text: When Larry King asked David Paterson tonight if his blindness made it hard for him to read the tabloid headlines about a story he claims doesn't exist, we understood the true meaning of "Kafkaesque". 
   
   David Paterson's appearance on Larry King Live was his most high-profile move yet to stifle the phantasmagorical sex rumors about him that exploded last Sunday—Super Bowl Sunday no less! We were one of a number of outlets speculating about an unpublished New York Times article with sexy revelations crazy enough to force Paterson's resignation. But it contained no such things, said Paterson's camp. And Paterson did not resign. 
   
   But since Sunday, Paterson has been a case study in just how hard it is to take away the chattering class' delicious rumors once they start getting passed around like a lukewarm shrimp cocktail. He's issued a number of denials, but each one seems to glance off the rumor mill and fly crazily back in his face: Fighting back against the Post's claims of extra-marital humping prompted some more unsubstantiated rumors; Chris Smith wrote for Daily Intel that Paterson's appearance on "Imus" only aided in "keeping the larger nuttiness alive by claiming the Times's phantom story had "hypersexualized" him." And still, the question hangs over everything: What the hell is in that article? 
   
   Thus Paterson ended up on Larry King tonight, hoping that saying the same things he'd been saying all week to more people would fix things. And once there, Larry King asked him if he had trouble reading the real headlines about this supposedly non-existent story. It's enough to make a guy want to call a situation "Kafkaesque!" Which he did: 
   
   Someone did the reading in English class! It's an appropriate allusion though, since Paterson is approaching this thing with as much direction as Josef K trying to grasp the charges against him. On Larry King, he claimed that addressing the rumors would only strengthen them, when he has been vehemently denying them all week. Then he went on to deny, in great detail, the Post's best rumor: That a state trooper discovered him and a mystery woman smooching in a utility closet in the governor's mansion: 
   
   And when King asked Paterson "Who's after you?" Paterson's anti-speculation stance got a little muddled with his own *hint* *hint* *nudge* nudge*: 
   
   For me to speculate about it would be as wrong as the speculations made about me. I can't prove it, I don't know who it is. Maybe those in the media could check their sources more. Maybe those in the media might investiagte why their sources are saying what they're saying. 
   
   (Cue twilight zone music!) 
   
   Paterson's flailing is a tacit admission that there really is no way to stop a tabloid machine that revved up to peak RPMs—at least not until the Times finally publishes their big expose and we can all see for ourselves if it is or is not a 3,000 word narrative of his night with two state assemblywomen in the garden shed or whatever. And Paterson once again urged the Times to come out with it, or at least "clear the air". 
   
   Also, he blamed Eliot Spitzer for making the Governor's office so sex-rumorific: 
   
   Probably the most Kafkaesque part about this whole thing is: WHERE THE SHIT IS THAT NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE!? ||||| New York (CNN) -- Those lurid rumors flying around about New York Gov. David Paterson? "None of this is true. It's a flat-out lie," he said in a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Larry King on Thursday night. 
   
   Since word of an imminent New York Times story electrified New York political and media circles last week, Paterson has been on the defensive. But day after day, the putative piece has failed to appear -- allowing gossip and conjecture to flourish. 
   
   Sex? Drugs? Graft? Theories about the article's focus have taken on lives of their own. 
   
   Asked whether the onslaught of rumors means "somebody (is) after you," Paterson was blunt. "Clearly somebody is. ... I won't kid you. I think I have thought about who might be after me." 
   
   He declined to name the suspects, but he encouraged the media to turn its focus from the whispers to the whisperers. 
   
   "Maybe those in the media might investigate why the sources are saying what they're saying." 
   
   During the sit-down, Paterson also knocked the Times for its handling of the frenzy. 
   
   "The human decency, if not journalists' ethics, I think would compel an organization when they see a person being slandered for over two weeks now ... to clear the air and at least say that the charges that are being made are not in the perimeters of our investigation." 
   
   Absent a public clarification, the governor pleaded for the Times to publish its piece at once, "so I could be out of my misery." 
   
   It's not clear whether the governor will get his wish. He said that New York Times Albany Bureau Chief Danny Hakim, whom he identified as the writer of the article, told him he was not sure when it would run. 
   
   Paterson also blamed some of his plight on the fresh memory of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal, saying that his predecessor's dalliances conditioned the public to assume sexual misbehavior in the governor's office: "I think people have still a sort of sensitivity to that, to the point that people would tend to believe anything they hear these days." He added, "I think that's victimized me." 
   
   At one point, King teed up an opportunity for Paterson to say that the Times article will vindicate him, but the governor didn't swing. 
   
   King said: "And you're positive that nothing of this is ever going to come forward and prove true?" Paterson replied: "Asked and answered." 
   
   On the question of drug use, Paterson opted not to issue a new denial, telling King he had "denied that just the other day." Similarly, he turned down the host's offer to rebut the charges against him "one by one," saying, "I've already denied these charges in several media outlets." 
   
   He cited the need to deprive the rumors of momentum for his reluctance to engage in specific denials. 
   
   Between the accusations and deflections, the governor squeezed in a few jokes. Echoing a quip he made earlier in the week that "the only way I will be leaving office before (my term ends) is in a box," Paterson told King, if "you hear I've resigned, it means you're invited to my funeral." 
   
   The gallows humor continued later with a timely reference to former President Bill Clinton's heart episode. "I hope he comes on your show tomorrow to dispel the latest rumor, denying that I had anything to do with his heart condition," he told King.
target: – Even as he continued to insist that addressing the rumors surrounding him only strengthens them, New York Gov. David Paterson continued to address those rumors last night on Larry King Live. He told King “clearly, somebody is” after him, though he wouldn’t speculate who is behind the gossip; he then blamed this “Kafkaesque scenario” on Eliot Spitzer’s sex scandal. As he has done all week, he also vowed not to resign and called on the Times to set the record straight. Unfortunately, the two segments released on CNN’s website (watch both in the gallery) don’t include the arguably most awkward portion of the interview. “Do you think your eyesight has an effect on the way you can challenge some of this? The fact that you can be, not a pun intended, blind to this? People have to read these headlines to you, right?” King asked. Watch that question, and Paterson’s deflection, on Gawker.