Thursday, January 15, 2009

Access Denied

As part of Governor Paterson's preparation to appoint a new US Senator, he put out a 24 page questionnaire. Albany Republicans have, rightfully, foiled these and other documents in order to lend transparency to the process. The Gov's people said "no" to the release, claiming that it wasn't in our interest to know how our next Senator gets picked or whether any conflicts of interests might exist. Paterson's refusal is just plain bizarre. In a normal democratic election, the same information accumulated in the questionnaire, if not disclosed outright by the candidate, would have been a topic of investigation by their opponent, and questions would have been raised when appropriate. Questions like whether, you know, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has ever, you know, held a real job, or why Kirsten Gillibrand won't let her constituents see those fabled tax returns of hers. The biggest question that the Governor has us asking: what else don't the Democrats want us to know?