GOVERNOR SANFORD: “I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.”

Maria is my Bo Peep; she is special and unique and fabulous in a whole host of ways that are worth a much longer conversation.. To be continued

She maketh me to lie down to give me magnificently gentle kisses,

She leadeth me beside her tan lines and the curves of her hips and the erotic beauty of her holding herself (or two magnificent parts thereof) in the faded glow of night’s light

I really want to like Kevin Parker. Really.

There’s good reason why I should. Of the five Democratic State Senators who‘ve ever been indicted, Kevin is the only who has neither made common cause with the Republicans, nor has even threatened to.

Though also accused of assault, Kevin has the virtue of loyalty, at least in regard to his party.

"...A short while ago, there was a little confab in the middle of the chamber floor between Shelly Mayer, counsel to the Senate Democrats, Sen. Malcolm Smith and former Minority Leader Marty Connor.

There's something really ironic about the fact that one deposed minority leader (recall that Connor was ousted in a 2002 coup by none other than David Paterson himself) advising an all-but deposed majority leader (Smith) on how to hold on to power.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all….

My alarm rang at 5:30 AM. I tried to remember why. It was primary day.

A prospective voter was given a palm card for the anointed team, and then went inside to cast their vote. On the way out, they presented the card at the table and got it stamped. Later their child would return it at school and it would be entered into a lottery, with the winners receiving trading cards with pictures of the Great Rabbis.

It is now the ninth day of Albany’s Time of Troubles and we’ve entered the game show phase.

Democrats have put forth a power-sharing agreement, while Republicans are insisting on the bigger share. If they do not decide who is in charge among themselves, a judge may decide it for them.

Democrats are saying “Let’s Make a Deal,” while Republican respond, “Monty, I’d rather see what’s behind door number three.”

The big surprise here is the unexpected willingness of the Democratic Conference, including Leader in Name Only Malcolm Smith, to behave like grown-ups. Looking back, historians may find this to be the one silver lining to this dark cloud reigning forth on our Capitol.

Tom Friedman: The Times’s Robert Mackey reported that in Tehran “chants of ‘Death to America’ ” at rallies for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week were answered by chants of “Death to the Taliban — in Kabul and Tehran” at a rally for his opponent, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Encouraging, yes. And to some extent, a message to the skeptics (myself, to some extent, included) that the Cairo speech, warts and all, may pay real dividends.

This week in Time, another Peter Beinart Democrat (Peter Beinart), also expressed his approval of the new direction in Mid East politics (which, in regard to Israeli settlements, isn‘t really new--it‘s been the same since 1967).

As was once again proven this week, there is nothing more destructive to the New York State political process than a billionaire scorned. In fact, this may be the single best argument for Mike Bloomberg’s re-election.

In 1989, for reasons too petty to be worth discussing, Al D’Amato filled his billionaire buddy Ron Lauder’s head full of visions of dancing sugarplums, and convinced him to run for Mayor, the better to sabotage the hopes of his former protégé, Rudy Giuliani, who had shown him insufficiently gratitude and fealty.

Lauder, not realizing his own campaign was a sick joke, got his clocked cleaned, and went into shock. Finally realizing his political career was dead, Lauder undertook Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief, but never got beyond anger, which he decided to visit upon the entire New York City political establishment, by finally hiring some competent people and putting on the ballot and passing an initiative instituting term limits for City offices, thereby putting an end date to Rudy’s term in public office before it had even started.

Efforts for the Democrats to hang onto the 32 votes needed to pass legislation in the State Senate appear to be doomed. At best, the Democrats still have a shot at winning back the vote of Hiram Monserrate. If the Democrats can both win back Monserrate, and obtain a ruling voiding Monday’s vote changing the Senate Leadership, then the leadership of the Senate, and the concomitant control over office space, lulus, leadership positions and other internal resources will remain in their hands, although, without 32 votes, they will still lose their power to pass legislation. 

On his Facebook Page 6/9/09

The Senate Republican majority is doomed in the long-term unless they find a way to corral some non-Republicans into either switching parties or voting with them to organize. This has now been their long-range strategy for many years. They find "Democrats In Name Only" and run them in prohibitively Democratic districts, so they can hold them in reserve in case the Dems ever take the majority.

In my two previous pieces detailing the intrigues afoot in the New York State Senate, I was puzzled by the vehemence of the State Senate Democrats in mindlessly and repeatedly chanting their mantra insisting that the Republican attempt to stage a coup had failed, because the vote had been illegal.

What if it were true? Unless one could manage to come up with 32 votes, the Republicans would eventually take over anyway.

As the great sportswriter Jimmy Cannon used to say, nobody asked me but…

There was a Party Line, and the Party Line was that this was a “Failed-Attempted-Coup.“

Well, despite the best efforts of Malcolm Smith to bring about Republican control of the State Senate sooner, it took Republican an entire six months to get the deed done, courtesy of their signing the team of Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate, who shall from now on be referred to in this department as the “Aztec Two-Step.”

It was an astonishing display of "Brown Power." Indeed, when it comes to role models in leading a legislature, each Party Leader in the NYS Senate has a Brown as his avatar. In Dean Skelos' case, it is Willie (who pulled off the same maneuver in California only about a dozen or so times), in Malcolm's case, Gordon.