While Sheldon Silver is busy planning today for a five-headed creature to "temporarily" take over as Assembly Speaker, it's important to remember who quickly came to his defense after he had been arrested on a wide array of federal bribery charges.
Before they had even read the 35-page criminal complaint, a group of prominent Democratic Assembly members in Albany rallied to their leader's side last Thursday, sounding like celebrities speaking out on behalf of Bill Cosby.
"I'm continuing to support the speaker, and I would say that the members overwhelmingly, in the conversation that we just had, are continuing their support," said Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle. Not surprisingly, Morelle is one of the five people Silver has tapped to run things while he deals with his massive legal troubles.
Looking like poster children for a problem instead of lawmakers searching for a solution, the Assembly Democrats have been in denial that their supreme leader is in supreme trouble. Embracing his five-headed hyrda of Assembly leadership today will effectively allow Silver to stay in control because no one else will truly have it.
While not quite sounding like he's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, Mayor de Blasio last week was certainly grading Silver on a generous curve, praising a man who had just been accused of multiple felonies.
"Although the charges announced today are certainly very serious, I want to note that I’ve always known Shelly Silver to be a man of integrity, and he certainly has due process rights,'' the mayor said on Thursday, adding that he didn't think that Silver should step down.
If there was ever any question before, it's quite clear where politicians stood on the food chain with Silver based on their remarks.
Sen. Charles Schumer – who is far outside Silver's gravitational pull – put out a terse statement on Thursday night, noting that "It's a sad day for the State of New York and a sad day for Speaker Silver."
And only a day after jokingly calling Silver one of his amigos, Gov. Cuomo was carefully putting some distance between himself and the embattled speaker,
"Obviously it's bad for the speaker, but it's also a bad reflection on government and it adds to the negativity. And it adds to the cynicism and it adds to the 'they're all the same,' ,'' Cuomo told the Daily News editorial board.
Circling the wagons for Silver and praising him only makes politicians look like a corrupt band of brothers who won't castigate one of their own – even when he's accused of a serious crime. Embracing his interim plan looks like something cooked up by one of the Sopranos when Tony gets hauled off to court.
Making it worse is that the source of Silver's legal problem was in plain sight. For years, critics have been wondering if it was proper for the head of the State Assembly to be doing work for a law firm. There would be national outcry if John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi were putting up a law shingle in their (non-existent) spare time.
The good news for everyone is that it's not so hard now to embrace change. That means that a smart place to start would be rejecting Silver's plan to replace Three men in a Room with Six Men and One Woman in a Room.
The Assembly has a real chance to change things rather than just shuffling the deck. But based on everyone's behavior so far, don't count on it. But, for once, all the snow in the world won't cover up what's going on in Albany anymore.
