Governor David Paterson Has Enough Time Left to Land a TV Gig

On learning that Imus’s voice was hoarse, New York Governor David Paterson observed that the country would be in better shape if certain other people lost theirs. Amen.

Paterson called this past Saturday’s 9/11 remembrance ceremonies “profound,” because a physical manifestation of the memorial at Ground Zero is now visible. “This is the first year that you start to see Tower One, which is 36 stories, start to take its place in the New York skyline,” Paterson reported. 

Despite the passage of time, Paterson believes the grief is still very present. “The pain of that day, and the fact that this particular Saturday looked very much like the actual day in question—a beautiful morning—is still very deep,” he said. “I think we all feel it.”

This anniversary of 9/11 was noticeably different from the previous eight in that the controversy over whether to build a mosque and Muslim community center near Ground Zero served as a backdrop. Paterson has repeatedly offered to meet with the Imam behind the project to help them find a different location, but he has been turned down. He noted that not everyone opposed to the “Ground Zero mosque,” as it’s called, is a bigot.

“There are people with bigoted points of view, and there’s a rise in Islam-ophobia,” he conceded. “But when 71 percent of the people oppose it, there’s something else that is intervening in that discussion.”

He attributed some of the rancor to an overall, and ever-present, anxiety about the attacks. As Governor, Paterson has no control over the ultimate outcome, but has suggested a land swap, where the developers of the mosque project would make a deal with developers elsewhere in the city to swap sites.

But Paterson will only be Governor for three-and-a-half more months. He has yet to figure out what he’ll do next, but Imus’s vocal troubles gave him an idea. “When you said you were having trouble speaking, it arose a thought,” said Paterson, an I-Fan for nearly 40 years.

Andrew CuomoPaterson’s likely successor will be New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who, unlike Paterson, has had nearly a year to determine how he wants to put his administration together. That timeline is in sharp contrast to the one given Paterson when he ascended to office after Eliot Spitzer’s hooker deal.

“I had a lunch, and then I had to start,” he joked. 

There was no inclination at the time, at least not to Paterson, that Spitzer was doing anything illicit, and he admitted he didn’t want to be governor “in that moment.” Yet in the wake of some negative press and allegations the he post-dated checks to prove payment of Yankees tickets, Paterson decided not to run for reelection.

In his view, the continuing financial crisis also played a big role in the negative opinion some have of him. “I would say it was a repetition of decisions I made that I thought were in the best interests of the state, but were, in may respects, counterintuitive to my political career, which has been as an advocate,” Paterson said.

you-know-whoAs Governor, he’s had to cut funding to causes—like education, health care, eradicating poor housing, and fighting crime—that he had previously championed. “When you start cutting money—and we cut $42 billion over the last three years, four times as much that has ever been cut in any analogous three year period—you aren’t going to make any friends,” he acknowledged.

Paterson is preparing to make his exit just as his predecessor is about to begin a career as a cable television host. While an invitation to appear on Spitzer’s new CNN show might not be imminent, Paterson might make an unexpected cameo.

“If anything goes wrong, they know that I have to take his place,” he said. The chances he’ll get his own television show someday are unlikely, he thinks, because, “I haven’t done enough.”

To which Imus replied, “You still have three-and-a-half months.”

Good to know.

-Julie Kanfer