Daily News, Daily Blues

The NY Daily News has had a history of offering just awful advice-so much so that the folk singer Tom Paxton penned the immortal "Daily News, Daily Blues," ditty. Here are the money lyrics-with an adjustment for inflation:

"Daily News, daily blues
Pick up a copy any time you choose
Seven little pennies in the newsboy's hand
And you ride right along to never, never land."

So, it's within this context that we need to take this morning's advice to Malcolm Smith, that the majority leader strip Carl Kruger of his finance chairmanship: "That post demands a modicum of sense and responsibility as to raising and spending taxpayer monies. Brooklyn Democrat Carl Kruger has neither. His plan for bailing out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is so far off the beam, it's lunacy."

Of course, if your Morticia at the Daily News it's completely rational to rip off motorists in order to pour money down the black hole called the MTA; or, to do a complete 180 on your position on term limits in order to usher in the reign of Mike III. Or, to propose a congestion tax so that Manhattan can be freed up for greater limousine access for your Billionaire Boys Club.

Now Kruger's transit plan may not pass the smell test for the scions at the News, but how would folks with a permanent sinus condition when it comes to sniffing public malfeasance-at least when it comes to their rich real estate buddies-be able to tell? After all, the News lead the cheers for all of the city's eminent domain projects, where local property owners were forced, looking down the barrel of a public gun, to relinquish their land to richer folks.

And, how can we forget that the paper lauded the sweetheart Bronx Terminal Market rip-off, where small minority wholesalers were evicted for the pleasure of the billionaire Steve Ross. Oh, and did the Daily News ever opine about how the Bloombergistas ripped off Bronx parkland in hopeful exchange for a luxury box? No, exhibiting typical noblesse oblige lockjaw, they left that to their intrepid columnist Juan Gonzales to inveigh against.

So now they want Kruger's scalp, and for what? For the temerity of standing up for the outer borough middle class, the same folks who pay 50 cents to allow Morticia to editorialize against their interests. If anyone should leave, it is the paper's publisher; let him follow the profligate and inept Pinch Sulzberger, right out the door. The resulting editorial silence would be a blessing.