PROFILE IN COWARDICE: Cuomo Wants Silver Gone, Doesn't Want His Fingerprints On The Knife

Hard not to read this Times story that way:

CAROLINA, P.R. — Andrew M. Cuomo will not be sworn in as governor for seven weeks, but his jockeying with the Legislature has already begun.

...

Many saw Mr. Cuomo’s influence at play in an article published on Sunday in The New York Post, which speculated on how the governor-elect might join with rank-and-file lawmakers to unseat Mr. Silver, the longest-serving speaker in state history and Mr. Cuomo’s chief rival for influence in Albany.

Aides to Mr. Cuomo are quoted anonymously in the article as saying that Mr. Cuomo would prefer to work with Mr. Silver rather than challenge him as speaker. A spokesman said on Monday that the governor-elect was not behind the story.

Asked what sort of signal he wanted to send to Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo, a politician highly practiced in the art of the strategic press leak, insisted he was “not a big signal-sender.”

“I’m looking forward to working with the leadership of the Assembly,” Mr. Cuomo said, not mentioning Mr. Silver by name.

Asked whether he would discourage lawmakers from mounting a coup against Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo did not answer the question. Instead, he parried by citing another article in The Post, published on Monday, in which Mr. Silver expressed support for the idea of closing next year’s $8 billion budget gap without raising taxes.

“To the extent that today’s article suggests that Sheldon Silver supports that position, that’s great,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That’s what I’ve been talking about for months. I welcome his support and I welcome the support of the Assembly.”

While some have speculated that the 33-member caucus of black and Latino lawmakers in the Assembly could band together with upstate Democrats to select a new speaker, it is not clear what appetite actually exists for a coup against Mr. Silver. He is valued by many Assembly lawmakers for defending their institutional prerogatives and for bearing the brunt of editorial-page criticism of the Legislature on matters of spending and ethics reform.

“Maybe there are people there that like to play politics behind closed doors and I think they should be more transparent,” said Assemblyman Félix W. Ortiz, chairman of the chamber’s Puerto Rican-Hispanic Task Force. “Why do they have to hide?”

Cuomo shows himself to be the gutless bully he is.

If Cuomo wants Shelly gone, then he should say so - in public.

With his own lips.

He should stop hiding behind anonymous leaks and planted articles.

Especially when the planted stories are as obvious as this one.

One last thing: Little Andy better watch the hubris.

He's strutting his stuff now, but if he wants to take on Silver, he better know that everybody else who has taken Shelly on in the past has lost.