It has to be the height of weaseldom for a politician to campaign for office as an avenging white knight who is fed up with a government peopled by those whose records are, er, questionable except when those people happen to be your people.

Ah, yes, Carl Paladino.

Nothing is more central to Paladino's outraged quest to be governor than his promises to "clean out Albany with a baseball bat" and "take out the trash."

With zero tolerance, he retails well-documented sins of the state's elected leaders. The rogues' gallery includes, of course, Eliot Spitzer, Alan Hevesi, Sheldon Silver and David Paterson, described by Paladino's campaign as "the most corrupt and incompetent governor in New York history."

But, true to the defining characteristic of a weasel, Paladino accepts lapses by his helpmates.