Razzle Dazzle
With Friends Like Spitzer's

By RICHARD STEIER

When the cops are investigating a crime, motive is one of the primary ways of determining who the perpetrators might be. The problem with figuring out how deep into Governor Spitzer's administration the bungled attempt to embarrass Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno went is that it's not clear what several of the participants expected to accomplish if they pulled it off.

The motivation for Preston Felton, the Acting State Police Superintendent, is clear enough: he personally responded to a Freedom of Information Law request and actually created records concerning his troops' transport of Senator Bruno in the hope of keeping his job.

He explained himself in a conversation with investigators from the State Attorney General's Office in discussing why he had done things at the request of William Howard, the Governor's liaison to the State Police, that were both beyond the province of the FOIL law and that none of his predecessors did.

A Potential Job-Killer

"This guy is my superior," Mr. Felton stated of Mr. Howard. "Can he fire me? No. But can he walk down the hall and tell somebody, 'Preston isn't doing his job'? Yes."

GETTING TAKEN FOR A RIDE: Governor Spitzer (left), reeling from a botched attempt by his administration to embarrass Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, has to realize that he's no longer the 'Sheriff of Wall Street,' according to State Senator Diane Savino. 'He has not yet made the transition from prosecutor to chief executive and mediator,' she said.

Mr. Howard, who also serves as the state's Assistant Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security, was apparently not that concerned about his immediate superior, Michael Balboni. He told the AG's investigators that he never informed Mr. Balboni, a former Republican State Senator from Long Island, about his work on Mr. Bruno's travel itinerary because he did not want to "put him in an uncomfortable position." That suggests that he didn't believe his professional future hinged on keeping his boss in the loop.

Darren Dopp, Mr. Spitzer's communications director since the beginning of the latter gentleman's tenure as Attorney General in 1999, and Richard Baum, who as Secretary to the Governor was Mr. Spitzer's chief aide, both insist they didn't tell their boss what was going on, either. They just happened to decide to use the state's highest-ranking police official and the powers they themselves possessed to generate juicy stories in the Albany Times-Union suggesting that Mr. Bruno used flimsy pretexts of government business to fly to the city on state aircraft for political and fund-raising purposes.

Mr. Bruno, however, like his Democratic counterpart in the Assembly, Speaker Shelly Silver, doesn't embarrass easily. His glowing - some would say crowing - appearance at Saratoga Racetrack on opening day July 25 evoked memories of his visit there a decade earlier and his reply when a Daily News reporter asked how he could justify being at the track when the state budget was nearly four months overdue.

"You know," Mr. Bruno replied, "you are a real pain in the ass."

Diane Savino, a former District Council 37 official who is part of the Democratic minority in the Senate, ruled out the possibility that Mr. Spitzer's aides believed the negative publicity about Mr. Bruno's travel could help tip the balance and end Republican control of the upper house of the Legislature next year.

"The man is like an icon in his district, so who are you discrediting?" she said from Albany July 26. "It's not going to affect an election in a Senate district in Long Island. And let's say we were going after [Queens Republican Senator] Serph Maltese, which we're not necessarily going to do. We're not going to go after him over Joe Bruno's use of a state helicopter."

Not Worth the Risks

So then why would some of Mr. Spitzer's top aides do something that, because there seemed to be so little political gain to warrant the risks they took, seems so dumb in light of the Attorney General's findings?

"They're not that smart," Senator Savino replied. "They're just not. When people decide that winning is more important than the issues you're fighting for, then stupidity becomes the order of the day."

That day's Staten Island Advance quoted her calling for the firing of Mr. Dopp - whom the Governor had suspended for at least a month - and Mr. Baum, who was transferred to another post in the executive branch. Ms. Savino was among those - and she may be as much in the minority on this matter as she is in the Senate - who believed Mr. Spitzer when he denied any knowledge of his aides' tactics in trying to put Senator Bruno in a bad light.

"I'm going to believe that because I have to," she said, contending that to do otherwise would be to disbelieve Mr. Spitzer's persona as "an ethical paragon" of great integrity.

The problem for the Governor is that an increasing number of people are questioning whether his image has little to do with reality. There have always been those who viewed him as a Democratic version of Rudy Giuliani - talented and smart but also vindictive and single-minded to the point of ruthlessness, the kind of guy who, if he wouldn't knock over his own grandmother to get ahead, would have no scruples about decking other people's elderly relatives. And to some extent, he is viewed as having tried to do exactly that in his dealings with the 78-year-old Senate Majority Leader.

A 'Brat' With Power

Mr. Spitzer has been accused of privately referring to Mr. Bruno as a "senile old man." The Majority Leader has reciprocated by calling the Governor "a spoiled brat." Unfortunately for Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Bruno's choice of epithets seems to contain a larger grain of truth.

At 48, Mr. Spitzer sometimes acts half his age rather than like a grounded, mature leader. His declaration in a conversation with Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco earlier this year that he was "a f------ steamroller" has the air of a post-adolescent windbag feeling his power a bit too acutely. Probably most public officials are occasionally profane in private, but few others would come off as boastfully arrogant as rappers.

"I don't necessarily think his passionate outbursts are a symptom of immaturity," Ms. Savino said. But if the Governor's aides weren't acting at his direction, they clearly believed he would approve of their dirty work. Mr. Dopp has never struck anyone who's dealt with him as a Gordon Liddy type who once you wind him up there's no telling what he might do, and so it's a bit hard to imagine him going off on a mission all his own.

Both Mr. Dopp and Mr. Baum refused to speak directly to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigators, instead submitting written statements about their actions. That added to the suspicion that they were trying to cover for Mr. Spitzer, although Ms. Savino argued that they didn't do a very good job of it, judging by Mr. Spitzer's surprise at the results of the probe.

"The first rule as a staff person is to protect your principal," she explained. Instead, Mr. Spitzer wound up in a political quagmire, compounded by Mr. Cuomo's decision to release the report on Monday, meaning it generated media coverage for the rest of the week.

Ethics Panel Steps In

The announcement July 26 that the State Ethics Commission would look into what occurred potentially offers some relief for Mr. Spitzer if he was not involved in the campaign against Mr. Bruno. Unlike the Legislature, the Ethics Commission has subpoena power and could compel Mr. Dopp and Mr. Baum to testify under oath. The Senate, while less capable of eliciting information if it held hearings, had the potential to stretch Mr. Spitzer across the rack of public opinion for weeks if his aides refused to testify.

'Worse Than Firing Them'

"An investigation [by the Senate] would be worse than firing them," Ms. Savino contended. "That's what the Senate Republicans want."

The great irony of the whole mess is that it has cast Mr. Bruno in the role of victim at a time when he is the subject of a Federal investigation regarding his private business dealings. He is seen as symptomatic of the ethical culture in Albany that has long been decried in the media and that Mr. Spitzer rode into office vowing to change.

But as Mr. Cuomo's office noted in finding that Mr. Bruno used state aircraft for trips that devoted much more time to political business than legislative matters, the problem lies not with the Majority Leader's conduct but with the rules that permitted it. The conclusion of the report called for a clear definition of "official state business," saying that without one, "any policy will continue to be subject to misinterpretation and abuse."

'A Cover for Fund-Raisers'

"Everybody knows," Ms. Savino said of legislative leaders, "they set up these [state-related] meetings to cover them for the fund-raisers they're doing in Manhattan. We write the laws to benefit us so we can do these things."

The overzealousness of Mr. Spitzer's aides in going after Mr. Bruno, however, has stalled the momentum for the transformation of the ethical climate that the Governor has sought. The July 26 session of the Legislature, which was originally expected to deal with an agreement the parties had reached on campaign finance reforms, instead focused solely on congestion pricing and the continued use of the current state voting machines. There has been some speculation that Mr. Bruno will use the controversy to back away from the agreement limiting political contributions, but Ms. Savino said she believed the issue would be approved when the Legislature briefly reconvenes in September.

"I think Joe is going to do it," she said. "He'll try to get something for it, for sure. I just hope the Governor doesn't go into a room alone with Joe and Shelly."

That last remark reflected her belief that more than once to this point, Mr. Spitzer has wound up as the city slicker visiting Albany and losing his shirt. "Joe and Shelly looked at him like two carnival hucksters who knew all the rules and were going to show him how to play the game," she said.

'Must Be a Mediator'

"He has not yet made the transition from prosecutor to chief executive and even mediator, because that's what the Governor has to be in dealing with the Senate and Assembly. The Governor cannot pass bills or a budget without the Legislature."

Despite the most-recent misstep, Senator Savino believes Mr. Spitzer can repair his image and rally public support to push through much of his agenda despite the resistance he may face from the two legislative leaders. "He's defined himself by his integrity, and I believe he can restore those feelings about him," she said.

That's assuming, of course, that Mr. Spitzer is not directly implicated in the effort to figuratively hang Mr. Bruno out a state helicopter, and that he's learned something from this fiasco.

During Hugh Carey's two terms in office, he went from being a dynamic Governor who was the elected official most responsible for rescuing the city from the brink of bankruptcy to a cartoon figure who Jimmy Breslin skewered as "Society Carey," a man more interested in taking helicopters to his favorite Manhattan watering holes than running the state.

Mr. Spitzer hasn't needed a wickedly merry newspaper columnist to create a caricature of himself. Steamroller Spitzer had better stop clanking down the runway and bring his administration under control if he expects his ambitious changes to get off the ground.

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