Opinion

Current unfit governor, and former unfit governor, criticize Tea Party candidate as unfit

Rusty Weiss Editor, The Mental Recession
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At the risk of being branded racist, this can easily be defined as a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The current and former governors of New York recently blasted Tea Party gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino during a Future of New York forum.  Drawing on years of personal experience, Governor David Paterson and his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, blasted Paladino as being “unfit for office.”

Paterson was more measured in his remarks, saying specifically that, “I don’t think he is fit for public service.  He made transferred emails back and forth that were racist, homophobic, misogynist.”

Paladino has frequently been the recipient of charges that he is a bit of a loose cannon, though the biggest subject of Democrat scorn seems to be the aforementioned politically incorrect e-mails, along with his choice of words when speaking of cleaning up the state.  The Albany Times Union refers to Paladino’s hyperbole as a “litany of controversial remarks.”

One such example can be seen in his plans for welfare reform.  Paladino has proposed converting prisons into welfare dorms where people can be taught “personal hygiene.”  Anti-poverty experts were nearly as appalled at this suggestion as they were when they heard of the federal government’s plan for personal hygiene — over $800,000 in stimulus funds for African genital washing.  Well, maybe not.

While the wisdom of Paladino’s decision to forward controversial e-mails and his choice of rhetoric are certainly open to discussion, one has to wonder what Paterson would label his administration considering his own unfit past.  During his career, Paterson has seen fit to bask in these crowning achievements…

  • He was accused of witness tampering to protect an aid that had been accused of violently assaulting his girlfriend — going so far as to call the woman himself.  The aid is alleged to have “choked her, stripped her of much of her clothing, (and) smashed her against a mirrored dresser.”
  • He has admitted to several affairs.  Two of his mistresses were on the state payroll.
  • He has pushed for legislation requiring police to shoot to harm, not kill.
  • He was concluded to have lied during his testimony regarding an investigation into free tickets he had obtained to last year’s World Series.  The findings of an independent counsel suggest that he may be facing criminal charges.


Then of course, there is Eliot Spitzer.  It would be easy to dismiss the former governor of New York with three simple words:

Client.  Number.  Nine.

But to do so oversimplifies some other “unfit” achievements during his political tenure.

  • He blatantly lied about financing for both of his 1994 and 1998 attorney general campaigns.  He justified skirting campaign finance law by simply saying, “the law is porous.”  This is the equivalent of a bank robber justifying his crime by saying, “the security is porous.”
  • He called a reporter from the New York Daily News, Michael Aronson, at his home, in an attempt to intimidate him into ceasing his critical coverage.
  • He used the New York State Police force to spy on his political opponent (a man he had referred to as a “senile piece of s***”), then blocked the release of e-mails regarding the matter.
  • He denied wearing calf-length black socks during sexual encounters with prostitutes, despite it being confirmed by three different and independent sources.  Though I’m not sure which is the more egregious offense — the black socks, or the denial.

Despite these resumes, Paterson and Spitzer feel they have a basis for criticizing Carl Paladino as unfit to govern.  Meaning, the two clown princes of New York State corruption feel that over 270,000 New Yorkers cast an unfit vote in the Republican primary.

These statements emphasize just how out of touch liberals in the state have become.  Paladino won his primary because the voters are weary of the arrogant and abusive culture being cultivated by politicians in New York.

And, if it takes someone that they deem as unfit to come in and clean up their over-taxed, over-spent, and uber-corrupt mess, then there could be no more fitting result in November.

Rusty can be contacted at www.mentalrecession.com