Keep It In Your Pants Gov!

It was bad enough when former Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught utilizing the services of a prostitute recently in Washington, leading to his resignation and an estimate that he had spent $80,000 pursuing his extra-curriucular activities.

Then at his installation last week, former Lieutenant-Governor - now Governor David Paterson revealed that he had extra-marital affairs several years ago when his marriage was in shaky condition. I appreciated his honesty, and can even understand the impetus.

Yesterday, Paterson revealed that he used cocaine and marijuana when he was younger. That too, I can deal with (at least he didn't say he didn't inhale . . .)

Now it appears that Paterson and a woman identified as Lila Kirton - Paterson's former lover and an employee in the governor's office - went to South Carolina last October to work on Hilary Clinton's campaign and stayed in the same hotel - a trip that was billed to Paterson's state credit card, even though her job responsibilities do not apparently include such work (she is claiming that she did this on her personal time). On top of all this, an investigation has apparently uncovered that Paterson stayed in a downtown Albany hotel 13 times in the past 15 months even though he has a home 20 minutes away and Ms. Kirton used a state credit card to stay in an Albany hotel 17 times during the same period. Paterson's representative indicated that he needed to be close to the capitol for early morning meetings. See the Albany Times Union story here.

Maybe a mountain is being made out of a mole hill. Or maybe there is, in fact, a mountain there in the middle of Albany. Do I sense another change in leadership coming down the road for New York State? Perhaps before the next governor is installed, a more in-depth background check is in order to make sure this doesn't happen again. Or perhaps this is all helping the economy by providing long beleagured stand-up comics and humorists with enough fodder to keep them gainfully employed for the next several years.

Either way, David Paterson has now earned his very own gossippy news ticker on the right, joining Eliot, Britney, Lindsay and Paris. Joe Bruno - are you due up next?

UPDATE: The Albany Times Union amends its news story here.

UPDATE: Since this story seems to have disappeared from the news, I am removing our new gov from the news ticker.