ALBANY – Gov. Paterson yesterday insisted he had no idea who did the slime job on Caroline Kennedy – although the source of the information is about as close to him during the day as his wife is at night.
He’s a liar.
The person responsible for the smear was an individual whose identity is well known to the press, whose full-time job is to do the governor’s bidding, and who is intelligent enough not to call reporters to damage Kennedy’s reputation without approval from the top – and that means Paterson.
EDITORIAL: THE FABULOUS FABULIST
Kennedy was “mired in some potentially embarrassing personal issues,” the source told reporters Friday. “She has a tax problem that came up in the vetting and a potential nanny issue. And reporters are starting to look at her marriage more closely.
“The governor had no intention of picking her because of the botched rollout executed in recent weeks,” the source continued.
And Paterson doesn’t know who said this?
“I would love to know who is responsible, but at this point, I’ve been unable to determine that,” Paterson insisted yesterday, while maintaining a straight face.
“Obviously, if I ever found that that was the case, I would,” he said, when asked if he’d discipline an aide who was responsible.
No word on when the State Police will arrive to administer polygraph tests to the staff.
Paterson sought to assure Kennedy and the other claimants to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s job that “there was nothing related to any of the candidates in the background work that we did that would’ve disqualified any of them.”
Funny how the information never made it to the leaker, huh?
“I’m denying it,” Paterson insisted at another point.
“But there have been leaks coming from my administration throughout this process of choosing a senator of contradictory types of information. Now . . . this is a pretty serious thing and actually one that I could condemn to or for whomever was gossiping about the reasons that Ms. Kennedy would’ve withdrawn from the race.”
The truth is that not only does Paterson know who the source of the leak was, but that Paterson is the only person in a position to have given the information to the leaker.
That’s because all the disclosure documents that were handed over by Kennedy were given to Paterson’s legal counsel’s office, which is under a professional obligation of secrecy.
The counsel then passed whatever might have been damaging in the records on to Paterson.
The information on Kennedy leaked hours later to news organizations with the understanding the source was someone “close to the governor.”
But just in case anyone thinks he deserves the benefit of the doubt, he doesn’t.
That’s because Paterson’s latest denials are merely the latest installment in a long series of lies told by the governor that many in government have started to call pathological.
Who can forget Paterson’s press conference denying that he had said ugly things about Mayor Bloomberg, when he was as close to the source on the story as one could be.
Remember last week, Paterson claimed on one network that he was close to a Senate selection, only to deny it on another two hours later?
Just a few weeks ago, Paterson mocked a report – attributed to a source close to the governor – that Kennedy was an 18-1 shot to be named senator. But last week, he was bragging he never planned to pick her, even as top Democrats assured reporters that he planned to do so.
“The governor’s word is as good as the last person who speaks to him, and he talks to a lot of people who have different positions,” said one of Albany’s best-known lobbyists.
“That means his word is good for nothing . . . and how can you run a state with a reputation like that?” the lobbyist continued.
With New York facing unprecedented problems, that’s a concern that is worrying the state’s most important leaders today.