The paper of record has at last acknowledged the Paterson rumor cyclone that swallowed up much of the chattering class for the past week. But instead of dropping a giant scandal-house on the Governor's head, the Times has left everything up in the air. In a rather coy item posted to City Room without attribution, the Times marveled at the speculative media frenzy, quoted Paterson's rant against the paper at yesterday's press conference, and then refused to accept any responsibility for not clearing the air sooner.

Mr. Paterson on Tuesday met for 90 minutes with a reporter from The Times, and when asked later at a news conference if he had been asked about the most salacious of the rumors, he said he had not. “No such questions related to any of that information was asked of me at any interview,” he said. “The article will be written about other subjects.”

But Mr. Paterson then criticized the paper for not formally tackling the issue of the story everyone is talking about that doesn’t exist. “They don’t seem to be interested in addressing it or doing anything about it — I think it’s appalling,” he said.

Sooo... "The story... doesn’t exist." Does the unidentified writer mean that in the sense that it doesn't literally exist simply because it hasn't been published yet? Or does this mean the "bombshell" story that would force Paterson's resignation is not in development? If everyone in the woods is listening for a tree to fall, and then it doesn't, does that mean there are no legitimate lumberjacks in the forest? Paterson says the Times is working on a profile about him, and he personally phoned Carolyn Ryan, the Times' political editor, last week to inquire if the profile "would contain anything that had been rumored." According to Paterson's chief of staff Lawrence Schwartz, Ryan said "it didn't."

The tone of the Times's comment on all this strikes us a just a bit condescending, as if everybody was just plain crazy to get so worked up about the possibility of an article in the paper of record that could destroy the Governor. Having been down this road once before with Spitzer, it's understandable that New Yorkers might have some post traumatic sex scandal disorder. Is it right for a publication as important and influential as the Times to act so aloof when everyone's freaking out and trying to figure out who Richard Ravitch is? In other words, if they weren't working on an explosive, career-ending story, did they have a responsibility to set the record straight sooner?

We'll be interested to see what the Times's Public Editor Clark Hoyt thinks in his Sunday column. In Paterson's letter to Hoyt, he noted that the Times's silence "doesn't do anything but give credence and give oxygen to those who would injure the reputations and lives—if they could—of public officials or anyone else by circulating completely fabricated information about them and their families." In his first official comment on the hysteria, the Times’s Metropolitan Editor, Joe Sexton, said: "Obviously we are not responsible for what other news organizations are reporting. It’s not coming from The Times."

Not letting the matter rest, Paterson was on Don Imus's show on Fox Business this morning, and marveled at all the hot air that's been generated over the past couple weeks:

For a person that has such weak poll numbers and hasn’t raised enough money and has diminishing political support, someone is going very far out of their way to see that I’m not a candidate this year. I don’t know who it is; I just know that it’s a well-orchestrated attempt to do this.

Even when I start to gain support they keep writing that poll numbers are down. I think the special interest and that relationship with certain media outlets is creating this scenario that somehow I should not be re-elected. I’m black, I’m blind and I’m still alive. How much better do they want me to be?

Say what you want about the guy, he does have a sense of humor. Of course, so did Reagan. Oh, and now he is under federal investigation, apparently.