The David Paterson comedy tour

By Ralph Alter

Surely no experienced politician would embark upon the curious route navigated of late by New York's Democrat Governor David Paterson. The April Marist poll shows the struggling chief executive trailing Rudi Giuliani (56% to 32%), Mario Cuomo (70% to 21%) and even Client #9, , the disgraced erstwhile governor Eliot Spitzer. Paterson's approval rating stands at 19%.

Meanwhile the Governor continues what appears to be his Def Comedy Jam audition tour. His mockery of a disabled, blind supplicant was captured here. Did no one in Albany foresee political fallout from this performance?

More slapstick ensued as Paterson became the focus of a job discrimination suit settled by the state for $300,000. Paterson, while serving as minority leader in the state Senate, decided to replace his staff photographer:

... Joseph Maioriello claimed he was told by John McPadden, then Paterson's chief of staff, that he was being fired because a number of minority senators wanted to replace him with "a minority photographer, a black photographer....You got to remember who Sen. Paterson is. Sen. Paterson is black."

So then Senator Funnyman gave Maioriello the boot after 26 years of Senate service in favor of one El-Wise Noisette. No kidding. But Paterson had an alibi:

"Paterson, who is legally blind, claimed in a sworn deposition that he didn't see well enough to have fired Maioriello because of his race.

A spokesman for Paterson later said the comment was "a quip, a joke." (ibid)

Please Governor, no more. My sides are about to split.

But Governor Laugh-a-Minute wasn't quite finished. Watch him pipe up in this video as New York City Mayor Bloomberg does an obnoxious slow burn over a disabled reporter's technical glitch

Man, this New Yorker is tough on the disabled!

Perhaps the Governor recognizes that he has missed his calling. The Marist poll results indicate that the voters in New York will soon give David Paterson the leisure to pursue a career in which one is supposed to be a laughingstock.

Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target.