What a tangled web we weave

You can attend an online press conference this morning when Senate Democrats unveil a new Web site. No doubt it will be an improvement, but the preview I saw contained photos of public meetings that might leave the unwary with the impression that the Senate is a model of democratic discourse. In fact, on every contentious issue from the budget to the MTA to gay marriage, it is operating under standard Albany rules of closed government. And so far the Democrats have done nothing more than Joe Bruno did to enlighten the public about leaders' and members' personal finances and potential conflicts of interest.