Live-blogging (or not) the Paterson death watch (updated)

News conference is scheduled for 3; you can watch it here. I'm going to watch it at home myself, but the circumstances recall past departures (although resignation is not officially on Paterson's agenda). I watched Eliot Spitzer's resignation two years ago on the TV in the LCA at the Capitol with a bunch of people. The League of Women Voters' Barbara Bartoletti groaned in protest as Silda Spitzer came out with her disgraced husband again, as Silda had two days before when the prostitution scandal broke. I'd watched that appearance jammed into Betty Flood's Capitol office, from where my grim looking face appeared in a New York Times photo. Spitzer then, like Paterson now, held his appearances in New York City. In 1974, I viewed President Nixon's resignation at the Catholic Worker Farm in Tivoli, where watchers let out an ironic cheer when a TV announcer said Gerald Ford favored cutting public spending in all areas except defense. Today, the governor is a bit late but we are told he should be appearing in a few minutes.

Uh, oh, the feed's gone dark. Maybe they cut it so as to cut off the reporters' kibitzing as they waited around. I hope/presume it will go back on when the governor shows up.

Web cast has disappeared, but I'm listening to governor now on WAMC 90.3 FM.

And so it's over -- as predicted he's not running for re-election. Says he's not resigning. But I actually missed most of what WAMC's Alan Chartock is now saying was a very strong speech. Chartock says, and I agree, that the political establishment was out to get Paterson, but he did err greatly in this David Johnson matter.

Comments

[Joe]

It was not a strong speech; he spent the first two-thirds of it telling us what a great governor he's been, oblivious to the seriousness of this offense, which, depending on the outcome of the investigation, could qualify as a criminal obstruction of justice. Worse than Eliot!

[Matthew]

I'm confused.

You never really said in what way this past resignation reminded of your other examples.

[Bob Conner]

Sorry. Live blogging plus technical difficulties confusion does make. I just meant, writing as I waited for Paterson to appear, that I was reminded of the two Spitzer appearances in March 2008, and the Nixon resignation in '74.