Will latest Bass Pro deal actually come to reality?
BRIAN ACKLEY Political Columnist
Like this winter's flu bug, it's still hard to shake the feeling that Buffalo's latest incarnation to reinvent the waterfront will really happen, isn't it?

Other than the fact that those behind the scenes have a more collective history as "doers" than their predecessors, there are several post back-slapping, beer-mug clinking moments which could easily come back to haunt those involved.

For one, that Benderson Development is taking a lead role isn't all that reassuring, it being the company that any suburbanite knows has firmly kept the "strip" in strip mall.

And for another, Bass Pro President Jim Hagale hardly sounded like all that remained before the trophy fish was stuffed and mounted was a trip to the taxidermist.

When a television reporter asked him to rate on a scale of one to 10 just how confident he was an actual deal would be realized, he rated it a seven.

"It's a pre-development agreement. It is nonbinding. There's still a lot of design work, permitting work that has to be done," Hagale told the doting media gaggle last Friday.

Swell. Despite protestations to the contrary, this PDA sounds an awful lot like the dreaded November 2004 "memorandum of understanding," signed by Bass Pro, which turned out to be as useful as using an 8-pound fishing line to land a blue marlin.

It's far too idealistic to believe people will just come look at a watery trench and appreciate the historic significance of what the Erie Canal's terminus represents. For better or worse, worse undoubtedly, society needs flashing neon, daiquiris on the deck and coin-clinking machines to be attracted in enough critical mass to make any project like this successful.

There was so much more to like about the 2004 plan.

There were museums and hotels and shops attached to that plan as well, something the new vision seekers seem to want us to forget. Now, not only does another historic treasure get blasted - although since we've now learned the original plan never had a chance to work in the first place, it's probably just as well to let the Old Lady go at this point, she's so far gone already - the new "anchor" isn't nearly the visitor magnet it was once intended to be. Time will tell if the latest announcement is selling hope, selling out, or selling nothing at all.

* * * Somewhere between a toe stub and unabated careening into the chasm of capitulation is where Gov. Eliot Spitzer deserves to be ranked for his budget performance last week.

He didn't just politely sidestep the voter mandate he's been so quick to conveniently and correctly wrap himself in when trying to take on the status quo, he body-slammed it into unconsciousness.

Maybe his small victories here and there will add up to something significant over time, but overall, George Pataki might as well still be in the governor's office so largely impotent was Spitzer's budget effort. His own plan called for a 7 percent rise in spending, not to mention another $1 billion legislators were more than happy to tack on. Senate Republican Dale Volker all but did three victory laps around Eliot's office and spike the budget documents squarely in the middle of his desk when the final numbers were in.

And transparency? A black bear shoveling coal at midnight would shed more light than this process did.

Albany barely had enough back rooms to keep the process out of the public eye.

Eliot, it's not what we signed up for. Something changed all right in this budget process, and it was for the worst.

"What have I learned," said old pal Joe Bruno when asked about the process. "The question is, what has he learned?" he said of the beaten-down Spitzer. Wrong again, Joe. The real question is, what have we as an electorate learned? Sadly, the answer still seems to be nothing, since we can be whipped into a full-froth frenzy over a $2.99 piece of hockey tin, while at the same time tacitly endorse this age-old Albany act as acceptable.

(Brian Ackley is a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers of Western New York. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.)