“Albany Judgement Day,” Ellis Henican Sunday Column, Newsday, June 14, 2009
The court came to order.
After days of Albany pandemonium, the matter had finally arrived where it was headed all along, in the lap of a state court.
The issue? Effective control of the New York State Senate. The judge? The honorable Thomas McNamara, presiding alone.
Called into action at this great fork in history, the future of state governance rested in his hands. And McNamara did what New York judges have done for eons at propitious moments like this, when the issues were tough, when the principles were conflicted and when powerful people fought on either side.
He said he just couldn’t decide.
“You really have to do this amongst yourselves,” the judge said meekly.
Really, why do we pay these people large judicial salaries? Why do we treat them as if they are learned and wise? Why do we let them avoid the very thing we have them for – ruling between disagreeable parties, resolving major issues when they matter most?
McNamara could have laughed the Democrats out of the courthouse: “You want control? Go get votes!”
He could have shoved the Republicans down the marble stairs: “Monserrate and Espada? An accused girlfriend slasher and a nepotism hack? These are the sad sacks you’re relying on?”
He could have said any of that. He could have ruled in any number of ways.
But that would have required making a decision. That would have meant acting like a judge. Far safer just to punt.
We got a court system as lame as the executive and the legislatures it is supposedly reviewing.
They all come back to court on Monday. No one in Albany was the least bit surprised.
YOU DON’T SAY
1. Assemblyman Kolb: Fire Letterman
2. Patrick Kennedy: Take me back to rehab
3. San Francisco food cops: Fine the scrap tossers
4. Pet Airways: Put pooches in first class
5. Distraught Carradines: Suicide would have been better
SPECIAL INFLATION INDEX: Ransom demand in “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (1974): $1 million. Ransom demand in “The Taking of Pelman 1 2 3” (2009): $10 million. No, nothing’s as cheap as it used to be, not even subway hostages.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Anybody want to buy some used rabbit ears? I have a pair I won’t be needing . . . “Culling the geese”? Who dreamed up that nice euphemism for the annual JFK goose kill? Not the gassed geese, I’m betting . . . Who did Timothy Clark and Lameek Everette think they were? The junior “Butch and Sundance”? Instead, they’re being called “a couple of dopey 16-year-olds from Shirley who couldn’t rob a Chinese restaurant and then got caught in the woods.” . . . People in East Hampton are so rich, they don’t care about some ex-budget director’s “illegal transfers” – is that what local pols think? . . . Most of the senators in Albany come from (a) central casting, (b) central booking or (c) Comedy Central? . . . The state is still paying rent on an empty office in Hempstead for the Division of Housing and Community Renewal? And the lease runs to 2016? How long would this have gone unnoticed if Newsday’s Laura Rivera hadn’t blown the whistle? . . . How many more weekends will we be asking, “Anybody seen the sun?” . . . How did Nassau OTB come up with $15 million in damages? How much would they save if they just shut down? . . . Don’t you feel bad now having made fun of Phil Spector’s toupee? Did you see photos of Phil bald? . . . Should we just go ahead and change June to “Prank Fire Alarm or Bomb Threat Month”? We could start at Lindenhurst Middle School . . . In hindsight, was it a bright idea for Suffolk police to give all 90 special community police officers a Tuesday-to-Saturday schedule? Isn’t police work more of a seven-day kind of thing? . . . Question for the new Pet Airline, taking off next month from Republic Airport: What if one of the critters prefers the cargo hold?
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