Hypocrisy alert – Gov. Paterson

So now it’s coming out new New York Gov. David Paterson billed an election campaign of his for expenses for one of his extramarital flings. And, all jokes aside, he billed the “constitutent services” line on his campaign finance accounts.

His allegedly honest opening press conference, after replacing Eliot Spitzer, apparently wasn’t so honest.

On Tuesday, in an extraordinary Albany news conference, Paterson admitted he’d had affairs with several women, but insisted he never “knowingly” used campaign cash for his trysts. It’s illegal to use campaign money for personal expenses.

In an interview with The New York Daily News yesterday, he admitted that sometime when he was Senate minority leader from November, 2002 through 2006, he apparently used a campaign credit card for a liaison with a woman he wouldn't name at the Quality Hotel (now the Days Inn) on the upper West Side.

“I do remember that there was a time I might have had to use the [campaign] card because my other [personal] card didn't work,” he said. He said the stay cost about $100, but didn’t recall when it occurred.

Great.

Well, the New York GOP will be after him soon enough. I don’t know if New York State has a special prosecutor law or not, but it appears Patterson broke the law.