Paladino Pops Silver Again; Yet Another Round of Lies and Smears

We get it. GOP/Tea Party candidate for governor Carl Paladino doesn't like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Silver, a Democrat who has outlasted all of his contemporaries in the dysfunctional Albany political environment, has been a frequent target on this blog for his actions, but he is not a criminal.

He hasn't done anything criminal, so when Paladino routinely smears him time and time again it further indicates that Paladino is removed from reality. This time, he called Silver a criminal. The last time, it was calling Silver Hitler (Silver is an Orthodox Jew).

The latest smear drew rebukes from Ed Koch, Silver, and Cuomo.

Moreover, let's say that Paladino actually wins the election in November over the Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

That means that Paladino has to work with Silver and the Senate Majority Leader. A budget deal would have to be worked out, and that means working with and through Silver.

If you've established a poisonous relationship with Silver, how do you expect that a sane and fiscally responsible budget will be enacted. You can't. It would be wishful thinking to suggest otherwise.

Meanwhile, Paladino's advisers are trying to spin Paladino's lack of a filter (he speaks whatever he thinks without regard to facts or logic), that this is exactly what Albany needs.

At the same time, some of Paladino's claims have come under fire for being outright lies or misrepresentations. That includes one where Paladino claims to have interceded on behalf of the chancellor of Syracuse University during a student takeover in 1970 to secure the chancellor's release. Paladino was a law student at the university at the time, but surviving participants say that Paladino had nothing to do with the incident. One of the student demonstrators (and now a law professor at my alma mater but who began teaching there after I left) disputes Paladino's account:

Paul Finkelman is contradicting published reports on the incident.

The reports say Paladino claims to have helped negotiate the exchange of the Syracuse Police chief for the university's chancellor.

“If it were 1970, I would want to know what Carl Paladino was smoking because this simply did not happen,” said Finkelman. “There was no known negotiation. There was no hostage-taking. The chancellor was not locked in his building. This is other nonsense.”