Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno! After the MTA took a lowered version of the lowest bid, after Mayor Mike and the Jets hijacked NYC's Olympic bid and nailed it to this jackass West Side Stadium, after a lot of rich people looked to get a lot richer -- after all that, it came down to Silver (who represents lower Manhattan) and Bruno. And they voted no!

Now, as the Jets have pointed out, that doesn't mean they can't build a stadium. No, it certainly doesn't. It means they can't spend $600 million in public money to build it. If they come up with the moolah on their own it'll still be a dumb idea but at least NY won't pay for it. Do you know how many raises $600 million can buy for teachers, firefighters, cops? How many schools it could build? I mean, that's just about 2/3 of a BILLION, folks.

Silver didn't see his already-staggering district, which includes the World Trade Center site and all the businesses still struggling after 9/11, getting any help to counter the drain in resources the stadium project would create both in construction and in the amount of office space created. And Bruno? I'm not sure what was on his mind -- haven't read all the analysis yet -- but he did offer an interesting compromise: he'd vote for funding the stadium if and only if NYC gets the Olympics. But the other side wouldn't go for it. Which makes their contention that bringing the Olympics to NYC was the point of the whole thing a little suspect.

Go Sheldon! Go Joe!