Fred Dicker of the New York Post wasn't the only journalist to get into a dust-up with GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. Bill Hammond of the New York Daily News also has suffered verbal blows from Angry Carl. This led Hammond, one of my favorites in Albany, to pen the following:

"Well, here's some more criticism he (Paladino) won't like: He's running the ugliest, most negative campaign in modern New York history. And he's acting like a wimp.

"I've called Gov. Paterson the 'bungler in chief' and a 'serial fabricator.'

"I referred to (Andrew) Cuomo in 2006 as an 'arrogant, headline-grabbing, pushy egomaniac.'

"I once called Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver the 'poster boy for Albany dysfunction.'

"None of them much liked it, I'm sure. But they recognized that absorbing pointed criticism goes with the territory. They took it like grownups. Imagine that."

Imagine that, indeed. Come to think of it, we could use some more grownups among local politicians who have come under the gun,too. They know who they are.