We've long advocated that Albany get past its ridiculous turf wars and political games - something former Gov. Eliot Spitzer only made worse during his short time in office in the way he dealt with the state Legislature.

But as bad as Spitzer's approach was, we would never want a governor in office who avoids any confrontation with the Legislature.

That seems to be the unrealistic expectation from those in the Legislature, at least judging from the reaction they had to comments current Gov. David Paterson made last week.

Paterson, speaking to a disabled rights group, urged advocates to continuously press their case to lawmakers. He then launched into some trademark Paterson humor with an analogy. “There were legislators who I used to think practiced their own versions of being Count Dracula - in that they were very nice to the advocates when they came to Albany. And then (the advocates) get back on the buses by four o'clock. By five o'clock the sun would go down and they'd go back to being who they are - a bunch of blood suckers.”

For anyone who knows how Albany works, the comment made sense, even if it was a little over the top.

But what was really over the top was the reaction of state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. He said the governor's comments were “Spitzeresque,” and said Paterson should know better than to have made them.

It's interesting that we couldn't find evidence of an actual rebuttal from Skelos to Paterson's claim, but that's not our main point here.

We just hope that Skelos or any other legislator is not going to pull out the Spitzer card every time the governor has some criticism for them. Underhanded, dirty tactics are what's wrong with Albany, not straight talk with the public.