Governor Paterson: Stand Up Guy, or Closet Freak!?!?

[Editor's Note: RaceFest 08' is still ongoing. Keep weighing in with your opinions over on the comment board.]

Last week, after NY Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to step down (BTW, did that chick's 15 minutes come and go already or what?) due to his extramarital whoremongering, it was quickly announced that Lt. Governor David Patterson would assume the role. Many quickly lauded this as a history making event. Paterson, you see, is not only the first Black Governor of New York, but also the first legally blind Governor evar.

I didn't know much about the guy, so pardon me for not breakin' out the Capri Suns like I did when Deval Patrick won Massachusetts. But the initial media reports were good: Paterson is known as a unifier, one who can bring both sides of the party together. He is also known to build consensus and listen to many opinions before making decisions, and doesn't have the ready-made salvo of enemies that Spitzer had from Day One. He was praised as an all around good guy who'd overcome his disabilities and risen to the height of his profession. Hell, even Sean Hannity said this was a "great day for Americans of all races". Then he went right back to mercilessly roasting Reverend Wright, so take that one with a grain of salt.

Anyways, I saw some of yesterday's swearing-in ceremony last night on the news, and something about the whole thing just looked really, really odd. And by odd, I'm talking about the strange facial expressions and eye movement of his wife Michelle as he was sworn in.

Here, peep this and tell me she don't look jive.. uhh sorry DC folks maaaaddd uncomfortable.



WTH?!?! She looked like she had a few Silda Spitzer cocktails before she went out there, right? Then I heard this jawn on the news this morning, and swore I was listening to some MadTV skit gone bad. Forgive the generous cut and paste job, I didn't wanna omit any details.

The new Governor of New York State has admitted that both he and his wife had extra-marital affairs when their marriage went through a rocky patch several years ago. In a series of interviews in recent days, David Paterson told the New York Daily News that he had started an affair with "a woman other than my wife" in 1999 and continued it for two or three years.

The Daily News said that the "thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears" when he told the newspaper that he and his wife had both had affairs. Michelle Paterson, 46, confirmed her affair in a joint interview with her husband.

Mr Paterson said that he and the other woman – who has not been named – sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel, now called the Days Inn, at Broadway and West 94th Street.

"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Mr Paterson told the newspaper. "But I went to counselling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on."

Mr Paterson was asked if he had stayed at the hotel in question with anyone else since 2001 and replied that he had taken his wife there after being advised by a marriage counsellor to introduce "new and exciting things" into their relationship.

Ok, is it just me, or does someone else smell a rat here?

I guess it's laudable that Gov. Paterson vetted himself here, which essentially saves us the trouble of having to watch yet another disgraceful press conference in the near future. But one thing I'm not buying, not for a single moment, is that his wife also had an affair. That ain't mutual affairs, that's an open marriage, and I know shawty ain't havin' that. I know this news account is brief, but the relative lack of details on her behalf tells me that some PR person told them to cook this thing up to cover up his past infidelity. After all, if you both did it, I guess that means they sorta cancel each other out in the grand scheme of things and makes you both look noble for just workin' it out for the sake of the kids. I'm not basing this one anything other than my Inner Negro Intuition.

I may be wrong, but I doubt it. Color me judgemental.

On the bright side, at least Paterson didn't do a Kwame Kilpatrick and lie to the tune of $9M of taxpayer money. He didn't pull a Antonio Villaraigosa and have his jumpoff air the dirty laundry on Telemundo. He also didn't do a Rudy Guiliani and use taxpayer money to protect his mistress with police detail. And thankfully, he didn't drop $80,000 of his own money on a saucy hooker with a MySpace Music page. Nope, he did it the old fashioned gangsta way, he got him a place on the other side of town and kept his wife and his wifey completely separated. I suppose he deserves a cookie for this.

[Editor's Question: Does legally blind mean what it sounds like? Namely, you can't see anything?]

One puzzling thing, though: how the hell does a blind man pick up women? I'm just sayin', I know we've all seen this in the movies (Ray), but in the 21st century, how exactly do you pull that one off? I haven't seen a blind black man that crafty since Wally Karew.[1] Had Spitzer taken some advice from D.P., he mighta still been in Albany himself. I'm just sayin'.


I suppose we should applaud Gov. Paterson for being upfront and honest about his skeletons, much like I applauded Barack Obama for openly admitting his drug use and past issues with self-identity in that exceptionally dry book Dreams Of My Father a few years back. But does dry snitching on yourself so that others can't pull your card make the thing you're snitching about any more acceptable just because you beat others to the punch? I'm not so sure, so I'll ask you folks.

Question: Is self-confessed dirt better than dirt uncovered by others, or is it still just dirt either way? Do you see Gov. Paterson any differently after finding this out? Would a candidate's extramarital affairs influence your decision to vote for them? Is this the longest string of questions AB's ever posed?

New NY governor David Paterson admits to extra-marital affair [TimesOnline]

Gov. Paterson: Okay, Yeah, I Fucked Around Too [Radar]

[1] Cyber Capri Suns to the first person who can tell me who Wally Karew is.