Motus Mentis

If you’ve been paying attention to the news this weekend, you’ve heard that President Obama — who, having apparently run out of things to take over at the federal level, now seeks to expand his suzerainty to state governments as well — has told New York’s dismally feckless governor David Paterson not to run for re-election, so as not to diminish the prospects of other Democratic hopefuls.

This seems a bit much, I have to say. Mind you, I expect there isn’t a registered voter in the Empire State who won’t dance a little jig on the day Mr. Paterson is turned out of office — but I thought we already had a system in place whereby we voters sort those matters out.

Meanwhile, the governor announced today that, presidential decreta notwithstanding, he is not about to abandon his touching little dream of actually being elected to the office he presently holds as a matter of bureaucratic contingency (readers will recall that Mr. Paterson, the former lieutenant-governor, was automatically promoted to fill the vacancy made available by the scandalous sexual escapades of his vastly abler predecessor, Elliot Spitzer).

Mr. Paterson then demonstrated his eagerness to make Mr. Obama’s gloomy prognosis a reality, by announcing his support for the Democratic mayoral candidate, William Thompson — who, I am sure, was every bit as delighted to receive the Paterson anointment as a drowning man is to be thrown an anchor.