Clark Hoyt has a really curious final column summarizing his three years as the NYT’s public editor. A lot of it is self-congratulation to the NYT for even having a public editor. But I’m most fascinated by Hoyt’s rebuttal of reader claims that NYT is a “liberal rag.”

Embattled New York Governor (I don’t know, “embattled” seems like the wrong word here, but I’ll press on. . . ) David Paterson will not run for election this fall, the New York Daily News is reporting. Paterson, long suffering from low approval ratings, an uncooperative State legislature, and a fiscal crisis, has been dogged this month by stories of questionable conduct by a close aide, David Johnson—and earlier this week, that story escalated to include the Governor, himself.

The governor has long been thought vulnerable to a primary challenge from State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, though Cuomo has not officially entered the race. Whispers around New York suspect that Cuomo or his close associates have something to do with driving the story of Paterson’s aide to the surface.