“America’s Funniest Statehouse,” Ellis Henican Column, amNew York, June 12, 2009
“These Albany people,” I was marveling Thursday, “they come straight from Central Casting.”
Randy Credico, who’s been working for years in the capital on drug-law reform, begged to differ.
“A couple of them,” he said, “come straight from Central Booking.”
But this being Albany, there’s a third opinion on everything. Thursday, it came from New York talent agent Joe Brauner, a legendary judge of the human condition.
“More like Comedy Central,” Brauner said.
He gets the prize.
You can’t report with a straight face any more from the New York State capital. In Albany these days at lunch, they ask about the coup du jour.
One crucial state senator, indicted for slashing his girlfriend’s face, is now having trouble deciding, “Who should I stab in the back?”
The pathetic Senate Republicans?
Or the moronic Senate Democrats?
It’ll take more than Tom Golisano’s billions to buy either side a brain.
A shaky new coalition — two D’s and 30 R’s — grabbed control of the Senate earlier this week.
They thought they did, anyway. But that alleged slice-and-dice man, Democrat-turned-whatever Hiram Monserrate, grew suddenly blade-shy, scampering out of the Senate chamber before drawing a drop of blood.
Suddenly, his new Republican BFFs were left without the quorum they needed to rule.
They’d finally managed to find a key to the bolted doors of the chamber, so it wasn’t a locksmith they needed now. It was a couple of extra bodies and a very patient shrink.
The Democrats were every bit as embarrassing. They have now lost all pride. Unable to hold their own Senate majority with bribery, pressure, chairmanships and threats, they went trotting with their hands out to the state Supreme Court, where Justice George Ceres promptly laughed them out the door.
With these clowns, what choice did he have?
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E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow on Twitter.com/Henican