Friday, October 27, 2006

A Lesson In Karma

A few months back, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi made some rather ridiculous comments at the graduation ceremony at Queens College:
Hevesi said, "I shall carry with me the image of Senator Chuck Schumer getting dumped at the airport. ... We really feel bad for poor Chuck -- United States senator. The man who, uh, now how do I phrase this diplomatically, will put a bullet between the President's eyes if, ah, he could get away with it. The toughest senator, the best representative. A great, great member of the Congress of the United States."
Alan, meet karma. Although your comments were far from the visciousness we've come to expect from morons like Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh, they are highly paid to put their karmic lives on the line. You are not.

So your recent troubles point up how big a price we pay for our actions in this world:
mbattled state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, now the subject of an intensifying criminal investigation, lost the support of one of his chief political patrons yesterday when Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Eliot Spitzer withdrew his endorsement.

Spitzer's move to sever his public support came as Gov. George Pataki was seriously considering whether to recommend to the State Senate that it take steps to remove Hevesi from office, a process that usually involves a trial before the Senate's 62 members.

Pataki's aides insisted the governor had not made a final judgment about a course of action, but people close to the situation said they expected Pataki, a Republican who leaves office at the end of the year, to ask the GOP-controlled Senate as early as today to remove Hevesi. Pataki is scheduled to hold an afternoon news conference in Manhattan about the case.
Now, you're probably thinking, "But Carl! What does one have to do with the other?"

Hevesi is under investigation for having a state employee chauffeur his wife to and from various medical facilities:
A former administrator of volunteer services at Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in Queens, Carol Hevesi grew up in Woodside and has a sister, Marcia, who was a detective sergeant in the NYPD's Missing Persons Bureau -- among the first women to attain that rank. Carol Hevesi was an energetic woman until surgery to repair four herniated discs nearly 30 years ago left her suffering from chronic back pain.
...which of course would be fine if Hevesi reimbursed the state. He has made a partial payment of some $80,000, but state officials have said this is barely half of what he would owe.

Still, what reason was it that he couldn't just have her take cabs?
[H]e had received several death threats and said his work as comptroller of New York City and later of the state had led him into a number of controversial arenas, including canceling “contracts with companies that were connected with organized crime.” He said he had received such threats as a live shotgun shell and a dead bird in the mail.

“My own security people told me that a threat against me is a threat against my wife,” he said.
I'm betting more than one of those threats came in response to his comments at Queens College.

Alan Hevesi has a 35 year record that was, up to this point, unimpeachable, and given his wife's condition (she has attempted suicide because of the pain and is currently residing in a nursing home), it's somewhat understandable that he'd try to fix the problem first, and deal with the fallout later.

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