Thursday, September 30, 2010

BATSHIT CRAZY - ALBANY EDITION


Jeez.  What does it say about a Republican candidate when he accuses the New York Post of being in bed with Democratic candidates? – the New York Post for chrissakes?  And what does it say about a Republican candidate when Rudy Giuliani doesn’t even endorse him?

I’ll tell you what it says.  It says he’s BATSHIT CRAZY.

Every time Carl Paladino opens his mouth he sounds more and more like a raving lunatic.

By now I’m pretty sure everyone has read about this creepy encounter, but for those who haven’t; yesterday Carl Paladino, upset that news of his extra-martial lovechild was making waves, implied that Andrew Cuomo had had an affair at some point during his marriage.  Paladino offered no evidence to support the charge.  Last night Crazy Carl completely lost it when asked by a New York Post journalist to elaborate.  Paladino threatened; ‘I’ll take you out, buddy.’  He then accused the Post of ‘kissing Cuomo’s ass.’  Hilariously, the Postie responded; ‘like we kissed Patterson and Spitzer’s asses?’

To imply that the New York Post is in the tank for any Democrat should be in and of itself a committable offense.  It’s really hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would buy a line like that, so for Paladino’s campaign staff to stand by that accusation should throw their sanity into question as well.



The videotape of the incident ends with an explanation by Paladino’s campaign manager that Dicker was off of Paladino’s Christmas card list.  Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Paladino meant.

It is comical, and incredibly frightening at the same time, to watch Carl and his people speak.  The fact that some polls show this guy edging closer to Cuomo boggles the mind.

The Post has thus far dutifully towed the wingnut party line by not running hog wild with this story. In fact, they seem intent on forgetting it ever happened.  Instead they chose to do a cover story on the Rutgers sex scandal suicide story.  But they did run an AP story entitled; “Paladino smears Cuomo as cheater” in which they buried the story of the confrontation with their Albany chief, Fred Dicker.  I am certain that had Andrew Cuomo threatened any Post employee the paper would have published a special edition entirely devoted to making this the defining moment of the campaign. 



The rest of the Murdoch empire has also been rather mute on the matter as well.  I mean, these are the same people who have been wailing about Obama’s commentary on Fox News recently, calling him and his operative thuggish bullies.  But threatening to take someone out isn’t thuggish?

A quick look at the Fox News website this morning did show an article entitled “NY Gov Candidate; I’ll take you out.” – but it has since been amended to the less embarrassing, “N.Y. Gov Hopeful in Confrontation With Reporter.” 

By the looks of it, it would seem Mr. Dicker is being groomed for a new position – under the Fox News bus.

Had this been a Democratic politician threatening to take someone out, there is little doubt that the topic of the day would be whether or not the politician should be prosecuted for making threats.  And Fox would have a line of talking heads stretching around the block, waiting to call for his head.

As far as Rudy Giuliani is concerned, he declined to endorse Paladino before Carl’s Sonny Corleone moment, so I wonder if this will help him make up his mind.  Honestly, I am pretty sure that eventually Mr. Noun-Verb-9/11 will throw Crazy Carl his support and try to help him bury this embarrassing episode, but his reluctance to do so thus far does send a message that even Rudy has a threshold of crazy that he is uncomfortable crossing.

The real question is whether or not the rest of the media will take note of this, and press Paladino for an explanation for his brutish behavior or they will let him slide.  I guess we shall see.









msny093010

2 comments:

cmaukonen said...

Ah...but for the extreme right, this is politics as normal.

Barth said...

New York politics, if you don't know New York, are really impossible to understand. The words "republican" and "democrat" don't exactly mean the same thing here as they do in other places, for one thing. For another thing, Dicker (often referred to as the "David Broder of Albany"---just think of that with the baggage as well as whatever compliments that title suggests) is, indeed, very close to former Governor Mario Cuomo, the father of the current democratic nominee. He did not always hide his views about the former Governor during the Cuomo administration. This does not excuse the crazy nutcake who is running against the prince trying to retake the Governor's mansion (that worked well nationally, didn't it) nor does the fact that we rarely go more than three years or so without Dicker either in an actual physical fight with someone or damned close to it.

It is only to day that trying to figure this out through the Murdoch-Post prism will work as well as trying to use a kaleidoscope to view a lunar eclipse.