Gloves off in budget battle

ALBANY - Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno told Gov. Eliot Spitzer last week in a closed-door state budget meeting that Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith, the governor's ally, had his head up Spitzer's ... er ... executive chamber.

Only Bruno is said to have used a different word to describe that certain part of the governor's anatomy.

The Democratic governor, allegedly aghast, said such vulgarity wasn't appropriate in the governor's office and he abruptly ended the meeting.