I was trying to say that the lies make it a problem instead of a non-event.
For those who weren’t familiar with this story, the problem is not that Paterson got free Yankees World Series tickets. It’s that he asked the team for the tickets. If they’d offered them to him, it’s likely that nobody would have cared. But elected officials are not supposed to g o out and ask lobbyists for perks, and the Yankees do count as a lobbyist. Nor are they supposed to use their positions to get gifts, although everybody knows that happens.
When Paterson was asked about all this, he said he hadn’t asked for the tickets, which turned out not to be true. And he said he’d intended to pay for them, and what came out is that a few days after the game, someone else in his office wrote a check that Paterson could use as evidence that he had meant to pay the team for the tickets.
The tickets are an ethics issue. Lying about them could a criminal one. So as always, the coverup is worse than the deed.
You know I agree with that - except, I can’t figure out what argument someone could use that would convince him.
Unless thinks start looking really ominous and he goes for agree to pardon me for all criminal acts right now and I’ll resign.
Short of that he doesn’t appear to be overly concerned about being ineffective or a detriment to his party.
Paterson doesn’t have more than a couple of days. The last issue, I expect, is that he will try to use his resignation as a bargaining chip to reduce or avoid prosecution.
