First a Puppet, Now a Parakeet

Last week he called her a weak puppet. Now Harold Ford slams Kirsten Gillibrand as a parakeet. I really hope he runs if only to make the Democratic primary something worth watching. Of course it would be better if the GOP snapped out of it an fielded a good candidate. Perhaps some day they might find someone to also run against Gillibrand's puppeteer, Chucky Schumer.

"We need people to be more independent," Ford, a Tennessee transplant who's looking increasingly like he plans to make a go against the appoined junior senator, told Dicker.

Ford added that the senator wasn't elected "to be a parakeet or to take instructions" from party bosses.

It's not the word The Post has used to describe Gillibrand on its editorial pages - "handpuppet" of Sen. Charles Schumer - but it has a similar meaning.

Asked about why someone should choose him over native upstater Gillibrand, Ford said, "here are people who have all that experience who aren't delivering....you need not have lived there 25 years to understand (the sense that) Washington has lost its way."

He slammed Gillibrand and Schumer for votes on legislation - such as health care reform - that could have a negative impact on their home states, and he rapped Team Gillibrand as distorting his record.

They've been on a tear to "paint me as some sort of Southern zealot," he said. Ford - who recently embraced gay marriage for the first time - accused Gillibrand of switching positions on gay marriage "mor aggressively and more fundamentally than I did."

That was an apparent reference to his long support for civil unions (a position Gllibrand shared until becoming a proponent of gay marriage within days of Gov. Paterson tapping her for her new position).

He also declined repeatedly to slam poll-challenged Paterson, saying he was dealt a rough hand. And he said he would likely have to create an exploratory committee soon to comply with regulations tripped off by spending on testing a candidacy, adding, "I'd rather be inconvenienced than indicted."