A confederacy of dunces in Albany

Fools can be dangerous enough -- and rogues, too -- so what do you do when roguish fools rule the roost?

The Observer's Jimmy Vielkind paints a devastating (and pretty entertaining) portrait today of a Democratic Senate caucus absolutely paralyzed by its own incompetence and venality.

With Governor David Paterson pushing for substantive deficit reductions, his Democratic colleagues continue to trot out some of the weariest Albany theatrics.

No one believes that any of this junk will work. It's not even good theater anymore.

The latest canard? If we just collect tobacco taxes from native reservations all our problems will be solved!

Sigh.

Invisible here but implied is an equally ineffective Republican caucus, which has declined to partner with Paterson.

Presumably the GOP hopes to salvage a majority from the Democratic rubble in 2010.

But with the increasingly unseemly Joe Bruno trial also unfolding the last few weeks, and former Governor Pataki responsible for much of the overspending, it's hard to imagine voters looking across the aisle for salvation.

If you can handle a taste of Albany's Kafkaesque buffoonery, read Jimmy's piece. Here's the best bit.

"The problem with the Senate is they're all a bunch of clowns who don't know what the #*@& they're doing, and don't have the votes to pass anything; it's been like this all year," one Democratic assemblyman said of the Senate Democrats.

A noble institution this democracy of ours.