New York Gov. DavidPaterson had a simple answer at the National Press Club on Thursday when he was asked what lessons he took away from the experience of his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, who was caught in a prostitution sting here at the Mayflower Hotel: “Be careful when you come to Washington.”
Once the laughter died down, he added that when it comes to politics, “We often talk in absurd extremes” and elevate public officials to “mythological” status. “Our public officials are just like the rest of us” in terms of their fallibility, he added, “but when we run for public office, we pretend” otherwise.
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“It’s almost sport” to tear them down, he said, “so I saved you the trouble. I did it myself.” (He was referring to his disclosure of past marital infidelity shortly after he took office.)
The legally blind Paterson delivered his 30-minute speech from memory, peppering it with facts and figures and dropping several sly jokes and pop culture references:
– On not wanting to share his secret that energy costs are actually luring companies back to New York: “I’m going to bring down the cone of silence. This is Agent 86 talking to all of you.”
– On the bygone days of easily finding and extracting oil: “Remember when the Beverly Hillbillies went shooting for some food and out of the ground came some bubblin’ crude? That show went off, and so did that idea.”
– On dealing with economic slowdown at an early stage: “President Herbert Hoover thought we should wait and keep checking the numbers. How’d that work out for him?”
He may have saved his best one-liners, however, for Republican nominee John McCain. After praising McCain’s service to the country, he added, “If he’s the answer to America’s problems, then the question must be ridiculous.”
And he said that McCain might need some divine intervention if he hopes to take New York’s electoral votes. “The candidate that would help John McCain win New York would probably be a resurrection.”
