Agenda, unnumbered page.)

7 out of 10 of the “10 Troubling Facts” described in his policy book relate to government being too big and expensive, and/or to New Yorkers' tax burden. (The New NY Agenda, pages 1-2.)

Some have said that Andrew Cuomo is trying to sound like a Republican, but I think he'd disagree. I think he might suggest nothing in his agenda is specifically Republican, or specifically conservative, and nothing is necessarily inconsistent with a pro-government, liberal philosophy. I can see no evidence that Andrew has ever, or likely will ever, pretend to be anything other than some kind of liberal, along very similar lines to his father.

Mario and Andrew have also both cast themselves as defenders of the downtrodden in society, those usually ignored by the political system and by politicians, those left behind by economic prosperity, progress, and growth.

None of Mario Cuomo's expressions of this are better-known than his 1984 “A Tale of Two Cities” speech.

Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The President said that he didn't understand that fear. He said, "Why, this country is a shining city on a hill." And the President is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.

But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.

In 1999 remarks to the National Press Club, which were also cited earlier, Andrew Cuomo made the following eerily similar statement:

The new American paradigm is the great American paradox.

President Clinton says this is not a story of success and that this nation can do better and that it's not truly a success until the economy is working for everyone, everywhere, and that now is the time to take this great economy, use it as a tool, use the resources to make the economy work everywhere. And he is right.

I have been to the other America, if you will. I have seen the dual reality of the time that we live in. And I can tell you the sense of hopelessness is just as bad as it has ever been. For all the progress we've made, Lord knows we have longer to go.

I also believe that if the American people saw the reality, the other reality, the other America, they would do something about it. If they saw the conditions of poverty that still exist in this nation, they would not allow it to continue. It's not about the America we know. We have to expose that reality, show them the other America, and they won't stand for it.

We also have to show them that we can actually solve it and that government can be an instrument in that solution.

And, finally, one similarity between the two men needs no citation: Their voices. No one could reasonably disagree that Andrew likely learned how to make a speech in large part by listening to his father. Sometimes even the minor differences vanish or lessen, and then the similarities are eerie.

There can be little doubt that Mario Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo have many commonalities that are potentially of great political importance.

New Yorkers have reason to both fear, and look forward to, another Cuomo administration.

Mario Cuomo had many gifts, but also many faults, and his twelve-year administration appears to be regarded by many New Yorkers as a failure. His 1994 defeat at the hands of the then-comparatively unknown George Pataki is surely enough proof that he was seen as a failure at least at the time. Hy Rosen and Peter Slocum's account of the Cuomo Administration in their great 1998 book From Rocky to Pataki paints a complex picture of a gifted Governor constrained by several factors some of which were beyond, and some within, his control. I'll outline three of these factors I saw at work, based on Rosen and Slocum's account.

Firstly, Mario was a liberal Democrat, explicitly in the FDR vein, in a decidedly conservative Republican era, personified by Ronald Reagen. Mario had to spend twelve years straddling the long divide between the FDR and Reagen archetypes. While he may have straddled it well for the most part, he couldn't do it forever. He appears to have in response adapted an incrementalism that he doesn't appear to have been comfortable with, and which had paradoxical effects. Secondly, Mario's tenure coincided with two recessions, and Mario managed to create the perception he, and by extension New York State, were generally anti-business. And thus, it was easy, and in-part true, to blame New York State's economic woes on Mario. From Rosen and Slocum's account, Mario doesn't appear to have ever realized the degree to which he'd helped to create the negative perception. (Andrew has certainly made attempts to paint himself with a pro-business brush.)

Thirdly, and most importantly for our present purposes, is that Mario appears to have just not been that good of a manager. He was part inspirational speaker and part policy wonk, but he failed on translating his principles into policy, into making government match his vision. Lacking that skill, complexity too-often became incoherence. (From Rocky to Pataki, pages 94-136.) It is this third factor that I think of as Mario Cuomo's primary political sin, the one his son needs most to not duplicate. Mario Cuomo could show New York where he wanted us to go, could even convince people, in the abstract, to go there. But, for whatever reason, he had difficulties finding the path, or following it once he found it, or in getting others to follow it. Or all three. Always not quite.

As a result, after twelve years of not quite, in 1994, George Pataki defeated Mario Cuomo with what amounted to one argument alone: That he was not Mario Cuomo.

Andrew Cuomo is likely New York State's next Governor.

There are many political similarities between Andrew Cuomo and Mario Cuomo, but there are also differences. Mario Cuomo earned the nickname “Hamlet on the Hudson” for giving off what were popularly perceived as perpetually-mixed signals on whether or not he would run for the Presidency. But Hamlet wasn't quite indecisive. He knew what he had to do. Where he failed was translating thought into action. The Hamlet analogy is thus appropriate to Mario Cuomo, but not quite in the way it was popularly used.

A picture on Andrew Cuomo's campaign Internet site illustrates what I think Andrew Cuomo hopes will be a difference between himself and his father. In that photo, Andrew is seen with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. The Clinton administration is firmly associated in the American mind, especially in the New York mind, with competent administration, and with good reason. Among other accomplishments, Clinton turned the Reagen-era federal budget deficits into a surplus.

Andrew Cuomo is likely the next Governor of New York. Rick Lazio has thus far been as unable to find campaign traction as he has a convincing argument. Anything can happen in politics, and 4 months is over 120 news cycles and several lifetimes, but at the moment the chief danger to Andrew Cuomo appears to be if starts to take victory for granted, and he shows no sign of doing so.

There are some signs that Andrew might be better than his father at translating thought into action, at overcoming Hamlet's dilemma. Andrew appears to have more of a bureaucrat's sensibility, which goes beyond having an idea of what's doable, into the realm of figuring out exactly how to do it.

Chris Smith wrote the following in late May:

Spitzer was ahead of the curve in his embodiment of voter anger, and fighting consumed him. Cuomo is no Mr. Nice Guy—many pols who know him well fear him—and he arrives as public rage with government soars. Yet his success in Albany will likely hinge on whether he can stroke people at the same time as he’s pushing them around: Manipulation we can believe in.

Absolutely true. But there's another, related but separate, issue upon which Andrew Cuomo's success, and hence New York's, will in-part depend: Andrew's ability to translate principle into politics and policy, and thought into action. His ability to neither water-down the analysis nor remain paralyzed by it.

Andrew's ability to duplicate his father's gifts, but not his father's sins.


Works Consulted or Cited

“About Andrew Cuomo.” http://www.andrewcuomo.com/about

Alan Chartock. “Interview with Andrew Cuomo.” 3 July 2010. http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1670295

Alan Chartock. Me and Mario Cuomo: Conversations in Candor. 1995.

Andrew Cuomo. Crossroads: The Future of American Politics. 2003.

Andrew Cuomo. “Remarks to the National Press Club.” 28 April 1999.

Andrew Cuomo. “The Empire Strikes Back.” Undated Speech at University of Buffalo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWAZTtTYC9M

Andrew Cuomo. The New NY Agenda: A Plan for Action. 2010.

Andrew Kitzman. Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City. 2000

Bob Herbert. “Unmasking Poverty.” The New York Times. 29 April 1999.

Casey Seiler. “Everything New is Old Again.” Capitol Confidential (blog). 28 May 2010. http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/27494/everything-new-is-old-again/

Chris Smith. “The Silver Surfer.” New York Magazine, online edition, 28 May 2020. http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/66300/

Elizabeth Benjamin. “Settling The ‘Status Cuomo’ Score.” Capital Tonight (blog). 4 June 2010. http://capitaltonight.com/2010/06/settling-the-status-cuomo-score/

Hy Rosen and Peter Slocum. From Rocky to Pataki: Character and Carictures in New York Politics. 1998.

Lars-Erik Nelson. “A New and Better Vision For Cities.” New York Daily News. 30 April 1999.

Mario Cuomo. 1993 Message to the Legislature.

Mario Cuomo. 1994 Message to the Legislature.

Mario Cuomo. “A Tale of Two Cities” (speech). 1984. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariocuomo1984dnc.htm

Mario Cuomo. Diaries of Mario M. Cuomo: The Campaign for Governor. 1984.

Mario Cuomo. Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-Income Housing. 1974.

Mario Cuomo. More Than Words: The Speeches of Mario Cuomo. 1993.

Mario Cuomo. The New York Idea: An Experiment in Democracy. 1994.

Mario Cuomo. Reason to Believe. 1995.

Michael Gormley. “Democratic Nominee Cuomo Seeks 'New' New York.” Associated Press. 28 May 2010. Found many places, accessed most recently here: http://pressrepublican.com/0100_news/x433574646/Dem-nominee-Cuomo-seeks-new-New-York

“President Clinton Announces Another Record Budget Surplus.” CNN.com. 27 September 2010. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/

Rick Lazio. Various documents on lazio.com.

Robert S. McElvaine. Mario Cuomo: A Biography. 1988.

Star-Ledger Editorial Board. “NY Democrat Andrew Cuomo sounding a lot like NJ Gov. Chris Christie.” Star-Ledger, online edition. 30 May 2010. http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2010/05/ny_democrat_andrew_cuomo_sound.html

Is the Budget Done?

Is the New York State Budget done, as Senate Democratic Conference Leader Sampson claims? (See here and here.)

Leader Sampson makes this claim despite the Senate's inability to pass a revenue bill.

Is he right? It depends on your point of view I suppose. Most things do these days.

But personally I'd say no.

Budgets require two things as a general rule: Money earned, money spent. As mentioned above, a key revenue bill remains un-passed, due to the public objections of Senator Stachowski and the less-public objections of Senator Thompson, Senator Foley, and Senator Breslin, who are holding out for some kind of change on how SUNY tuition works.

Senator Stachowski has become the public face of this particular battle, because he's the one actually stalling the revenue bill on this proposal's behalf. The other interested Senators appear to be willing to vote for the revenue bill and deal with SUNY tuition separately. Stachowski, however, is effect derailing the entire budget to deal with the SUNY tuition issue here and now.

So, no revenue bill. Yet, Conference Leader Sampson thinks the budget is “done.”

Is it? Frankly, I'm amazed someone so much as suggested that. The Capital Tonight article linked to above, and linked to again here, states that the Legislators aren't getting paid yet. Only a New York State Legislator could proclaim a job done when he is specifically having his paycheck withheld for not finishing that same job.

As far as I can tell the Governor's budget vetoes have knocked the State's budget back to the Governor's initial proposals, more or less, but the Governor's budget included some additional revenues. Anyone remember the “fat tax?” Even the Governor's austere budget needed that, along with other revenue items, or at least needed other revenue items to replace them. And, unless I've missed something, no replacements have passed. That's kind of what the revenue bill was about.

The State Comptroller has an “auditing” power under the State Constitution, and traditionally that power is used by the Comptroller to sound off on the State Budget in an annual report traditionally called the Review of the Enacted Budget. Sometimes the press refers to this report as the Comptroller “certifying” the budget.

The current Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, and at least one previous Comptroller, H. Carl McCall, have agreed that the Comptroller's “certification” of the budget is oft-exaggerated. Presumably, Comptrollers do not wish the political process to in effect assign their office responsibilities that they may lack the power to fulfill.

“There's a general conception,” Comptroller DiNapoli stated here,

“that I certify that the revenues are there, but that's beyond what we're called on to do," DiNapoli said. "The comptroller does not certify as to the validity of the budget appropriations and the presence of revenues. That's not a a power I have."

"Under New York law, we have a very limited role and it's limited to a determination that there are sufficient appropriations in budget bills for state operations and local assistance. That doesn't mean we make a decision that the revenues are there to back up those appropriations."

"The only certification is with repsect [sic] to whether they acted on budget bills so the legislative pay can happen."

The Comptroller is right, as far as I can tell. See Joseph Zimmerman's The Government and Politics of New York State 2008, pages 249-251, and Robert B. Ward's New York State Government 2006, pages 85-87.

While, the Comptroller may lack the power to actually block a badly-done budget that lacks revenues to back up the appropriations, surely the case this year, the Comptroller's Review of the Enacted Budget report has often not been shy about publicly taking the Governor and the Legislature to task for such budgets. To see what the reports look like, see the index of reports here.

Sometimes the Reviews are friendly. For examples, see the Reviews of the 2003-2004 and 1998-1999 enacted budgets.

Sometimes, though, the Reviews are less friendly. For example, the Review of the 2009-2010 budget in effect stated that the budget was technically balanced, but was on shaky ground, and was subject to the potential for mid-year changes. The Comptroller's office repeatedly warned of “structural imbalances.” The report opened with the following devastating lines:

The Enacted Budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2009-10 clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive fiscal reform. It relies on practices and patterns that result in poor fiscal outcomes over the long-term—recurring spending that outpaces recurring revenue, and the use of temporary revenues including federal stimulus funds to support ongoing costs. (Page 1)

The Review of the 2002-2003 enacted budget was similar.

While the budget as presented by the Division of the Budget is balanced it relies on fiscal gimmickry and dubious funding streams that may not materialize. (page 1)

Also very similar was the Review of the 1999-2000 enacted budget.

Most of the 1999-00 spending increases, when compared to the Executive Budget, are driven by current law and the legislative rejection of proposed cuts in education and Medicaid, rather than by program expansions. Even the large education aid increase was driven by the phase-in of multiyear programs and by general growth in current school aid formulas. The General Fund budget was balanced with virtually no spending cuts. (Page 1)

Also:

The level of non-recurring resources used in the enacted budget increases ten-fold from $64 million last year to nearly $600 million in 1999-00. This is particularly disturbing given the current robust economy. The use of significant one-time revenues to balance budgets was common practice during economic recessions. The use of non-recurring resources to fund ongoing spending exacerbates future budget imbalance. (Pages 1-2)

This year's budget, of course, from what we can tell from the press, leaves behind budget gimmickry and trickery for flat-out fantasy. The budget is so far from being done in any meaningful sense that the Legislators themselves aren't getting paid.

Is the budget done? No, it's not.

The Republican candidate for Comptroller, former hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, has called for Comptroller DiNapoli to not “certify” this year's budget. We've seen above that the Comptroller actually doesn't have the power to "certify" the budget per se. Wilson's implication that the Comptroller does have such a power reflects what might be a poor understanding on part of candidate Wilson of the office he seeks, and frankly makes me wonder about his hedge fund.

We've seen, though, that Comptrollers haven't been why about using the Review of the Enacted Budget report to highlight problems or issues in the State budget. As well they shouldn't be. New York State elects its Comptroller separately from the Governor for a reason, and that's to serve as a counter-weight. Comptrollers rarely have an electoral incentive to sugarcoat the budget review, certainly no more incentive than they have to sugarcoat their famous audits of State agencies and programs, even if the Comptroller and Governor are friendly. This year's Review should be an interesting read, and that's assuming the Comptroller even bothers to write one given the lack of a revenue bill.

One thing is clear, however, it's likely to be difficult politically for the Legislature to campaign on having accomplished a budget that a Comptroller they appointed to fill a vacancy in the office, and who is a former Legislator himself, doesn't feel comfortable signing off on. And, really, how could the Comptroller's Review this year be positive, especially with no revenue bill?

Is the budget done?

I'm amazed any State Legislator would say so. It's telling that Conference Leader Sampson, who as a lawyer employed by a law firm probably doesn't need his legislative salary, was the one to say it.

Newsflash: Yes, Richard Ravitch's Appointment is Legal

I periodically read in the “blogosphere” that Richard Ravitch is, despite a ruling of the New York State Court of Appeals to the contrary, an “illegal” Lieutenant Governor. Basically, some bloggers sometimes feel that the Court erred in the Skelos v. Paterson decision of September 2009, granting Governors of New York State the right to fill an opening in the position of Lieutenant Governor through appointment.

It is of course anyone's right to disagree with the Court's legal or policy reasoning. That would be an opinion, to which one is entitled. But to say that Ravitch is an “illegal” Lieutenant Governor is, simply, a defiance of reality, not an opinion. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.

In our system, the State Court of Appeals is the final arbiter of official interpretation of the New York State Constitution. End of story. As far as I can tell, if for example another State agency openly defies a Court of Appeals ruling, they are in violation of the law

If we here below disagree with a Court of Appeals decision, we have two choices aside from just speaking out (which of course is also our right). One is to lobby our elected representatives to change the Constitution. Two is to lobby our elected officials to only support nominees to the Court of Appeals whose interpretations of the Constitution are closer to our own.

A similar system, of course, exists at the federal level, wherein the U.S. Supreme Court is in effect granted the power of officially interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes, the Supreme Court hands down ridiculous decisions. One example would be Dred Scott v. Sanford (60 US 593, 1863), which affirmed the Constitutionality of slavery, despite its being an affront to the fundamental American values on which our Constitution was based. Another would be the recent decision declaring that a prisoner in police custody had to specifically declare his right to remain silent, merely remaining silent wasn't invoking your right to remain silent. Of course, once you open your mouth to say something, you're waiving your right to remain silent. Another example would be Plessy v. Ferguson (163 US 537, 1896), which affirmed the Constitutionality of racially segregated schools.

Ah, but when I was a student, about a million years ago, it was popular to teach Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483, 1954) which, in effect if not in formality, reversed Plessy and declared the racial segregation of schools to be unconstitutional and mandated the integration of schools, in a similar light. Brown, one of the most important and central Supreme Court rulings in American history, was disparaged in a depressing way.

Disagreeing with the high court of whatever the relevant jurisdiction of is a common pastime in America. Disagreeing with the Court of Appeals on the Lieutenant Governor matter is but one example. For years and years, wrote legal scholar James Pope, organized labor had developed what amounts to an alternative constitution, wherein the U.S. Constitution specifically granted the right strike (James Pope, “Labor's Constitution of Freedom,” Yale Law Journal, 1997).

I suspect that a similar article to Pope's could be written about gun rights advocates, and to a lesser degree about Conservatives in general. In the Conservative “alternative Constitution,” the 10th amendment grants all powers “not specifically delegated” to the federal government “to the States,” as opposed to how the language actually reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

People sometimes like to read in “expressly delegated” and leave off “or to the people.”

Now, one could say that an alternative Constitution has developed in New York State, wherein it is not legal for a Governor to appoint a Lieutenant Governor.

The power granted to courts does, sometimes, frighten me. Some of the decisions cited above, Plessy and Dredd Scott, for example, were spectacularly bad calls, for the Constitution, for the Supreme Court itself, and for America. One of the founding fathers of New York State, Robert Yates, advocated against the ratification of the U.S. Constitution under the pen name Brutus. One of his arguments, which proved to be quite prophetic, was that the Supreme Court would have the sole power to decide the Constitutionality of laws, and to interpret the Constitution, and there would be no appeal from it. (For more detail, see Jackson Turner Main's 1961 book The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788, and Herbert Storing's 1981 book What the Anti-Federalists Were For.)

“Brutus” was of course exactly right about the potential power of the Court. It is telling, I think, that when Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison in 1787, appeared granting a kind of veto power to the Supreme Court (similar to but not quite the same as what we now call “Judicial Review,” the ability of the Supreme Court to nullify legislation on the grounds that it violated the U.S. Constitution), that it was specifically to be with a possible 2/3 override by the Congress, highly similar to their override power over the Presidential veto.

But, the concerns of Yates and Jefferson regardless, this is the system we have. I'm sure there have been several examples of openly defying the Supreme Court's view of the U.S. Constitution (or of the Court of Appeals' view of the New York State Constitution) for that matter. In fact I think I remember hearing some years back about how the Secret Service consistently defies standard Court interpretation of the statute that prohibits threatening the life of a U.S. President, treating every threat as illegal when, the Courts say, it's supposed to include only threats that have some likelihood of being carried out.

However, the biggest example of openly defying Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution that I can think of then-President Andrew Jackson's defiance of Worcester v. Georgia (315 US 515, 1832).

The result of Jackson's defiance, by the way, was the Cherokee Indians' famous Trail of Tears.

I find it to be potentially telling that one of the most prominent examples of open defiance of the Supreme Court was so catastrophic, and is so poorly regarded today. President Jackson had raw power at his fingertips, and the Court didn't. And at the end of the day that's really all Jackson's defiance was about. Arguably, it was the same dynamic that led to the Trail of Tears in the first place. We (America) had the power, they (the Cherokee) didn't.

One may disagree with Ravitch's appointment, on Constitutional or policy grounds. Or even just because you don't like Ravitch. Or maybe you want Senator Malcolm Smith to be Governor if David Paterson dies. (Though I can't guess why anyone would want that.)

But, please, don't call the appointment illegal. It's legal. How do we know it's legal? Because the Court of Appeals said so. You can argue it shouldn't be legal. You can point out reasons why it shouldn't be legal. You can disagree with the policy. But you can't say it's illegal and be consistent with reality.

That's the system we have. Judging by the Trail of Tears case, we appear to do better when we go with the system, and seek to change a law that we view as wrong, than when we try to somehow pretend a law isn't really a law when we disagree with it.

(Re-)Considering the Disgraced: Spitzer vs. Bruno

To put it as kindly as I can, at this point it's clear that both former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno have more negatives than positives. Each man appears to be corrupt in his own way. Each man appears to suffer from what I've termed "The Entitlement Syndrome."

Measuring the two against each other, though, is less difficult than one might think. I can't quite decide what's sadder, the mere fact that Bruno clearly comes off better, or the fact that of the two Bruno's the only one who's been convicted and sentenced for his illegal conduct.

Eliot Spitzer served as Governor from the beginning of 2007 through March of 2008. His brief reign was marked with acrimony and scandal, and he was finally forced to resign in disgrace. Joe Bruno, by contrast, had a distinguished, long career as a Senator before taking the Majority Leader spot. He took that spot in 1995 and served until he resigned, under a cloud but on his own terms, late in 2008.

After Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign in disgrace, the press repeatedly handed Bruno opportunities to gloat. Wisely, however, Bruno, at least publicly, remained at once gentlemanly and cautious. Bruno expressed concern for the Governor and his family, during this difficult time. Bruno carried on the machinery of government, passing the Senate's draft of the State Budget quickly on the heels of the scandal breaking.

By contrast, Spitzer, already long out of office by the time Joe Bruno was convicted and sentenced, responded to Bruno's troubles with ridiculous gloating. Spitzer, you see, knew Bruno was on the take all along. Spitzer, with his keen investigator's instinct, could tell right away. Not addressed by Spitzer is that he was also engaging in illegal conduct himself at the time, and thus was familiar with some of the warning signs.

Bruno's crimes were the type you had to build not just a factual case for, but a legal case for. Prosecutors had to show that not certain conduct occurred, but that the conduct fit the definition of some crime or other. They did it well enough that I began watching the trial as a Bruno supporter and soured on him day by day. By contrast, however, Spitzer's conduct was clearly illegal. There was no legal argument to be made, one could only dispute the fact pattern. And Spitzer didn't dispute the fact pattern, at least not publicly that I saw. We'll never know the details of why Spitzer was not prosecuted, and it's best that I not voice my strong suspicious, but it should be clear, however, that there was no doubt whatsoever that what Spitzer had done was actually illegal.

Bruno's legislative achievements over many years as Senate Majority Leader were numerous. Spitzer's legislative achievements during his brief, terrifying reign consisted largely of Workers' Compensation reform, ethics reform, and one on-time budget. I'm informed through conversations with knowledgeable folks down at the State Capitol building, and by going over old documents, that Workers' Compensation reform had been in the works for years and years before Spitzer's reign, and that the final bill had considerably more input from the State Legislature than from Spitzer and his people. The Spitzer-era ethics reform has been something of a disaster, with the head of the Public Integrity Commission already having to defend the Commission's existence, and the Commission issuing such bizarre, thoughtless, senseless edicts as what I've termed the “Mocha Protocol.” Spitzer also had a record of quasi-legislative Executive Orders to consider, but these didn't amount to much either.

Bruno was a self-made man, who rose from the streets of Glens Falls to the corridors of power. I have little doubt that Spitzer wouldn't have gotten anyplace without his father. The best evidence of this is the fiscal shenanigans Spitzer and his father used during Spitzer's first run at Attorney General. Regrettably we must go to ever-not-quite-reliable Roger Stone as the primary source of this, as he's been the only one really highlighting it to any degree. And, then of course, there's the fact that after resigning as Governor, Spitzer ran right back to Daddy as his primary source of income.

And we won't even begin to get into Spitzer's role on Wall Street as Attorney General, where his juvenile “sheriff” act, I have argued, forced unethical and perhaps illegal conduct even further underground, where it was harder to ferret out, while simultaneously driving good, needed Wall Street analysis jobs to India.

I come here not to praise Bruno, but to help bury Spitzer, whose bizarre, snide “I knew it all along” act is pathetic and disgraceful.

And, therefore, in its own way, quite fitting.