Regardless, the nation’s head is in agreement with most New Yorkers: Barack Obama disapproves of Paterson. The problem is whether any other candidate will improve on Paterson’s pathetic, distressing, shameful, and risible tenure.  Is there anyone who could 1) transform business as usual in the capital after 2) winning first?

In this state, the troublemakers aren’t limited to one particular affiliation: former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno became part of the problem as he abandoned Republicans for the Albany Party.  Plus, George Pataki may as well have been a fifth- or sixth-generation Rockefeller considering how willingly he spent tax receipts.

Of course, Democrats aren’t in the clear, especially considering their leading non-Paterson gubernatorial contender.  Most notably, Andrew Cuomo may attempt to continue father Mario’s horrific legacy of making New York like East Berlin: he could be another leader who favors taxing and regulating people until they feel hopping over the border is the only option.

Or, this could all be an extraordinary Obama ploy to discard his marginalized secretary of state.  That’s if there’s any traction to the so-far unconfirmed rumors that Hillary Clinton is heading back to try to win the governorship of her not-really home state.

As for her 2000 opponent, Rick Lazio could angle for a rematch.  The problem is that he mostly got votes from conservatives when he ran for the Senate because he wasn’t the former First Lady, not because he agreed with them on everything.

So, wow, could Rudy Giuliani be the best hope for change?  He may not run, and he might make Lazio look like a right-winger by comparison on some social issues.  But he would be more than a governor: Giuliani would be in charge.

It’s more about personal style than partisanship.  This state has been ruined by closed-room shenanigans throughout recent history, but the dodgy shenanigans would end if the erstwhile mayor got promoted.  Giuliani isn’t going to let someone like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver bully him into compromising on anything, especially pertaining to how much of our money to waste.

Giuliani’s just-maybe potential run might be perfectly timed: it would coincide with an election that’s looking to represent voters’ collective breaking point.  As with national-level politics, New Yorkers could finally demonstrate that they’re sick of a government that tells them what to do when it’s not spending much of their money.

They may have a reasonable chance to alter the gloomy landscape next year, but it depends on the candidate.  The right may be repulsed by numerous Giuliani positions.  But he’s, mildly, a law-and-order type who’s also big on slicing taxes.  Most importantly, he’d run the state instead of letting Albany run him.  If not Giuliani, then yay, go Lazio, although he must show his credentials go beyond being a New York State Republican.

Public authority reform in New York has hit the wall. Changes instituted a couple of years ago require more accountability in budgeting. That’s progress.

But as the Thruway Authority showed this spring in defying public will on rate increases, authorities are essentially what they’ve always been: high-level patronage mills with enormous power and near-unassailable autonomy.

Actually, there is a way to assail them. Authorities are creations of the Legislature and they can be undone by same. It’s time to pare back the number of authorities and return their functions to something resembling democracy.

State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, meeting with the Editorial Board last week, said the 300 or so state and local authorities might reasonably be reduced to a number far smaller — 40, he suggested. His point was less about the right number and more about the profusion of powerful agencies about which the public knows next to nothing.

Of course, the ultimate question is what the collective will of the people is with regards to reforming the state’s bureaucracy. My guess is the idea is dead on arrival.

A little-known but powerful state agency with broad powers to ferret out wrongdoing in government said today it has begun an investigation into how at least three different state and local agencies handled their probes of the Spitzer administration’s attempt to smear a political rival with the help of the State Police.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares, for instance, cleared Eliot Spitzer of wrongdoing in his original probe of Troopergate last year, but in a new report last week concluded that Spitzer was heavily involved in the effort against Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

In addition, various questions have been raised about the closeness of the two state agencies — Public Integrity and the Inspector General — because Spitzer appointees control those agencies, neither of which has interviewed Spitzer about his role.

The state Commission of Investigation, created by Gov. Thomas Dewey in 1951 to look into political corruption cases, can use its subpoena powers to look into the how effectively the state ethics agency, the state inspector general and the Albany County district attorney handled the scandal known in Albany.

“Let me be clear. The commission is not investigating the events concerning troopergate; more than enough investigations of the issues surrounding those events have taken or are taking place,” SIC Chairman Alfred D. Lerner said in a written statement this morning.

“Rather, the commission is investigating the investigations. We are seeking to determine the efficacy of the various investigatory efforts, including those of the Albany County district attorney, the state inspector general and the state Commission on Public Integrity,” he said.

It will be interesting to see how this investigation pans out. Soares has already been accused of sitting on information that Spitzer had lied about his role in the Troopergate scandal… something tells me Soares is in real trouble.

Former Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer lied to prosecutors about what turned out to be his major role in a campaign to smear a political rival, but the Albany County district attorney said he will not pursue any criminal charges against the already- disgraced ex-governor.

Spitzer had full knowledge of the effort to discredit Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno last summer and, in a profanity-filled tirade, directed the release of State Police travel records of the State Legislature’s top Republican following a breakdown in negotiations between the two men at the end of the 2007 legislative session.

More than a month after telling aides not to release information or investigate Bruno’s use of state aircraft between Albany and Manhattan, Spitzer then angrily dismissed an aide who raised warnings angering Bruno. Calling Bruno a “piece of [expletive],” Spitzer added, “Shove it up his [expletive] with a red hot poker.” The aide, former communications adviser Darren Dopp, described Spitzer to prosecutors as “spitting mad.”

Despite this new information, District Attorney Soares says there will not be any criminal charges because Spitzer has already resigned from office. Senate Republicans are justifiably angry.

But Senate Republicans lashed out at Soares, charging he sat on information that Spitzer had lied to him about his role and failed to pursue before a grand jury the role of other top Spitzer advisers in the matter. They noted that Soares only last September cleared Spitzer, saying he had no knowledge of the smear effort against Bruno, and that Soares never interviewed Spitzer or other top aides under oath before a grand jury.

“Soares botched this thing so badly that it is amazing. Here he has knowledge — that the governor lied to him and he did nothing,” said Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira, who is heading a separate Senate investigation into the affair. He criticized Soares for not delving more into the role of the State Police and whether top Spitzer aides coerced Dopp into signing a document he submitted to the attorney general last summer about the campaign.

Soares may not want to kick Spitzer any more when he’s already down, but anyone following this story knew what was going on, and one has to wonder if this revelation would have been kept quiet had Spitzer not already fallen from grace as a result of his prostitution scandal. Bruno accuses Soares of botching the investigation as a “cover” for Spitzer.

Spitzer’s office has been under a dark ethical cloud for quite a long time before the sex scandal erupted, it surprised me he wasn’t forced out of office quite a long time ago. Perhaps that’s why he resigned after the sex scandal erupted. With Soares covering for him in the DA’s office, other serious charges against him may not ever be pursued.

UPDATE: Soares outlines “TrooperGate” investigation…