ALBANY — Distancing himself from Gov. Paterson’s controversial racial remarks, President Obama said he doesn’t believe black politicians get unfair treatment from the white-dominated media, an administration spokesman claimed yesterday.
“The president doesn’t think it’s the case,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said during a press briefing on Martha’s Vineyard, where the president and his family are vacationing.
“What he thinks is that there’s a lot of people who have different opinions, and one of the great parts about the American tradition is that people are able to do that freely,” Burton continued.
“In terms of media coverage and the president, he thinks that there are a lot of people who agree with him in the media, there are a lot of people who disagree with him in the media, and there’s a lot of folks who just report it straight.”
In highly controversial comments made on WWRL-AM radio Friday, Paterson claimed that he, Obama, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, all African-Americans, were the victims of racist reporting by a white-controlled media.
The Post disclosed Sunday that Patrick Gaspard, the White House’s political director, called Paterson aide Larry Schwartz to demand that the governor stop including the president in his claims of media racism.
Paterson, at record-low numbers in public opinion polls, complained in a subsequent interview with freelance writer Gerson Borrero published yesterday that he had been unfairly called an “accidental governor” by the media and that “it seems I have to work twice as hard as others.”
Also, The Post has learned that Paterson received “emergency” political advice concerning his claims from the disgraced chief of staff to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who pleaded guilty last year to violating state law in the Dirty Tricks Scandal.
Richard Baum was among a handful of political operatives on the Saturday conference call, sources said.
Among others taking part were former Paterson Chief of Staff Charles O’Byrne, who resigned in a tax-evasion scandal, and former Spitzer aide Sean Patrick Maloney, also linked to the Dirty Tricks Scandal.
The presence on the call of Baum, who admitted violating two sections of the Public Officers Law in connection with Spitzer’s use of the State Police in an effort to discredit then-Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer), shocked some close to the governor.
“Here’s a guy who was a key figure in the [Dirty Tricks] Scandal and was involved in screwing Paterson when he was [Spitzer’s] lieutenant governor, and now he’s advising the governor? It doesn’t make any sense,” a source familiar with the call said.
While Paterson insisted through a spokesman that Baum was not an “adviser” to the governor, he didn’t dispute Baum’s presence on the conference call.