Let's check up on the first crop of heads to have rolled out of Albany in the Spitzer scandal! When the news of the administration's vendetta against Joe Bruno broke, Spitzer quickly got rid of communications director Darren Dopp and state-police liaison William Howard, suspending Dopp and saying Howard would be "reassigned to a position outside of the governor's office." We'll take the second one first. Has Howard been reassigned? Well, yes, sort of. Turns out Howard was technically "on loan" to the administration to begin with. Today's Sun finds him comfortably spinning his wheels back at SUNY, where he enjoys a $175,900 salary as the director of something called the Center of Homeland Security Research, Training and Education. But things look bleaker for Dopp, who had no such sinecure to fall back on and has now retained a prominent lawyer. The Times, which is sympathetic to the ex-reporter and all but called him a fall guy in a recent profile, hands today's lede to Dopp's lawyer for a few choice words about Cuomo. The Post, however, begs to differ. The headline there is "Disgraced Spitzer Crony Lawyers Up." Odd: One would think the "Dopp wuz framed" narrative would appeal to them even more.

Albany Poser: What Happened to Howard? [NYS]
Suspended Spitzer Assistant Is Blameless, His Lawyer Says [NYT]
Disgraced Spitzer Crony Lawyers Up [NYP]