Back in the day, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s favorite platitude was the “Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God.” Beat reporters heard it so often, they created shorthand for their notebooks: BomFog.
Rocky is long gone and God is mostly absent in Albany, but a fog remains. These days, it is a political fog, a curtain thick enough to obscure much of what happens there.
Take the election. The party conventions are over, the tickets are set and the gubernatorial race is under way. Just one question, Alfie: What’s it all about?
I don’t mean whether Gov. Cuomo is too liberal or whether GOP challenger Rob Astorino is too conservative. Those labels can and will be manipulated beyond recognition.
I mean whether voters have coherent ideas on what’s broken and how to fix it.
My guess is they don’t, but it’s hard to blame them entirely. Democrats and Republicans are united in a conspiracy to spread ignorance and confusion. The less the public knows, the better off the pols are. Hence, the fog.
A prime example is the mystery of how a popular plan for an education tax credit failed. It would have reduced taxes for donors who give money to nonprofit educational funds.
Supporters ranged from Cardinal Dolan and other Catholic leaders to Orthodox rabbis and other Jewish groups. They joined forces over the high cost of parochial education, a cost that penalizes families who pay taxes for public schools and also private tuition for their children.
The double cost is a killer, with as many as 200 Catholic schools closing across the state in the last 15 years because parents cannot afford tuition.
Anticipating opposition from unions, the plan also would cover contributions to public schools.
The well-crafted idea, already succeeding in other states, enjoyed the support of Gov. Cuomo and, publicly at least, a majority of both parties in both houses. And then it died in the back room, leading Dolan, among others, to feel betrayed.
That was in late March, and the fog still has not lifted. Who killed it?
Part of the answer is obvious: the teachers unions. They see competition for students and money as a threat to their monopoly, their war against charters being Exhibit A.
Still, final decisions rest with those elected to serve the public. So who among the governor and the legislative leaders gave the union the green light to wield the knife?
Cuomo says it wasn’t him. “I went to parochial schools and I get it. I support the concept of the tax credit,” he told me. “It’s still kicking around but there isn’t a three-way agreement yet.”
He pointed to his historic charter-aid package as proof he favors “experimental and creative” ways of improving education, and denied he sacrificed the tax credit for charters.
He did acknowledge, however, an unresolved issue with the tax credit involving a cap that would limit state costs. Another was prorating the credits if donors’ claims exceeded the cap.
But those are hardly insurmountable. The real problem is that everything in Albany is transactional, and even a popular program is often held hostage to an unrelated issue.
This year, the election is that issue. Everybody in Albany is running, and union support is crucial in many races, especially in the Legislature. Some vulnerable candidates from both parties begging for union backing wouldn’t jeopardize their careers to help parochial-school parents.
But the battle isn’t over. Astorino strongly supports the tax credit and plans to keep the pressure on with a big campaign splash, especially among Catholic voters upstate. The governor, who did not get the teachers’ backing in 2010 and doesn’t expect it this year, says he hopes the measure passes before the session ends in June and he puts the odds at 50-50.
For that to happen, the unions will have to be denied — or get something in exchange.
What do they want, and who in Albany really controls the endgame? We’ll know when the fog lifts, if it ever does.
Late great of the old Grey Lady
In death, as in life, timing is everything, as the passing of legendary New York Times editor Arthur Gelb reminds us. The story of his career sharpens the contrast between the great newspaper that Gelb helped to shape and the current chaos at the Grey Lady.
Starting as a copy boy in 1944 and retiring as managing editor in 1989, Gelb was chief deputy and partner of the iconic A.M. Rosenthal. Together they created a newspaper that was principled and independent — and profitable.
I had the privilege of coming of age under their tutelage, and still treasure their passion for breaking news and writing stories.
Unfortunately, today’s Times too often makes news, as it did with its crude sacking of editor Jill Abramson. Whatever her flaws, the spectacle of character assassination followed by damage-control spin made the paper look cheap and small.
That’s not to say the Rosenthal-Gelb era was saintly. Human flaws were a given, but the paper came first. Always.
Gelb began writing as a culture critic and, with his wife, Barbara, published two volumes on playwright Eugene O’Neill. But it was as a Times editor where he pushed, prodded, cajoled, demanded and nurtured two generations of journalists into believing they were doing something that mattered. He was right, and they and their readers are forever in his debt.
May he rest in peace.
Elijah’s ‘truth’ be ‘dem’ned
After Nancy Pelosi named him to the special House panel probing the Benghazi terror attack, Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings said, “We need someone in that room to defend the truth.”
That’s a strange choice of words. What exactly is the truth of Benghazi? More to the point, what is the current Democratic version of the truth?
It’s coming up on two years since the Sept. 11, 2012, murder of our ambassador and three other Americans, and all that’s changed is the administration’s story.
The only person arrested was the director of an anti-Muslim video that did not spark a protest and had nothing to do with the attack, even though the White House insisted otherwise for weeks. The president’s re-election team couldn’t admit he dropped his guard on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, and Obama has never explained what happened and who was responsible.
That’s the truth, and if Cummings wants to defend that, shame on him.
Looking down the barrel of stupidity
Reader John Rutherford has no pity for City Council members complaining about rising crime after they handcuffed cops.
“It’s amateur hour at City Hall,” he writes. “When you stop pressing down on a cork in water, it’s gonna pop back in your face. That’s what happened with reducing stop-and-frisk. It won’t change until a couple of council members have a ‘scared for my life’ experience at the hands of these armed thugs.”