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Prosecutors cite a chunk of a July, 1999, e-mail in which Kerik's fine whine includes a nice poetic touch, telling his then-high flying buddy, Larry Ray, about having to "beg, borrow and suck dick" to buy and rehab his new Riverdale apartment...

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Didn't like RFK?

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--That he has lots of pedicures to stem a terminal case of athelete's foot, er, feet.

--That his wife wanted out of Tennessee because "there was too much bad racial stuff" there for an interracial marriage.

--That he considers the upscale, model-cluttered Coffee Shop on Union Square just another, well, coffee shop.

But the best line was a headscratcher about Eleanor Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy... …More >>

"Egregious and reprehensible" were two of the kinder words Cuomo used in unveiling a civil lawsuit under the state's Martin Act -- the wide-ranging law that gives the AG power to probe financial crimes.

It's the first charges brought against any of the major players involved in the massive 2008 federal banking bailout -- a move that is sure to play well before political audiences everywhere other than Wall Street.

With federal TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky at his side during a morning telephone presser, Cuomo charged that Lewis and former CFO Joseph Price concealed massive losses at Merrill Lynch in December, 2008 in order to accommodate the B of A merger with the ailing investment firm.

According to Cuomo's tick-tock of the alleged scheme, Lewis and Price first hid "disastrous actual losses" by Merrill Lynch of $16 billion in order to gull shareholders into approving the deal. They then doubled back and "threatened" federal officials that they could go belly up ala Lehman Brothers if they didn't receive emergency federal aid. "As a result of their efforts, Bank of America received $20 billion in taxpayer aid," charged Cuomo.

Lewis called the lawsuit "badly misguided."

Asked why it's a civil, not a criminal case, deputy AG David Markowitz left that door open. "We have an ongoing investigation, we are only announcing civil charges today."

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It turns out that politics is like church, and that confession and penance can clear everything up.

As recorded by the Daily News' Kate Lucadamo, the mayor had this to say about Keaney's transgression of city ethics rules: "What she did, she did with the best of intentions. And when you screw up, you fess up to it, pay your penalty and get on with it."

This is a fairly different perspective than that offered by Bloomberg during his campaign, where he thundered that the city's past problems stemmed from the permanent political class that sees nothing wrong with bullying donations out of favor-seekers. There was, for instance, his stirring primary night speech where he proclaimed his reelection as being about "Progress, Not Politics."

"We can't forget that it was 'politics as usual' that inflicted so much pain on our middle class by ruining the public school system, letting crime get out of control, and allowing our subways to break down and our parks to suffer," he said then. "There's a steep cost to politics as usual -- in failure, neglect, corruption, dysfunction, waste -- and the middle class always gets stuck with the bill. We can't afford to let that happen again."

Keaney now moves on to a brand new post as the Education Department's $143,000 a year Executive Director of External Affairs, a title that sounds suspiciously like it was lifted out of a Graham Greene novel. As the Times' Jim Dwyer reports, the mayor is sure Keaney is "going to be spectacular."

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Mayor Bloomberg's verdict was to immediately give Keaney a new six-figure job at his education department.

The verdict of the city's Conflicts of Interest Board was that a modest fine will suffice. How modest? Well, calculated against the $150,000 bonus check she just received from a grateful Bloomberg for running his election field operation, the board's $2500 assessment against Keaney for having asked some of her old union allies to shell out some campaign dough for Quinn back in April, 2007 comes to a ... .016 percent tax.

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That's not reporter Chris Smith talking, but the sum-up conclusion of his conversations with those who know David Paterson fairly well. Here's another from "one exasperated adviser": "He is an extraordinarily unusual politician. His degree of thinking aloud; his degree of openly and verbally changing his mind; his ability to argue passionately to do something two completely different ways..."

Then there's the gov's own interesting observations:

On handling his first budget after his patron, Eliot Spitzer, resigned in the spring of 2008: "I said, 'Look, the governor did not have me working on the budget this year. I have no idea what the issues are,' " Paterson says now. (This from a man who had already spent 20 years in the state senate.)

And here he is on his former legislative colleagues: "Some of them are just nasty people. They just are. I knew that when I was minority leader and half the time spent too much time trying to keep them out of trouble."

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The latest to enjoy this Murdochian free ride is Tennessee import Harold Ford who, after already landing a front page op-ed ("FORD REVS UP!") and a big favorable Sunday spread, got the best the Post has to offer: the full Cindy Adams treatment.

Among the choice revelations:

Intimate time with wife: How's he going to find time for her, the randy Adams asks Ford, since "campaigning for office is a form of birth control"?

HF: "Ohh, I'll always find time for that. Always have, always will." (Go Harold!)

A New Yorker at heart: "I was here in college days and always knew New York was where I want to be."

Wife's dog Fabby: "She has me walking her tiny Chihuahua who's 11, even though I get funny looks."

Fave restaurants: "Places like Rosa Mexicana, Starbucks, BLT Fish or, after church...Big Daddy's on Park and 20th." (Starbucks?)

Re being a black man running for the Senate: "I'll handle it head-on like I've handled everything else in my life."

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Scribe Michael Barbaro reports that the mayor has found budget elbow-room to add some 15 former campaign staffers to the city's payroll. They include GOP operative and ex-Giuliani aide Matthew Mahoney, now holding down a $160,000 a year post at the Department of Environmental Protection; Democratic strategist Larry Scott-Blackmon who nailed a $157,000 a year slot at the parks department, and campaign chief of staff Kim Molstre, now pulling in $135,000 as a deputy mayoral aide.

The mayor offered a wonderful quote to the Times in defense of his personnel-padding amidst massive budget crisis worries: "If there's any group I wouldn't want to cut in tough times, it's those that can guide people and incent people and excite people to do more with less."

"Incent?" Is that legal?

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Campaign finance records show that Bloomberg wrote two checks for $600,000 apiece last fall to the Independence Party's Housekeeping account, as reported by the Daily Politics' Elizabeth Benjamin. Both checks were deposited just a few days before the general election. The bulk of the money - a whopping $750,000 - was routed by the party to an Albany campaign outfit called Special Election Operations LLC.

State records show the stealth campaign group didn't even file incorporation papers until December 3, 2009 -- almost a month after the election. It also happens to share a State Street address with the lobbying firm of Capitol Public Strategies whose principals include several Republican operatives including David Catalfamo, spokesman for ex-gov George Pataki, and Ryan Moses, who ran a GOTV effort called "Victory 2005" for Bloomberg's second mayoral run.

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