It’s O.K. You’re not alone. Plenty of New Yorkers very likely had the same reaction, just as they did four years ago when Mr. Pataki spent a few ill-advised months chasing votes in Iowa and New Hampshire before quietly giving up.

This time around, however, it might be wise to get past the laughter and sense of incredulity. That’s because the state of the Republican presidential campaign is such that George Pataki might well emerge as a voice of reason and intelligence in a race that has been dominated by the likes of Michele Bachmann, who recently promised that she would bring gas prices back to $2 a gallon, presumably through some form of Oval Office wizardry that only she is aware of. (Don’t Republicans like Ms. Bachmann oppose government intervention in the marketplace?)

Between Ms. Bachmann’s bizarre rantings and Rick Perry’s insistence that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke (an appointee of George W. Bush) is a traitor, the Republican Party seems intent on blowing an opportunity to challenge an admittedly weak Democratic incumbent.

Enter, perhaps, George Pataki, a three-term governor of New York who may not rank among the giants of Albany, but who certainly can articulate a more tolerant, more sane Republican agenda. Mr. Pataki was hardly a fiscal conservative as governor, but he did cut taxes, and he did stand up for immigrants’ and women’s rights, and he was quite a good governor on environmental and conservation issues.

Mr. Pataki never truly emerged as a national figure, as his predecessor Mario Cuomo did. He doesn’t have the charisma of some other Republican presidential candidates, loony though they may be.

But it is a measure of the Republican Party’s presidential campaign that George Pataki could emerge as a figure of some stature, as an adult in a room filled with screaming kids (save for Jon Huntsman, who hasn’t exactly caught on with the party’s rank and file). The former governor could speak with some passion about the importance of conserving natural resources—a concept that many of today’s Republican frontrunners view as akin to socialism.

He’s not a perfect candidate. He may not even be a serious candidate. But he certainly could be an important candidate—if he can articulate a vision of Republicanism that is more welcoming, less angry and more responsible than the version on display at the moment.

Senators Schumer and Gillibrand will both be in attendance. Congressman Nadler, who represents ground zero, will also be there. As will Republican Congressman Peter King, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee. King has frequently criticized the president in the past, but has expressed nothing but praise for his handling of the strike that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on Sunday.

Mayor Bloomberg is also expected to attend, and there's a possibility--unconfirmed, of course--that Andrew Cuomo will make the trip from Albany.

There might be some formerly-elected officials too. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Politico he's considering the invitation, and a spokesman for former Governor George Pataki told the Daily News he'd like to attend, if he can get back in time from a trip to Texas.

"Chartock laid out a conspiracy theory so far-fetched it makes Glenn Beck look sober," Dicker said this morning. "This is something from the John Birch society."

The best part of the show came when Dicker read Chartock's claim about Cuomo "knowing" that Dicker, sooner or later, will "turn" on him "like a mad dog."

"Chartock has the presumptuousness of suggesting that Andrew Cuomo has told him this," said Dicker, "because who else would be in a position to know of such an alleged conspiracy? Like I said, it makes Glenn Beck sound sober."

(Dicker then took a moment to note Chartock has a Ph.D. in communications, which he says is "a nothing degree. What is communications? How do you get a doctorate in communications? Is that a serious academic discipline?")

The charge was dismissed, summarily, by Dicker, who said it's "sophomoric" and not based in any truth, and revealing of Chartock's ignorance of the "complexities" of how the world actually works.

At one point in the show, Dicker said, "What's really lacking here is a perspective of who this guy is."

The words "sycophant" and "totally false and sophomoric, unsophisticated [views]" are used.

Dicker refuted Chartock's allegation that he "single-handedly" destroyed Mario Cuomo's bid for a fourth term.

Dicker said it was Chartock, and his student journalists at the Legislative Gazette, who were involved in "leaking" information about Cuomo aides discussing the sexuality of their rival at the time, Ed Koch.

Dicker--for the benefit of the "younger" reporters who may not have been around at the time--talked about an incident where a tape of Chartock conspiring with Mario Cuomo against George Pataki was leaked and broadcast on an Albany radio station.

"The tape was played on WGY around here. Everybody heard it," said Dicker. "And that was the last anybody heard of Chartock around the capital."

Dicker ended his show by saying Chartock is just "another reason why there should be not a nickel of public money going to these groups."

Hundreds of feet below, on the other side of the 16-acre site, nearly 1,000 Greek Orthodox congregants had gathered for the annual vespers honoring St. Nicholas. The faithful crowded about the trailers, heavy machinery and sundry materiel of ground zero, preparing for a ceremony they had undertaken annually ever since the attacks of Sept. 11 destroyed their tiny church honoring the patron of sailors, bankers and bakers. TV crews stood ready to film.

Three Port Authority officials told them to cut.

"In nine years, we'd never seen anything like it," the Rev. Mark Arey, a spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, told The Observer last week. "They were hiding their badges; they were clearly uncomfortable doing this. Only when one of our priests put in a direct call to Chris Ward did they relent."

Mr. Ward, the executive director of the bistate Port Authority, has had to answer many such calls since taking over in 2008. All ask the same thing: Why has the authority reneged on a three-year-old deal with the church to give it a grand new home at 130 Liberty Street, something promised personally by Governor George Pataki back in 2004?

The church has found every opportunity, including within the recent "ground zero mosque" mania, to remind everyone of its plight. The December vespers were another deliberate reminder, a mingling of protest and sacrality. "Church left out of 9/11 renewal," declared the next day's USA Today. (The local church had agreed to no media at the vespers, prompting the Port Authority's intervention.)

Now, even with all the recent progress at the once international punch line, the church last week filed a federal lawsuit that could bring everything at the site to a halt. Again.

In 1916, a growing Greek community bought an old four-story, wood-framed tavern at 155 Cedar Street; placed a belfry on top; and called it St. Nicholas. It was the only religious institution destroyed on 9/11.

Well before it was decided what would become of the rest of the site, it was agreed that the church would be rebuilt. As the site's master plan began to take shape, the church was granted a more prominent plot at 130 Liberty Street, atop the Vehicle Security Center. "It always seemed like it was a settled issue where it was going to be," a former Port Authority official said. "It just kept getting inherited and passed off from one group to another. It wasn't until later when they really realized what that would mean, building on top of the security center."

Like God directing Noah, the message the church took from the Pataki administration was one of trust and deliverance. But instead of captaining the ark, the church was but cargo. "Other than us pledging to rebuild the church, that was all that was said," a Pataki administration official told The Observer. "It never got down to that level of detail." (The former governor continues to lobby on the church's behalf.)

As plans were drawn and redrawn between the numerous stakeholders, the church in 2005 set about creating schematics for its own project, hiring architect Nicholas Koutsomitis. The plans called for a new chapel along with a non-denominational interfaith center--24,000 square feet total.

One person described it as "trading a brownstone for St. Patrick's." An obvious exaggeration, it belies the concern many public officials, especially those post-Pataki, had when they saw the project's parameters. Still, the church has a point. In light of the development rights at 155 Cedar, it is not building anything larger than it would legally be allowed to. "We were never asking for more," Mr. Koutsomitis said, even though were he building on the old site, he would effectively be replacing the four-story parish with a 20-story one.

In spring 2006, the Pataki administration and the Port Authority reached its deal with Larry Silverstein, the twin towers' leaseholder, to build out the site, but an agreement was never formally reached with the church. When the Spitzer administration began to grapple with what its predecessor had promised, it was somewhat taken aback but still happy to work with St. Nicholas.

Even as plans were drawn up to bring JPMorgan Chase to the former Deutsche Bank building site behind the church, its new tower was designed with a "beer belly" for its trading floors overhanging the church, quite the accommodation by one of the world's most powerful banks--and yet another gonzo project of the real estate boom. 

Then the BlackBerrys began lighting up.

A morning meeting between the church, JPMorgan and government officials was just starting in a conference room inside 115 Broadway on March 10, 2009, when phones began buzzing. They were checked and set aside, as preparations continued, but the buzzing continued unabated: The Times' Client 9 scoop was about to upend everything.

"I thought it was a prank at first," a person present said.

The meeting was canceled in preparation for Governor Spitzer's press conference. The church continued to wait, continued to make its plans.

"The Port did not want this fight," a person working at ground zero said. "Let me underscore that--they did not want this at all."

In one of his first acts as the authority's executive director, in early 2008, Chris Ward, a Paterson appointee, announced he was preparing a report that would identify all major issues at ground zero and create a timeline for addressing them. Issued in July of that year, it was full of bad news, but Mr. Ward promised to forge a path forward.

Just weeks later, eager to show signs of progress, he announced an agreement with the church for its land. St. Nicholas would receive $20 million toward its new building, as well as up to $40 million for additional infrastructure work to support a larger church structure atop the security center.

This is where things began to unravel, in no small part due to the recession ushered in by Lehman Brothers' collapse a few months later.

The July announcement was never an official deal, and it was set aside while the authority focused on other matters at the site. Both sides continued to negotiate and worked on drawing up plans to finalize the deal. Father Arey said the church was accommodating throughout, scaling down its plans when the Port Authority asked. The Port Authority argues that whenever it reached a tentative agreement, "the goal posts would move," spokesman John Kelly said. "At a certain point, negotiations had to end or risk delaying the WTC project further."

In March 2009, the matter came to a head. The authority sent a standard term sheet and asked for comment. According to the church's lawsuit, the document's real purpose was to find signs of disagreement so the Port Authority could cancel the deal. Mr. Kelly said the church had ample warning, and that it was demanding the impossible: control over the design of the park and security center.

Negotiations ceased, the deal was off, and the two sides have barely talked since. Mr. Ward announced that the authority would go ahead with construction of the security center, and St. Nicholas was welcome to build on its original land once the authority was done with it.

As is so often the case at ground zero, conspiracy theories abound.

"First they asked us to shrink the church, which basically meant taking off the cross," Mr. Koutsomitis, the architect, said. "Then they move us back to 155 Cedar. I think someone decided they did not want a church on this prominent site at ground zero."

Some believe Larry Silverstein wants the site. Others point to Mr. Ward. George Demos, a onetime unsuccessful G.O.P. Congressional candidate from Long Island, blasted a press release the day after the December 2010 vespers ceremony: "Atheist Blocking Ground Zero Church." Mr. Ward had once told a trade publication, "I'm probably the biggest non-believer in terms of religion. If you are not going to believe in God, you have to be smarter than the people who do, because you have to answer tougher questions about why you don't." He was responding to a question about why he has a master's in divinity from Harvard, a fact left out by critics. (The church's suit also includes the quotation.)

As things stand now, more than two and a half years after the July agreement, a federal ruling in the church's favor could create months of delays at ground zero and add hundreds of millions in costs. 

The authority won't even entertain that scenario--though those involved in the fight over the years describe the church as tough and aggressive. They had lost their home. The other stakeholders were getting new ones, so why not them?

"They failed to realize the world had changed again," the former Port Authority official said. "They were used to getting so much."

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

"Its just not right that the people on the east end of long island have someone who doesn't vote with their interest but votes with the interests of Washington," Pataki said. "Nancy Pelosi already has a district, its San Francisco, not Suffolk county."

Gov. Pataki focused on Bishop's legislative record, knocking his adherence to the Obama administration. He highlighted Bishop's votes on the stimulus,  "deficit busting budgets," and the health care bill, which Pataki called "one of the worst bills I've seen passed in my lifetime."

Earlier this year, when The Observer profiled the former New York governor's odd involvement with penny stocks, the article opened with a scene inside a 36-foot geodesic dome. "It's tremendous," he said, celebrating the tiny plastics company, Perf Go Green, whose board he'd joined. Music from instruments called the drum orb and earth harp played. One arm was in the air. "I'm honored to be a part of it, particularly standing here in this Earth Dome," he said.

Not very long afterward, the company collapsed, and even had money disagreements with the firm that made the dome, now in a storage unit in Hollywood, CA.

In the wake of Perf Go Green, Mr. Pataki became an advisor to another penny stock called Mesa Energy, which has been suspected of connections to pump-and-dump schemes: After Mr. Pataki's involvement was announced, the stock was touted by promoters as a 809% stock winner. "If I wanted to get involved with a couple of penny stocks because of people I knew, so be it," Charles Gargano, the longtime Pataki associate, former Empire State Development Corporation chairman, and another Perf chairperson, told The Observer this year, speaking from Palm Beach. "That's my prerogative."

Mesa, though, is not doing well. During the quiet weeks of August, it announced in a short filing that it is under formal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Company management is confident that no improper sales of unregistered securities were made by current officers, directors or employees of the Company or its subsidiaries," it said. "The Company is cooperating with the SEC staff."

At the time of The Observer story, Mesa Energy Holdings, Inc.'s stock price had gone up to $3, the same mark that Perf Go Green had hit after the governor joined. Today, Mesa happened to match its 52-week low, and is hovering around 15 cents.

Mr. Pataki did not immediately respond to a request sent through a spokesperson.

George Pataki announced today the start of a cross-country "Revere Rides Again" tour for his anti-healthcare legislation group, Revere America. Four brothers from Florida, all between the ages of 19 and 22, will travel through the Midwest and East Coast in a Mustang convertible collecting signatures in support of a repeal of the health care bill. The tour and its accompanying website -- already equipped with social media integration and YouTube videos -- seem to be designed to drum up publicity and support from young voters, who could be key in a presidential run by Mr. Pataki. 

The Wideman brothers, who with more hair and fewer polo shirts could pass for the Jonas Brothers, are called the "Young Reveres." While they all list Orlando as their hometown on Facebook, each attended a different private high school, some in New York City: Chris, 20, attended Trinity before heading to Fordham, while Eddie (listed as Edmund Charles on Facebook) will be a senior there next year, according to Revere America's press release. Matt lists Lil' Wayne as a favorite musical act, while Chris prefers the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Obama-haters: they're just like us! 

In their first YouTube video, the brothers take a "man on the street" approach to collecting signatures and angry soundbites, with an ear for expletives. "I think it's bullshit," said a stocky young man wearing what looked to be a puka shell necklace. "Bullshit" was bleeped out.

Does his decision have anything to do with the news of his connection to a recently-failed penny stock called Perf Go Green, or to Mesa Energy Holdings? Mesa has been the subject of hilariously intense recent stock promotions, like one from Jarret B. Wollstein that says it's on track to be his "next 809% stock winner." That comes with a small disclaimer that says Mr. Wollstein got thousands of dollars from Mesa shareholders "who may or will sell shares of the feature Company at or about the time of this report," which looks and smells an awful lot like a pump-and-dump scheme. Mr. Wollstein, incidentally, was caught up in strange penny stock dealings with Shaquille O'Neal, too.

But never mind all that.

The Journal article does not mention his board positions at those companies. 

Mr. Pataki said that he wants to focus on forming an organization that will work on repealing health care reform. His group is called Revere America.

Pataki:

"[I]t's just more government spending, more government borrowing, government control over our health-care system, an approach to the war on terror that denies that it even exists. And specifically the health-care bill, as [New York] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg has pointed out, is going to have very dramatic negative financial consequences to New York state. New York state's senators weren't there."