Something Stinks With Mr. Clean

"If this was a Republican governor doing something like this, you'd hear every good-government group from the League of Women Voters to NYPIRG screaming bloody murder."

We've been down this well-traveled road with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and his persons of hench, and to nobody's surprise, you haven't heard a peep from the alleged good-government types.

Shocking, isn't it?

Maybe if Spitzer was an Iraq veteran, the New York Times would blame his bullying personality on his military service. Perhaps the endless cover-ups could be pinned to some emotional defect suffered from the traumas of war.

Instead, the Times is silent, the national media ignores his obvious flaws, any potential crimnal conduct is blithely dismissed.

Why?

He's a Democrat.

Today's installment of All the Governor's Men brings us some chicanery with phone records, reported of course, by the New York Post's Fred Dicker

PUBLIC Service Commission officials may have hidden telephone records in an effort to undermine a Republican member's claim that she was threatened by Gov. Spitzer's top energy aide, The Post has learned.

Some phone records backing Commissioner Cheryl Buley's explosive claim that former Spitzer energy adviser Steven Mitnick sought to intimidate her weren't provided by the PSC last spring to Inspector General Kristine Hamann, a source close to the investigation said.

"There were bizarre discrepancies in Buley's phone records that were provided by the PSC to the inspector general," the source said.

Failure to include the records led aides for Hamann, a Spitzer-appointee, to doubt Buley's claims that Mitnick threatened she would lose her job if she didn't drop her request that the PSC probe Con Edison's role in the massive July 2006 Queens blackout, the source said.

Buley supplied specific dates and times when allegedly threatening phone calls took place, but the incomplete records turned over by the PSC failed to back up some of the claims, according to the source.

Only when Hamann's investigators recently obtained a separate set of records from telephone-service providers did they realize the PSC records were incomplete, the source said.

The investigators then contacted PSC Acting General Counsel Peter McGowan for an explanation.

Buley, who was described by the source as "incensed" over the missing records, refused to comment.

McGowan refused to comment, other than to insist the PSC has "cooperated fully" with the inspector general's probe.

A spokesman for Hamann also refused to comment.

Several news organizations, including The Post, were told by a Hamann aide in early August that a report on Buley's allegations would be released by Labor Day.

The aide then claimed a month later that the report would be released no later than the end of October.

Now the claim is the report will be out no later than the end of February.

The many delays have prompted charges of a cover-up from Republicans leaders and, privately, some of Spitzer's own appointees.

"Clearly, there is a cover-up going on and Hamann is seeking to bury this report," said John McArdle, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer).

Hillary Clinton, Agent of Change, was unavailable for comment.