would you let this man near *your* children?

Carl Paladino's delayed repudiation of his weekend gay-bashing is being rightfully dismissed as too little, too late. But that doesn't mean it still can't be picked apart for its lack of logic, cowardice, and inanity. "I am Carl Paladino," the statement (probably not written by Carl Paladino) opens, "a father, a husband, a builder and a business owner."

Why stop there? You are also a Republican, septuagenarian, Virgo, homo sapien -- actually, I can see where this would get problematic. Let's leave it at "business owner." He goes on to write that this whole incident began when "Yesterday I was handed a script."

That is leadership, people.

We could go on to outline our disdain for the my-best-friends-are-gay gambit later in the statement, the brain-melting attempt to place himself alongside President Obama on the same side of, well, anything in the Year of the Tea Party, and the fact that within hours, an aide had maintained the Paladino campaign's pace of one-gaffe-per-day by calling the Attorney General "oily".

We've noted, more than once, our disgust with Accidental Governor Patterson. But maybe the bigger problem isn't the politicians, but the office itself. Maybe it only attracts the venal and mildly insane.

Or maybe just the possibility of attaining the office turns you crazy and hateful.