Gov. Paterson reveals he was deeply hurt by SNL jokes about him

From The Daily Politics blog by Elizabeth Benjamin at the NY Daily News:

While chatting with (WAMC's Alan) Chartock, Paterson also revealed for the first time that he had been deeply hurt by the Saturday Night Live skits that made fun of his visual impairment and portrayed him as bumbling.

The show brought back memories of being teased on the playground when he was young, Paterson said.

"I noticed, I caught myself in the days after the Saturday Night Live event especially since the media was asking me about it so much, being a lot more careful how I moved around," the governor said. "Being a lot more conscious of trying to face the audience and not appear to be looking away. And being just a lot more insecure about how I presented myself, when I don't think disabled people should."

"People are who they are. And I thought to myself, you know, I thought I had gotten rid of those demons when I was a teenager. But I guess somewhere latent in my personality was this reaction if I felt I had been humiliated."

In his official statement responding to SNL, Paterson said (through a spokesman) that he can "take a joke," but thought it was inappropriate to "ridicule" people with disabilities.