Politics on the Hudson

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a day after saying he was fighting a one-on-five battle for the state budget, showed some feistiness in a radio interview this morning.

He said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith were “totally intimidated’’ by Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Bruno said the governor not only acted as their ventiloquist but also as a bully toward him during Tuesday’s negotiating session.

“He gives me a lecture … That is not debate. That is not discussion. That is a bully,’’ Bruno, R-Brunswick, told the New York Post’s Fred Dicker, who host a morning show on WROW-AM, an Albany station.

Then, Bruno accused Dicker of drinking Spitzer’s Kool-Aid and the media in general of believing “this guy walks on water.’’

Dicker pointed out that even fiscal watchdogs such as the Conservative Party and the Citizens Budget Commission are siding with the Democratic governor rather than the Republican Senate. And he put Bruno on the spot when he asked about a $2 billion property-tax rebate the Republicans want—but don’t want to count in the ledger. Asked where the money would come from, Bruno’s response was: “The money comes from the available resources in the state.’‘