The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

Alan Hevesi: False Hopes For Republican Hypocrites

Does an unblemished thirty-year career in public service mitigate the unlawful use of a State employee’s time and services as a chauffeur for one’s ailing spouse? The answer is a resounding “NO.” Should a man of Alan Hevesi’s reputation, and public accountability, have been exceptionally careful to avoid, even the perception
of impropriety? The answer is a resounding “YES.”

However Mr. Hevesi decides to reconcile his carelessness; however he ultimately pays the price for his blunder; one thing is for certain, neither the likes of George Pataki, nor Al D’Amato ought to be the prosecutor, the instrument of his penitence and punishment.

Sure, Republicans nationally, and particularly in New York State, are deservedly flat on their behinds, desperate for any opportunity to get up, even momentarily, off the canvas. Nevertheless, George Pataki, a governor with a 9% approval rating, at last count, running all over the country to promote himself for President, achieved that ignobility associating with schemers and criminals such as Al Pirro, Robert Boyle, Jack Gaffney, and a host of appointees to state authorities who were too busy stuffing their pockets and their bank accounts from the public treasury to even notice the “Ship of State” was sliding rapidly down the “slippery slope.”

George Pataki was still sitting on the Board of Directors of the Hudson Valley Hospital Center from 1991 through 1993 when Al Pirro and Robert Boyle, who he repeatedly claimed were his “best friends and fundraisers,” ripped off that hospital for more than $600,000. I haven’t enough fingers and toes to count all of Pataki’s appointments over the last twelve years who were indicted, and/or convicted, of stealing taxpayer dollars from the state And, what about Pataki’s “sweetheart deal” with one of his big contributors, granting him development rights along the four-hundred-mile-long Barge Canal, for $30,000? Wasn’t it Alan Hevesi who nullified the deal once Assemblyman Richard Brodsky forced the details from Pataki? George would just love to get even with Alan for that.

Of course, Libby Pataki was not going to let George out-do her. Anything George could do, she could do better. For example, her nearly $400,000 income every year since moving into the Governor’s Mansion, earned between two “No-show” consulting jobs, one of them with Estee Lauder. Consultant to a cosmetics company, really? For the Pataki’s it’s been all about three things, money, money and money.

If, as DAILY NEWS columnist Michael Daly suggested last week, Alan Hevesi has “lost his moral authority,” I submit George Pataki never had any. Of course, Pataki’s former friend and mentor, Al D’Amato, probably the biggest “wheeler-dealer” New York has ever sent to the United States Senate, a man whose brother Armand was sent to prison for trying to influence him, can hardly point a finger of accusation at anyone.

No, despite Pataki’s cutting short his government-paid trip to Hungary last week in wild anticipation of calling the State Senate into special session to consider impeaching Comptroller Hevesi, and D’Amato’s saliva-stained statement that he would be doing whatever it might take to elect Christopher Callaghan, in the final analysis, neither of these protestors is sufficiently without sin to cast the first stone.

The simple truth is that with a week to go before Election Day, Alan Hevesi is likely to be re-elected overwhelmingly, and any speculation to the contrary is simply that. What that fact may say about the New York electorate is another matter, altogether.

Alan Hevesi will have to wrestle with his own conscience, reconciling it with his political ambition, and the public’s expectations of his office. Clearly, one who would enforce the law, must live by it. However long it may take Alan Hevesi to realize that he would not tolerate in others what he, himself, has committed, is likely how long he will continue as State Comptroller.