'He's Being Uncharacteristically Quiet in Part Because the Numbers Don't Look That Good'

As Christmas approaches and we brace for the trillion-dollar lump of coal Santa Obama and his evil elves are about to drop down our chimneys, there is one small tiding we should be thankful for. Granted, knowing this loudmouth, it's likely temporary, althoug any occasion when he's not flapping his gums 24/7 should be cherished.

When the feds whack New York, you usually hear Chuck Schumer lead the outrage. But on health care, he's been practically mute about some mighty hits headed our way.

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Paterson both slammed the Senate bill Monday, charging it would cost the city more than $500 million and rip a $1 billion-a-year hole in the state budget.

Schumer, a veteran streetfighter for federal cash, has been suddenly recast as a defender of Washington - and a deal he helped cut that shafts New York.

"He's being uncharacteristically quiet in part because the numbers don't look that good," said Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio.

Of course him going completely mute just isn't possible.

Schumer's top bragging point was a special provision to stop cuts in Medicare Advantage to 800,000 New Yorkers.

"I stopped it all," he said, a save worth "multibillions of dollars" to the seniors who use the alternative to traditional Medicare.

On jobs, "I used the influence I had" to beat back a "$30 billion assault" by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on funds for tens of thousands of employees at New York teaching hospitals.

Oh, where would we be without Chucky?

Memo to the New York GOP: Please please please recruit someone to run against this buffoon. If you don't realize the outrage people have then you're totally clueless. He's vulnerable, like most every Democrat out there.

Meanwhile, Chucky's puppet also was running scared.

Responding to searing criticism from Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg that the Senate's version of health-care reform would devastate New York's medical services, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand insisted yesterday the legislation was good medicine.

"The Senate health-care bill is good for New York," the Democratic senator's spokesman said in a written statement after she dodged an interview with The Post.

Questioned as she was leaving a lunch with other senators in the Capitol, Gillibrand refused to answer questions about her support for the bill or what she was doing to make it better for New York in the wake of attacks from Paterson and Bloomberg.

Paterson fumed that, among other problems, the bill would cost New York over $1 billion a year in Medicaid funds. Bloomberg warned it could force "hundreds" of health facilities in the city to close.

Gillibrand's only response to their complaints: "It's something I've been lobbying on from the beginning."

Asked to elaborate, she said: "We should set up an interview because it's actually a much longer issue than I'd like to discuss in a one-minute walk."

Gillibrand repeatedly promised to sit down for an interview yesterday.

But the senator's office later said that would not be possible.

Previously.