Thursday, February 01, 2007

Spitzer: 'I'm a steamroller' ---------part 2


Newsday ERROL A. COCKFIELD JR. AND JOHN RILEY

I noticed Newsday has cleaned up the F**King word.....it is good to see Riley back doing meaningful stories again for Newsday.....andy

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer described himself as a "steamroller" who would "roll over" opponents and bragged to a top Republican last week that he has already achieved more than any previous governor, a source familiar with the incident confirmed Wednesday."Listen, I'm a -- -- steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else," an angry Spitzer told Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) during an expletive-laced cell phone conversation about Tedisco's exclusion from legislative negotiations."I've done more in three weeks than any governor has done in the history of the state," Spitzer added, the source said.The comments, first reported in the New York Post, provided comic relief on a day devoted to presentation of the first state budget from a new governor who has long reveled in playing the role of hyper-confident tough guy.One blogger mused that "I'm a -- -- steamroller" would replace "On Day One, Everything Changes" as the new administration's official slogan, and Tedisco drew a larger than normal crowd to the minority leader's budget news conference. "We had a kind of a steamy conversation," the smiling GOP leader acknowledged.Tedisco refused to confirm -- or deny -- the reported details, but said that although he didn't think Spitzer had yet surpassed Teddy Roosevelt or Nelson Rockefeller, he wasn't offended by an aggressive governor."I've heard the f-word before," he said. " ... I didn't use the f-word in return, if the f-word was ever used toward me."Senate Republican Majority Leader Joe Bruno, anticipating tough negotiations with Spitzer, used the occasion to tell reporters a story about a time he tried to use a steamroller to flatten fields chopped up by his horses on his Rensselaer County farm."I took the steamroller down this little incline and turned it around and I couldn't get it back up the same hill," Bruno said. "It started to spin. And guess what, when the going gets a little bit tough a steamroller spins, it doesn't advance ... We got my tractor, my four-wheel drive tractor, and hauled it out of there. We're prepared to help the governor and haul him out."Spitzer's office refused to comment on his conversation with Tedisco, but Spitzer didn't seem particularly embarrassed.He said, "That's right," when a reporter referred to him as "the steamroller" at a news conference. When another reporter asked if it wasn't presumptuous to claim he was already New York's best governor, he said, "No. Next question." And late in the day, he responded to Bruno's farm fable."It's a cute story, but I guess I would say to him some of us know how to drive steamrollers," Spitzer told Newsday. "Tell Joe he should stick to horses, I'll stick to steamrollers and we'll be just fine."

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