PROMOTING TRANSPARENCY AND THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

 

Interpol might be investigating Assemblywomen Naomi Rivera.

 

But we don’t know it because they haven’t leaked that fact to the New York Post.  Not so for New York’s vaunted JJOKE.

 

Yet again another “scandal” investigation by JJOKE is leaked to the media as part of what former Cuomo staffer Steve Cohen has termed the  Albany media’s race to the bottom.

 

It’s more than a little ironic that it was the NYPost, the same media outlet that employ’s Cohen’s interviewer, Fred Dicker, that got a head start in this particular race to the bottom, but irony makes for good blogging.

 

And don’t get me wrong I love the fact that some “source” told the NYPost that JJOKE was investigating Rivera.  I’m a big proponent of transparency.  In fact I did a lot of transparency promotion myself when I ran the old Lobby Commission.  Not only did I promote transparency, I packaged it, I sold it, I spun it and sometimes I even dressed it up and took it for a walk down to the LCA room.

 

The big difference between what I did and what the “source” associated with JJOKE investigations is doing now is that JJOKE has rules against leaking and has stated that it will prosecute leakers while when I promoted transparency I had the approval of my commissioners, at least I did until the Spitzer appointees showed up and noted lobbyist Jim Featherstonhaugh started his crusade to end my transparency promotion career.

 

But back to JJOKE and the leak of the investigation, if I could give Ellen Biben one piece of advice and I’m loath to do it because I really don’t like Ms. Biben anymore, but if I could it would be that she ought to let her commissioner’s know who she’s investigating before it gets leaked to the media.  It’s just plain rude not to.

 

A piece of advice to the commissioner’s think long and hard before you start down that slippery slope of investigating legislator’s for which girlfriends or boyfriends or both that they have on their payrolls you never know where that could lead.

 

But if you are going to investigate what goes on in Albany’s bedrooms keep leaking so those of us that pay attention to the “race to the bottom” can tell who is winning.