Governor not rattled by blind-man humor - International Herald Tribune

When is the world going to understand that disabilities are not for woosies?:

Governor not rattled by blind-man humor - International Herald Tribune: "More nuanced is the case of the health care attack commercials that began this week, paid for by the state health workers' union and the association of hospitals. It goes after Paterson personally, and conspicuously includes a plaintive appeal from a blind man wearing sunglasses and sitting in a wheelchair. 'Why,' he asks the governor, 'are you doing this to me?'

The inclusion of this man, Juan Pietri of the Bronx, led to acid suggestions in some newspaper articles that the governor's critics were exploiting his blindness. Definitely not so, said representatives of the union and the hospital association.

Through them, Pietri issued a statement of his own asserting that 'nothing could be further from the truth' than to say he was put in the commercial to highlight the governor's disability.

To the relief of those groups, Paterson himself said he had 'absolutely no problem with their ads' and rejected any notion that they had hit 'below the belt.'"