Carl Paladino takes a break from horse porn to sling mud at the Times Union’s Jimmy Vielkind

Carl Paladino, professional crank and one-time Republican nominee for Governor of New York State

Carl Paladino has written Jimmy Vielkind a scathing letter of blustery rhetoric that sort of reads like a Christopher Hitchens essay, that is if Hitchens were preoccupied with his failures in life, was not that clever, and only wrote while drunk Facebooking.

In the rant, Drunk Hitchens accuses Vielkind of being a tool of the administration and part of a diseased press corps:

Jimmy, I’m writing this letter to you as I believe you to be the most glaring example of the hideous and dysfunctional Albany press corps.

…

Jimmy, you are incapable of analytical thought and nevertheless trying to wear adult shoes.  You feel smug with your liberal Albany press corps delinquents spewing out Cuomo/Silver-speak to a frustrated and bewildered citizenry who are trying to understand why the wonks in Albany protect the status quo and fail to attend to their needs.

Well, the joke’s on him, because between all the cuts in recent years and the prevalence of the internet, there IS no real press corps to speak of other than Jimmy and a handful of others.

All joking aside, the letter is pure insanity and would be thrown in the crank file were it not for the fact that people actually thought this guy, who resembles an exhausted Ruben Kincaid in the throes of a manic episode, could run New York State.

The best part is when he claims that nobody cared about gay marriage and that it was an issue used as a distraction from real issues.

Nobody really gave a hoot about gay marriage.  Couldn’t you hear the sucking sound in March and April.  Cuomo wired up the inane issue with Skelos and Silver to distract the people from the more critical issues that they did not want to address like real Medicaid reform to get at the fraud, waste and abuse; tort, malpractice and workers compensation reform which would dramatically reduce health and other insurance costs and actually lowering regulation, the cost of state government and taxes to create and retain real jobs.

All those gays were just PRETENDING to love each other and wanting to get married, which is typical with Civil Rights. Because really, Brown vs. Board of Ed was just something the establishment used to distract us from the real issues of the day, like communists infiltrating the military and that goddamn Bill Haley and his Comets causing riots all over the place.

I’d go further, but my Irish Catholic heritage is already giving me enough guilt for piling on this poor schlub. I’ll just end it here by saying that I’ve seen comments on blogs and received e-mails from shut-ins that were better put together and not as intentionally cruel.

I would say Paladino owed Vielkind an apology, except I don’t think even Vielkind could take such bluster seriously. It is distressing, though, that this sort of vitriol was at one time accepted by anyone as appropriate or acceptable from a major party candidate and public official. Carl’s rants are rhetorical nonsense, bereft of facts or points, and say more about his inability to manage his own anger and temper than it does any real issues facing New York State. He isn’t a politician, pundit, or even an informed citizen. He’s just an asshole.

To borrow and modify a phrase: I’m disappointed too, Carl.