So who had Monday evening in the “when will New York next be embarrassed by a sex scandal” blogosphere pool? Personally, I was leaning more toward the general election with liberally spread false (R) affiliations.

Newly appointed Governor Paterson admits (only hours after assuming office) that he’s had longstanding affairs during ’sour’ periods of his marriage. Before you slap yourself in the face, it’s okay because his wife has had affairs too!

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state’s new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with “a woman other than my wife,” beginning in 1999.

So this was in interviews over the last few days? Why hasn’t anyone heard of this? Was it the New York machine trying to smooth things out after the shocking quick-dump that Spitzer’s scandal turned out to be? I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this whether we want to or not.

Ace realizes that NY politics is more interesting than one would imagine.

Michelle Malkin gets herself another dose of too much information.
LGF: Oh no. No no no.

Gateway Pundit smells future scandal as ‘rumors circulate’.

Amerpundit: Oh, Come On!

Atlas Shrugs wonders who the next, next will be.

The Astute Blogger has some more questions.

Ed at Hot Air opines:

The people of New York just can’t catch a break. Just when Albany thought they could get back to work, the new administration opened a can of worms that will likely distract them from their business for another period of time. They have to determine whether two stays at the Quality Inn, which cost around $450 and which were charged to Paterson’s campaign as “office expenses”, paid for his mistress. If it did, Paterson might have the shortest tenure of any New York governor in history.

However, if not, then this is no one’s business but David and Michelle Paterson’s. As long as it didn’t involve exploiting a staff member, then it has no relation to public interest. Paterson gets paid to legislate, not to act as a paragon of moral virtue. Until last week, he never figured on being governor, and had led a quiet political life in the background, and it appears he believed that he never would have to face the kind of scrutiny he faces now. Paterson chose immediate and full disclosure — which should lead to the conclusion that he most likely didn’t misuse public funds for his trysts.

I’m with Ed on most of this. It really doesn’t matter if Paterson had an affair (doubly less since both he and his wife were seeking things outside their marriage) but given the nature of the scandal that brought down his predecessor, I don’t know if the public will be as understanding as they might be otherwise. There comes a point when you’re worn out of scandal (or potential scandal) and you just want to clean house. I can’t claim that New Yorkers feel this way, as I’m not one, but it isn’t unreasonable to imagine that Paterson might not remain in his post simply by having some of the worst timing of any politician in recent memory.

I’m still wondering what the story behind the story is with these earlier in the week interviews. Why didn’t this come out before he was sworn in if it had been discussed in an open forum? I hope for both the people of New York’s sake, as well as Paterson’s, that he didn’t foolishly classify fooling around as an office expense. Worst four hundred and fifty dollars if he did.

Gina Cobb gives Paterson partial credit for coming clean. That seems to be the consensus.

QandO would have left it at being rumors.

Protein Wisdom adds a bit of levity to the situation.

Alarming News tells truth of the New York Political Machine.

With a twofer like this, you just know capitalism will be the only winner here.

Edit: After reflecting on trueconservative’s comment, I’ve decided to tweak the shirts I’m offering at cafepress. My goal was to commemorating the irony and lunacy of the recent situation in New York. I think the shirts reflect that intent better now.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Democrats, What?!?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.