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CAPITOL BEAT
by Jay Gallagher

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Paterson passes on rapping Parker

Gov. David Paterson today passed up a chance during an interview on a radio show to criticize Brooklyn Sen. Kevin Parker for calling some of his colleagues in the Senate “White supremacists.’’

Susan Arbetter, host of the “Capitol Pressroom’’ show. pointed out to the governor that he had served for 20 years in the Senate with some of those Parker criticized, including Sen. John DeFrancisco, Dale Volker of suburban Buffalo and Thomas Libous of the Southern Tier.

When she asked if he had considered any of the whites to be racists, he drew his answer carefully.

“Not against any of those three individuals,’’ he said.

He said Parker just may be frustrated that minority-owned businesses got only two-thirds of one percent of the contract work from state agencies, even though they accounted for 9 percent of the firms cleared for state work.

He also wouldn’t get into the middle of whether Parker, who has a history of blowing up at people and just a year ago called the governor a “coke-snorting, staff-banging governor,’’ should be censured by the Senate.

“I’ll leave it to the Senate to decide that,’’ he said.

He also said he was glad that Mark O’Luck, the man appointed to the Power Authority whose nomination sparked an exchange between Parker and DeFrancisco, was confirmed by the Senate.

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