New York Deserves A Qualified Senator

New York Deserves A Qualified Senator

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 16, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Elitism: Is Democratic New York Gov. David Paterson his own man? If he is, he'll appoint an accomplished leader as senator. If he isn't, he'll kowtow to the party bosses and pick . . . a Kennedy.

When the Empire State's legally-blind governor made a huge stink this week about an NBC "Saturday Night Live" skit that lampooned him, was he just conniving to convince New Yorkers how independent and determined he is — prior to caving in on Caroline Kennedy?

In the days since Gov. Paterson was depicted by comic Fred Armisen as confused and disoriented, holding charts upside down and wandering into the following sketch, our nation's touchy advocates for the disabled have taken umbrage at "SNL's" impudence and demanded an apology.

Paterson himself called it a "third-grade depiction of people and the way they look" that could lead people to think "disability goes hand-in-hand with an inability to run a government or business."

If he had any sense of humor — and really was as self-deprecating as his friends claim — he would show up on the set of the next "SNL" taping and take the sketch a step further.

Getting mad at comedians in an attempt to curry special-interest favor is no proof that Paterson, who replaced the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, makes his own decisions.

But the answer to the question of whether New York's chief executive takes orders from his party's power brokers, or acts on behalf of the people of his state, will come when he makes his decision on who will replace Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton.

Is this U.S. Senate seat, once held by such men of principle as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, James L. Buckley, and, yes, Bobby Kennedy, just a political football?

When the Democratic Party bosses in New York, like the now-scandal-plagued House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, decided during the waning days of the Clinton administration that the first lady would be handed the state's Democratic senatorial nomination as a stepping stone to the presidency, others had to step aside.

New York Democrats who had actually done things for the state over the course of many years, like Westchester Rep. Nita Lowey, agreed to put their ambitions on hold for the sake of a non-New Yorker. Nearly a decade later, will prominent New York Democrats once again be asked to do the same as a favor to the Kennedy family?

What an insult to the former state comptroller and gubernatorial nominee Carl McCall, as well as to New York City-born Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, veteran Manhattan/Queens Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the state's popular current comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., and longtime Bronx Rep. Jose Serrano.

Apart from Maloney, all the above major players on the New York political scene are either black or Hispanic.

It would also be a snub to state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, son of the former governor and ex-husband to one of Bobby Kennedy's daughters, who conducted an aggressive and even-handed investigation last year of fellow Democrat and ex-Governor Spitzer's misuse of the state police to spy on his chief Republican rival, State Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno.

Caroline Kennedy has no qualifications to serve as a member of the nation's highest elective body. Her achievements amount to: organizing a rock concert in Central Park to raise private money for New York City public schools (to augment the zillions in taxes they already get); serving on the board of a ballet company; and writing a memo to Barack Obama comparing possible running mates.

Caroline has now dug into the deep Kennedy pockets to hire a top New York political consultant to both Democrats and Republicans, Josh Isay.

The ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy's appearance at the Democratic National Convention this summer has apparently brought the politically glamorous Kennedy family back into fashion.

But does New York's governor really want his legacy to be that he served as the hired help at Camelot?



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