If He Only Had A Brain

On a gut personal level, Gov. Pataki always struck us as a nice guy. A bumbler, maybe, a gangly oaf whose command of the language is a bit lacking, but the sort of man who'd happily lend you his weed-whacker. He's the medium-witted frat brother who gently smiled his ineffectual way through any problem. The one no one could ever really get mad at because, well, "it was George."

Just how big of a hopeless dork is George Pataki, still? Here's what he told the Times before setting off to Iowa last week: "We might do a country fair-I just love those. If we're going to be out there and there's one nearby, I want to do one."

Scarecrows are definitely a natural constituency for New York's leading stiff, who has never been a tower of strength and vision inspiring the masses. Pataki has always just ambled along, wanting to be liked, as if he were as curious as anyone to see what might happen next.

Then came 9/11, and Pataki's repressed inner chickenhawk-he missed 'Nam duty because of "poor eyesight"-came out bleating and screeching like a hen in Houston-highway heat. He talked such a mean game about the need to "take the fight to the terrorists" that his own son Teddy even signed up for the Marines while at Yale. (Teddy has recently thought better of the decision, and is now seeking a three-year law school deferment.)

In 2003, Pataki crisscrossed the state stumping for the Iraq invasion, a foreign policy tour that finally climaxed with an obscene show at the 2004 RNC, in which the governor rivaled Zell Miller for the convention's most harrowing appearance. In his trademark stilted delivery-and employing a particularly ridiculous version of the Clinton thumb hammer-the governor dropped to his knees before his Dear Leader's accomplishments, and made clear that he was more familiar with GOP talking points than the historical record.

"How I wish the administration at that time, in those years had done something," Pataki said of the Clinton administration. "How I wished they had moved to protect us."

As any reader of Richard Clarke's book-or any newspaper-would have known, terrorism was downgraded as a priority when Bush came to Washington. The president so lauded by Pataki put an affirmative-action hire Sovietologist in the seat of national security advisor, then proceeded to ignore an Aug. 6, 2001 warning that al Qaeda was planning something big.

With that speech, Gov. Pataki lost whatever shred of respect we still held for him. Even on the environment and the development of alternative energy-two issues on which Pataki remains far ahead of the national party-he hasn't been so much a trailblazer as a steward for popular state institutions like the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which preceded him by almost two decades.

There are other things that put him on our shit-list well before Iraq, of course. There's Kendra's Law, signed by Pataki in 2000, which has resulted in more than a few completely sane people thrown into institutions and forced onto psychotropic medication; there's the HIV Partner Notification Law signed that same year, which allowed the state health department to use threats and coercion in the creation of a database of people who may or may not be HIV positive; and there's his support for the death penalty. More recently, there's the inept and possibly corrupt bungling of Ground Zero redevelopment and his support for the West Side stadium.

But it isn't our thoughts about any of this that Pataki cares about as he counts the corn stalks. It's the GOP rank-and-file. And here things don't look so good. A February Times poll found that his approval rating statewide is less than 50 per cent, with not much difference between Republicans and Democrats. That same month, a blistering assault in the pages of the National Review by John J. Miller seemed to sum up the feelings of many conservatives in calling Pataki a failure across the board, particularly on taxes.

It just doesn't look like George Pataki is going anywhere after 2006 except back to the private sector. We can't imagine him beating Eliot Spitzer in his own state, let alone beating Rudy-the real New York thing-in Iowa. So what the hell was he doing out there in overalls land? On second thought, it's entirely possible that he really did just want to go to a state fair. Golly gee willickers, Gov, you really are a tool.