The end of David Paterson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have heard, New York Gov. David Paterson has announced that he will not seek re-election. (Or, rather, will not seek election. He was, after all, not elected to the office of governor but appointed, by succession, following Spitzer's scandal-fueled resignation.) He pulled out, following a good deal of justifiable speculation in the New York media, "amid crumbling support from his party and an uproar over his administration's intervention in a domestic violence case involving a close aide."

It is not clear what he did or didn't do in the matter of that "close aide," David Johnson. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, himself with designs on the governor's mansion in Albany, will investigate.

And it could very well be that LG&M's Scott Lemieux is right:

One thing worth noting is that, while it will get much less attention (especially nationally), the scandal that seems to have ended Paterson's political career would in any rational world be considered much more serious than those that have presumably ended the political careers of the likes of Mark Sanford or John Edwards. (Or, although the commercial transaction makes it slightly trickier, Elliot Spitzer.) Without getting in to moral comparisons, abusing the powers of your office to protect a domestic abuser strikes me as much worse than consensual adultery from the standpoint of one's fitness to stand in office.

Again, there's a lot we don't know yet. And I'm not so sure the moral/ethical distance between Paterson and Sanford is all that great, given that the latter lied about his whereabouts and used state resources to conduct his, er, affairs. Still, Paterson almost makes Spitzer look good, in retrospect -- at least Spitzer, after all, knew what he was doing, was a compelling figure (and remains one today), and didn't seem thoroughly incompetent, and worse.