Here’s what a smiling Joe Bruno told me when I ran into him after Eliot Spitzer’s inauguration address:

“It was an excellent speech. And it was well delivered.”

Sheldon Silver liked it too, apparently. Far from being offended by Spitzer’s reference to Rip Van Winkle as a metaphor for New York over the past decade, Silver said that it “very artistically referred to the prior administration.”

I reminded Silver that the speech also called for “introspection,” and asked what he was thinking of.

“I’m thinking of going forward,” he said.

– Azi Paybarah