THE DAILY BLADE: Après Spitzer
With apologies to the legendary Nina Simone, The Stiletto woke up this morning with a song in her heart:
Birds flyin' high you know how NY feels
Sun in the sky you know how NY feels
Breeze driftin' on by you know how NY feels
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for NYers
And we’re fee-ee-lin’ good!
Eliot Spitzer (D) was elected governor of NY with a landslide 69 percent of the vote, and now barely a year after assuming his duties 70 percent of voters wanted him to resign in the wake of revelations that he’s been a whoremonger for at least a decade. A Marist poll last week also found that 66 percent wanted Spitzer impeached and removed from office if he did not leave of his own accord. Today, NYers get their wish – and a new governor.
Unlike his predecessor, Gov. David A. Paterson has no desire to be a steamroller, reports The New York Times:
Mr. Spitzer once bestowed that nickname on himself, and went on to earn it with a confrontational, sometimes bellicose political manner that alienated not only Republicans in Albany but also many of his fellow Democrats. Mr. Paterson’s temperament and style, his friends and fellow officials say, is as mild and subtle as Mr. Spitzer’s is not.
“David is a guy who likes to be liked,” said George Arzt, a New York political consultant who once worked for Mr. Spitzer. “He does not live on the edge. He does not thrive on confrontation. He is the opposite of the steamroller.” …
Mr. Paterson, the scion of a prominent Harlem political dynasty and a consummate political insider, may be less inclined — and under the circumstances, less able — to offer such help. He will come into office with only a few days transition time, and will almost immediately have to grapple with passing the state budget, for which he will require the cooperation of Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Mr. Bruno, Mr. Spitzer’s fiercest antagonist over the last year, has already signaled that he is willing to offer Mr. Paterson - with whom he has always enjoyed warm relations - a political détente.
At a press conference last week, Patterson told reporters, “I am prepared. At this point, it is time to get back to the business of the state.” With a nod to the stunning series of events that elevated him to the state’s highest office, Patterson added, “I did not get to this position in the way that most people have or that most people would want,” reports The Washington Post. In an interview with radio station WGDJ, he also likened himself to “the student who’s getting ready for the final exam but they didn’t attend any classes.”
True enough, but as WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. points out, Spitzer had “vowed to shake up government and politics in New York [and] did so in ways absolutely no one anticipated.” Dionne notes that while Paterson “can be a fierce Democratic partisan, he is positively courtly toward his Republican adversaries and often entertains them with his wit.” But while he lacks Spitzer’s a toxic personality, Paterson is no pushover:
Many who had bitter tangles with Spitzer, particularly Joe Bruno, the Republican state Senate leader, are overjoyed to have a friendlier governor, which makes reformers nervous.
But state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat who worked closely with Paterson when the latter was the Democratic Senate leader, argues that a toughness lies below Paterson's graciousness.
He notes that Paterson viewed the previous Democratic Senate leader as too willing to play ball with Republicans and organized a rebellion against him. "In Albany, you know how rare a successful coup is," Schneiderman said. Paterson, he added, "has a record of taking progressive positions, but doing it in a smart way and picking his fights."
Spitzer turned Albany upside down. Paterson will try to change it from the inside out. New Yorkers may welcome a governor who is less adventurous, at least in certain respects.
Here’s an example of the wit that Dionne lauds: The Times reports that at the news conference, when asked whether he “had ever patronized a prostitute … Paterson … paused, gave a sly smile, and answered, ‘Only the lobbyists.’” The paper gives NY taxpayers a heads-up on what to expect from a Paterson administration:
Mr. Paterson signaled that he would remain committed to most of Mr. Spitzer’s priorities, including the broad outlines of the governor’s budget plan, a push for more restrictions on campaign donations, and a $1 billion public investment fund to invigorate the upstate economy.
“I promised the governor yesterday that I would commit myself to the people of this great state, that we would have stability and continuity in those challenges that lie ahead,” said Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, at the news conference.
Unlike Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Paterson, who has favored tax increases on the wealthy in the past, did not rule out raising taxes to balance the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins April 1. The Assembly is pushing for a measure that would increase taxes on those earning more than $1 million to 7.7 percent from 6.85 percent. …
Mr. Paterson seemed more inclined to revise Mr. Spitzer’s rhetoric rather than his policies.
However, the Revolution #9 that catapulted Paterson,53, “from relative obscurity to center stage” is also subjecting him to “serious scrutiny of his legislative record, political connections and handling of government money over two decades,” reports The New York Times, which examines Paterson’s “controversial policies [and] actions that might have raised questions about conflicts of interest”:
As a state senator, for instance, Mr. Paterson helped direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to a hospital in his Harlem district that for a time employed his wife, including for two years as its paid lobbyist in Albany.
He sponsored legislation that would have made it legal for noncitizens to vote in state and local elections and another bill that would have made it legal to use force against a police officer while resisting a wrongful arrest - a proposal that was blasted by police unions and went nowhere. And his father, Basil A. Paterson, is a top lawyer for some of the state’s most powerful unions, whose money has long influenced policymaking in Albany.
Within the confines of the Harlem district that he represented for 23 years, Mr. Paterson is a well-known commodity, a scion of a legendary club that included his father, who is a former New York secretary of state, deputy mayor and state senator; David N, Dinkins, New York City’s first black mayor; Representative Charles B. Rangel; and Percey E. Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president - although he sometimes bucked their wishes.
But to the rest of the state, he is a virtual unknown, having received little attention and even less scrutiny. For most of his two decades in office, Mr. Paterson was a member, and then leader, of one of the least relevant, and least noticed, groups in the Legislature, the Democratic minority of the State Senate. …
“He is a governor who has only been, quote unquote, vetted, by the constituents in his State Senate district in Manhattan,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College. “He has never gotten the statewide scrutiny that a gubernatorial candidate would expect.”
It remains to be seen how long Paterson’s honeymoon with state legislators lasts. But one thing’s for sure, according to Dionne: It’s unlikely that the Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader will allow a tax increase to pass, even if they have to “engineer exactly who has to vote yes and who gets to vote no.” That’s how things have always been done in Albany.
Itfadalou Fi Wal-Mart*
A new Wal-Mart in Dearborn, MI - AKA the capital of Arab America, with some 300,000 people of Middle Eastern descent living in the area – offers a variety of foodstuffs essential to a well-stocked Muslim pantry, along with Arabic music. The store has also hired 35 Arabic-speaking employees, as well as a local Arab-American educator to teach the infidels on the staff (that is to say, Christians and Jews) “cultural sensitivity,” reports The Associated Press:
“It's like a farmers' market,” said Bill Bartell, the store manager who developed [aisle 3] the international aisle with Tut's International Export & Import Co., the Dearborn-based distributor that handles the sourcing for many of the store's Middle-Eastern items. …
More than a year of studying the market and meeting with community groups was put to the test last fall, when Bartell and a Tut's executive began to work on what would become aisle 3. They set up an 80-foot-long counter in an empty warehouse and hauled out products - date-filled cookies, grape leaves, vacuum-packed olives, chick peas and a 97-ounce jar of olive oil imported from the
As he recalled their effort, a few women in hijabs - traditional Muslim head scarves - inspected produce. One spoke in Arabic to Mohamad Atwi, the developmental store manager.
Bartell said the store aims to offer convenience - not a comprehensive selection of specialty products.
So one might surmise that the selection at this – or any other – Wal-Mart will never be broad enough to include racks of chadors and burqas on hangers, or jihadi video games.
*Welcome To Wal-Mart (Egyptian dialect)
Can I get a price check on hand grenades? Aisle 12.
- Wal-Mart Employee; Dearborn, MI
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About Signapore Math - sometimes I wish we could have used it when I was young; we used Ray's and Saxon. Guess there's always the opportunity to use it with my future children (especially if it gets a little cheaper between now and then!).
TLAM - I'm glad I don't live in MI. :D
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