City

* On Fred Dicker's radio show yesterday former Gov. David Paterson defended Gov. Andrew Cuomoagainst charges his administration lacks transparency, saying that criticism of the all-night Albany session that led to the passage of the pension plan (among other things) was unstudied, and ignores the messy realities of policy-making. Paterson underscored the point with a sort-of brutal reference. "I was watching the Ken Burns World War II episode," Paterson said. "It was clear that solders were left on the field to die. If the army had given up its position on parts of the field, other people may have gotten killed," he said, likening Cuomo's strategy this legislative session to that of a war commander, in this instance, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. "Everything can't be squeaky clean, tied up in a bow and perfect. The good is not the enemy of the perfect. What Andrew Cuomo has been able to accomplish has been great, but it has not been perfect. Transparency can be as bad as good sometimes," Paterson said. * The redistricting battle rages on as the defendants in a lawsuit challenging the state's Senate and Assembly lines were forced to answer amended complaints from the plaintiffs. As Times-Union's Jimmy Vielkind pointed out yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has retained counsel from the firm of Zuckerman Spaeder, which now employs ex-Cuomo Secretary Steve Cohen. The attorney named on the case is Cohen's partner Paul Shechtman, who taught Cohen in law school. Shechtman's answer to the more than 100 different stipulations in the amended complaints consists largely declining to answer. There are only a handful of items the governor's answer admits: the Constitution did create a Senate, and part of the Constitution addresses the Senate's size; Nassau County used to be part of Queens in the 19th century; that a Constitutional Convention did take place in 1894; and that New York and Brooklyn were "fast growing metropolises"; that LATFOR held public hearings in 2001, and that LATFOR holds hearings in general. To read the full article at City and State click here.