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Last week, the New York State Legislature deftly zapped a United Nations proposal to expand its global headquarters complex onto a dingy slab of Manhattan asphalt known as the Robert Moses Playground.
Why? Well, the Legislature had plenty of official reasons. It fretted about the UN's lack of accountability. It fretted about the UN's conflicts of interest. It fretted about the UN's general fecklessness and haughtiness.
In short, it fretted about a bloated and lugubrious body whose members sit around and do nothing most of the time.
It's odd, huh? These traits should have made legislators and UN's sultans feel more like soul mates than rivals. They share much in common. But for some reason, their similarities ultimately counted for little.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, an East Side Manhattan Democrat who supported the expansion deal, probably got the closest to the truth the other day.
"Some of my colleagues," she quietly declared, "decided to demagogue and grandstand."
State Sen. Martin J. Golden (R-Brooklyn) comes to mind.
As he ticked off the UN's many operational failings in a chat...