More words to live by from kind-of Senate Democratic Manager John Sampson on mayoral control of NYC schools. They have to do, of course, with the abject failure of Sampson and Malcolm Smith to address this thing--one way or the other.

From the Daily News' political blog:

“Right now we just need to step back,” said Sampson, who insisted the Senate is not, as Bloomberg has charged, being "irresponsible" in its failure to take up the Assembly bill.

Wrong direction, John.  Right now, you really need to step up, not back. You've had six months to address this thing and you've collectively and individually done nada about the schools--apart from suing them. But then again anything you've got to say about schools these days is kind of academic since you don't really represent a majority any longer. Nor evidently--and notwithstanding Malcolm's hand-you-down tin badge--are you talking even for a majority of your  conference. Layered a top of all this, it also appears that if the Assembly's mayoral control bill came to a full vote in the Senate--and you actually were majority leader within a majority--the bill would roll and you'd get yourself humiliated. Not a good opening act for such a preemptively presumptuous shot-caller.

Which brings us to the main point: Why are you going out of your way to trash talk Bloomberg and Silver on school control, if what you say or think really doesn't matter, regardless of how many times the Senate deck is cut and cards are dealt? The only thing we can hypothesize is that you're too entitled and/or lethargically-inclined to think through something of this magnitude before you say something dumb about it.

“We’re in summer recess at this point in time,” [Sampson] said. “We do have an opportunity to address this issue...We still have time.”

Finally something I can half-agree with. Yes, you are in summer recess at this point in time, you and Malcolm have been in summer recess since last November. But unfortunately, you don't "still have time."  You ran out of time on June 8.  While you were literally snoozing around conference and acting the smug, inner-circle clique-member, Pedro Espada, Steve Pigeon, Rob Mujica and Dean Skelos kicked your ass, stole your lunch money and then got the principal to expel you. All in one day.

And this is why you and Malcolm and other inner-circle cliquesters should be permanently benched. Or traded. Or put on waivers.

But instead, Sampson just keeps fronting:

“We will have an opportunity to definitely address mayoral control and I understand the importance of it...“We are not about to engage in any sort of chaos. Today, summer school started, the buses ran on time, the children went to school.”

Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who actually believes it's a really, really good idea to pass legislation by dint of another guy's six-second trip through the back of the Senate chamber. And then sincerely expects people like David Paterson, Shelly Silver and the rest of New York to co-sign this stunt--therein keeping the state Court of Appeals busy until the next millennium--and, not for nothing, suspending the state in the same functional purgatory he's already managed to embed. Sampson and Smith even wrote a big fat legal memo to memorialize this stupidity.  Also keep in mind, all this is coming from a couple of guys, Smith and Sampson, who've shut out lights, locked doors, doctored transcripts and then sued Dean Skelos over the exact same type of insidious, court-clogging, institution-debilitating stunt.  But not to worry, Sampson isn't about to engage "in any sort of chaos" here.

"Engage in chaos?" Sampson and Smith are chaos. It follows them around like the lousy cologne on some of those newly-hired Senate "bodyguards." 

The ugly but simple truth is that Sampson and Smith are in way, way over their heads.  And they simply have no idea how far.  And they don't want to hear how far. They're kind of like a failed state that recursively implodes.

Hate to say we told ya so on all this, but we did.  A long time ago. We're not geniuses here, or even smarter than your average blogger, because just like with Spitzer's caffene-induced psychoses, this stuff is kind of hard to miss. At least objectively. So I can't believe we're the only ones to have predicted this.

But here's the real howler: Smith-Sampson acolyte Carl Kruger says that--unlike himself and fellow statesmen Sampson and Smith--David Paterson's the Peter Principle dimwit. And whom--just in case you're interested--also speak with "woof" tongue. We know this because fellow Sampson-Smith ally Eric 'G-Money' Adams tells us this. On whatever the hell "woof" might mean to the rest of the planet, this is the best I could come up with:

Woof.", a common greeting within gay, bisexual, and transgender bear communities

Yet people anguish over Pedro Espada's proximity to power.