Last week, voters across the state got to witness, first hand, two wacky moments that highlight the dysfunctional nature of Albany. First, State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, a Democrat, admitted that he used a government employee to chauffeur his wife around town without reimbursing the state for the significant expense. Then, it was revealed that Attorney General candidate Jeanine Pirro, a Republican, was under investigation by a variety of agencies, most notably the United States Attorney’s Office, after being caught on tape asking the now disgraced former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to wiretap her family’s boat.
And just why would Mrs. Pirro need to record conversations on her boat? Because she suspected her husband, Al, of cheating on and she wanted to catch him in the act. Some women would just divorce a husband that has caused them so much pain in the past, but not Mrs. Pirro. She prefers the stealth route. “What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him fuck her every night?” according to a transcript obtained by WNBC-TV, the news organization that broke the story. “What am I supposed to do? I can go on the boat. I’ll put the fucking thing on myself.”
Throughout this year’s State campaigns, every politician under the sun has been running with the same platform: It’s time to reform the culture of corruption and dysfunction that has engulfed Albany. Yet the reactions to these two incidents, at least so far, seem to indicate that the response will be business as usual amongst Albany’s insider class. Hevesi has admitted that what he did was wrong. But while his Republican opponent Christopher Callaghan is calling for his resignation, Democrats see no need for such an extreme move. When asked by his Republican opponent John Faso at last week’s gubernatorial debate if he agreed that Hevesi should resign, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer demurred, stating that while what the comptroller did was wrong, he was still a good comptroller and his apology was enough for him. He did note that if an employee of his had abused taxpayer funding in such a way, there would be “serious consequences” for that staffer. Because, you know, everything changes on day one.
Republicans have fared no better. Mrs. Pirro’s family matters are threatening to eclipse former senate candidate KT McFarland’s circus act in terms of embarrassment, so much so that the best campaign move for her at this point might simply be to divorce her husband, who has been nothing but a drag on her political career for years, ever since he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 months in prison in 2000. On the tapes of her and Kerik’s conversations, Ms. Pirro specifically blames her husband for her political slide, stating that without Al and his baggage, she would “ move into the governor’s mansion.”
But despite all this, Mrs. Pirro insists that she is the real victim and that the leak of this transcript is nothing more than a politically motivated attempt to smear her campaign. Well, duh. You’re running a political campaign and these things happen. Now, Mrs. Pirro is running around demanding that whoever leaked the tape transcript to the media be prosecuted. That’s a sure way to make friends in the media, go around threatening their sources with jail time.
Like Hevesi and the Democrats, Mrs. Pirro’s party backers are standing strong behind their woman. Both Governor George Pataki and State Republican Chairman Steve Minarik are firmly standing behind her, with presidential hopeful Pataki even stepping up to the plate to host a fundraiser for her in the near future. The only man who backed away from Mrs. Pirro in any meaningful, public way was former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who canceled his own appearance at her fundraiser last week. Despite walking away from Mrs. Pirro, Giuliani’s move probably has more to do with Kerik. Since Giuliani pushed Kerik’s nomination as Department of Homeland Security chief in 2004, the former police commissioner’s career has spiraled downhill and out of control, featuring everything from hiring an illegal immigrant as a nanny to accepting gifts from contractors doing business with the city. Giuliani likely decided that answering questions about his former deputy’s tendency to discuss the best ways to snoop on a third party would not have any positive effect on his own presidential chances in 2008.
Why is Albany so dysfunctional? Judging from these two incidents, one factor is the inability of anyone to criticize anyone else from his or her own party, no matter what the offender might have done wrong. So come on everyone, how about we toss out a few more critical words for our colleagues over the next few weeks. And just because that guy or gal next to you has the same little letter next to his name, it doesn’t mean he or she is always right.
