Are there any adults in the house?

There is no one in Albany more slimy than Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, which is saying something given the place. This opinion is corroborated by a friend and former colleague of mine who once worked with him. I know the Assembly GOP don't have a lot of members to choose from for the leadership role, but isn't there anyone less completely shameless than the Schenectady Republican?

In fairness, Tedisco doesn't have much to actually do as head of a tiny GOP conference within an overwhelmingly Democratic chamber. And by grandstanding and posturing, Tedisco has gotten more press than any Assembly minority leader in recent memory.

The downside is that this showcases, rather than hides, Tedisco's complete lack of any political beliefs whatsoever. Basically, he'll take whatever position is going to get him in front of the cameras.

On Thursday, Tedisco blasted Assembly Democrats for showing "very, very little interest in truly cutting spending and the way Albany does business."

He added, "We cannot tax, we cannot spend and we cannot borrow our way into prosperity... The reason, I think, partially, we had 20 late budgets in a row is because that spending level didn't get to the point that [Assembly Speaker] Sheldon Silver wanted it to be."

About half of those 20 late budgets he refers to occurred before Silver became speaker. Of course, the general thrust of his comments is not wrong but given Tedisco's always shaky grasp of facts, I feel it incumbent to clarify this.

Reading this, you might think Tedisco holds a traditional GOP 'downsize government' position.

Yet only a few days earlier, Tedisco warned Democratic Gov. David Paterson against cutting the number of state bureaucrats to deal with the impending budget crisis.

Tedisco said, "If he [Paterson] thinks there's a bloated state government in terms of the numbers that are working here, he's got to show us why it's bloated."

So cutting spending is an absolute imperative to the Assembly Republican leader... so long as no state bureaucrats are touched.

Or maybe this was just a case of a desperate, principle-free politician in an irrelevant office saying whatever he needed to say to get the press to pay attention to him. The latter obviously works, but really only succeeds in making Tedisco look like a buffoon.

A corrupt capital sinks even lower

Jim Tedisco is the head of a tiny group of Republicans in New York state's Assembly so he doesn't have much to do. As a result, he often picks a fake issue to get all grandstand about. It's a great way to get himself in front of TV cameras that would normally ignore a minority leader, especially one as hostile to rational thought as him. The general rule of thumb in New York state politics is that when Tedisco gets all hysterical in favor of something, it's probably a terrible idea.

But the law of averages states that even someone as sleazy as Tedisco is going to be right once in a while. And the minority leader was right to call for Gov. Eliot Spitzer's resignation for his apparent involvement in an interstate prostitution ring. And there are also questions about the legality of how the Democratic governor paid for the high priced hookers.

When you make ethics the centerpiece of your campaign, your own ethics must be above reproach. A former prosecutor and state attorney general who busted a prostitution ring himself has even less excuse to not know better.

When Spitzer resigns, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a widely respected former state senator, will become the first blind governor in US history.

Tedisco even threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against Spitzer if the governor did not resign within 48 hours. If Spitzer's actions are impeachable, it makes you wonder about the future of Tedisco's buddy and fellow Republican Joe Bruno. The Senate majority leader, a sworn enemy of Spitzer, is under FBI investigation himself for allegedly shady business dealings.

Perversely, when Paterson becomes governor, the lieutenant governor position will not be filled permanently as per the state constitution. The ethically challenged Bruno will double as acting lieutenant governor... and thus acting governor when Paterson is out of state.

Then again, when you have a rigged and gerrymandered electoral system that eliminates accountability, this desperate state of affairs is what you get. New Yorkers thought that after decades of permanent gridlock, a capital held hostage by lobbyists and one on-time budget in the last quarter century, things couldn't get any lower....