Last month Gov. George Pataki, who is winding up his third term at the helm of New York state and busy positioning himself for a White House run in 2008, checked himself into a local hospital after complaining about abdominal pain. Later that day doctors announced they had removed Pataki's appendix and that the governor would be allowed to leave the hospital in a day or two. Pataki's wife assured the press, ''He's doing absolutely great,'' and his flak echoed that spin: ''Doctors have indicated that the surgery was performed as expected without incident.'' The thumbs-up talk was key since Pataki's unscheduled hospital visit came during the state's annually bruising budget negotiations, as well as against the backdrop of president Bush's port security controversy, where New York stands as a key player. Not to mention the fact Pataki had to cancel a speaking gig in New Hampshire.
Problem is that was more than 14 days ago. Since the initial operation Pataki's health has continued to falter, he's been shipped off to another hospital and had to undergo a second surgery to try to unclog his digestive track and clean up internal infections. For now, New Yorkers have no clue when their governor will return to office, in part because during Pataki's never-ending, Ground Hog Day hospital stay aides have given out very little useful information about the governor's health. In fact, they obviously concealed what was really going on in order to protect their boss. Yet to date, the press corps, while dutifully covering the story, has shown little enthusiasm or initiative. Instead, most New York news outlets have simply aired or published daily, 'He's-up-and-around' updates that read more like Pataki staff hand-outs.
Obviously, the press needs to be respectful of politicians' privacy, particularly when it comes to personal issues like their health when it's something like getting an appendix removed. But who ever heard of 16-day hospital stay for that common procedure? Half-a-month later Pataki's still not well enough to put his clothes on and walk out the hospital doors by himself.
That's a big story and I think there's an obvious double standard in the distance the press is keeping from Pataki the Republican. Just imagine if former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, back while he was famously mulling over a presidential run on the Democratic side, got laid up in the hospital unexpectedly for weeks on end and his aides were caught fibbing about his condition and about the circumstances of his prolonged hospitalization. You can be sure that would have been played as a major political story. To date though,The New York Times has yet to put Pataki's disappearing act on page one. In fact, the Times has been remarkably reserved on the story, only daring one or two times over the course of a couple weeks to delicately broach what are the rather obvious questions; like what the hell's going on with the governor of the state, why is it so difficult to get the simplest information about his health status, and what are the political ramifications both for New York as well as Pataki's White House dream?
The bad news for Pataki is that by the looks and sounds of things, he's not heading home any time soon. The good news for the press is that that gives reporters time to start asking tough questions and treating the story seriously.