This is unbelievable. Literally and figuratively.

Evidently the governor awoke this past Thursday with a really dumb plan to bluff Shelly Silver on the alternative reality the governor's constructing around his selection of AEG to run Project Aqueduct.  

The governor's alternately a deeply confused or disingenuous man, so let's go through his idiocy de jour one item at a time.

From Thursday's NY Post :

Gov. Paterson was again this morning running away from his decision to appoint the politically connected Aqueduct Entertainment Group to manage a lucrative “racino” operation planned for Queens.

During his weekly appearance on WOR 710AM, Paterson repeated complaints that he was forced into the decision by a months-long spat between Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).

OK. Straightforward plain-vanilla dump on Silver and Sampson.  No surprise here, he's been doing this his entire career. When in doubt, point.  With both hands, if possible.

“This was not the original group that I originally thought would’ve been best,” Paterson said. “But the leaders couldn’t agree and for months you saw the articles, ‘When’s the governor going to break the deadlock?’”

Now he appears to dump on AEG and by inference Floyd Flake and Malcolm Smith. But it's a misdirectional play. At least for now. But wait and see, eventually Flake and Smith are going under way bigger bus than Silver and Sampson. My guess is by mid-week. Something like: "Flake and Smith locked me in my room and then made me do it." Might work, except, just maybe, somebody, somewhere was wearing a wire.

Paterson insisted he “did play no favorites” in selecting the group, which has ties to Queens pastor-power broker, Floyd Flake.

Standard fact-free denial and self-exculpation that'll end up being self-strangulation. Especially upon direct rebuttal by his principal negotiator. No surprise here either.  He's been making incriminating statements his entire career too--but just nowhere near this level.  And mostly they didn't matter for much.

“We had a few of the groups that applied that were all highly rated,” Paterson said. “This is one of those groups. I broke the deadlock with one of the premier groups, a group that has a very strong relationship within the community.”

This is more self-contradictory Paterson-babble. Kind of like: "I originally bought the Subaru because the Hondas were originally rated better rated.  Plus my wife was yelling at me." He's incoherently telling us--I think--that he had doubts about AEG (see Post graph #2) yet selects it above others to break the "deadlock" foisted upon him by Silver and Sampson rather than selecting the group he "originally thought would have been best." And leaves us wondering about the originally original group that he originally thought would have been best.

That original group leave town or something?  And if so, how come?

Paterson also took issue with a testy letter sent to him yesterday by Silver, in which the speaker revealed the governor “called me to personally and strongly recommend" AEG.

Of course Paterson took issue with the speaker's revelation. Silver just called his bluff.  The same bluff upon which rests Paterson's political future--all of which now rests upon Floyd Flake.

The Big Albany Secret is that Paterson has ABSOLUTELY NO soldiers in his fort i.e. political organization to speak of. He's Don Quixote without a horse. He has nothing. No plan to get a plan. And no organization to get an organization. Paterson's own insiders will tell you that this guy couldn't raise two kids for a lemonade stand.

And this is why Paterson goes to Flake. And also why he says stupid things about Silver to the media. 

Ya really gotta wonder if it's obvious to the governor that as we speak these people are processing each syllable of his idiotic monologue--and then drilling down.  Just maybe wondering exactly how AEG's sudden elevation came to pass. Especially the part about Silver's four conditions which for all intents and purposes amounts a public poison-pill for AEG.

I mean, the ink's not even dry on Bruno's verdict yet.

In the letter, Silver said stressed that he agreed to AEG only after the group met four conditions, including strenuous background investigations of all investors. “Why he would write me a letter on Wednesday about terms we all agreed to the previous Friday might be something that’s in his head,” Paterson said. “I honestly don’t know what his problem is.”

“Why he would write me a letter on Wednesday about terms we all agreed to the previous Friday might be something that’s in his head.”  Does anybody even know what that statement means?  The letter's in his head? The terms are in his head? Wednesday's in his head? Maybe Paterson's remorselessly confused syntax is in his head.

Paterson's now into full incomprehensible mode, which is what people also tell me he's given to once something gets sticky.  Just act and speak like an organically incomprehensible jack ass and eventually everybody will just forget about it all.  People also tell me that he's done this his whole life too.  But nobody's ever had a gun to his head like this one.  He's in new territory here, the stakes are huge and there's no escape for him via social promotion or connection.

So let's answer "his problem" with Silver question. Silver's problem stems from the governor drooling all over himself on his "previous Friday" presenting AES as a now conditionally-met done deal. But here's Silver's press release on the same day stating big time conditions that have to be met.

So now this guy is trying to tell us he has no idea what's in Silver's head?  And has no idea what Silver's problem is? Here's a better question: Can Paterson's chief counsel read?

Of course, Silver memorializes his conditions in a press release that the world can view on the day of the "deal" because he reads Paterson better than Paterson reads Paterson. Silver already knows the Paterson gameplan: lock the deal down, close ranks, enforce radio silence, and then bluff Shelly on his conditions.  Or just plead stupid on them by spewing infantile gibberish to major newspapers.

And we all know what card the governor's going to play next--don't we?  And it'll probably turn out even more embarrassing to himself and the state than the last time he played it.  Who knows, maybe even the President of the United States will humiliate him again--along with whoever else was stupid enough to have gotten dragged into this with him.