Original Article

Sunday, February 21st 2010, 4:00 AM

Black and Latino politicians in Albany and Washington are complaining long and loudly about allegedly unfair negative attention being leveled by the press and prosecutors. They cite everything from stories condemning the Aqueduct race track development deal to last weekend's front-page New York Times story about the Congressional Black Caucus giving special treatment to big corporations that have filled the coffers of the group, its members and affiliated nonprofit organizations.

The pols call it racism, a conspiracy. I call it the price of success.

Decades of hard work, patience and an increasingly diverse nation have paid huge dividends to black and Latino politicians in the form of exceedingly powerful positions. With the added clout comes added scrutiny and seasoned, serious political adversaries.

The new reality was on display at last weekend's annual meeting of the state's Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in Albany. I've attended about half of the weekends over the past 20 years, most of which prominently featured griping about budget cuts to social service programs and grumbling about real or perceived political slights.

Nobody could plausibly make that case this year. David Paterson, a former caucus member, is governor, and the three top positions of the state Senate - conference leader, majority leader and president pro tempore - are held, respectively, by caucus members John Sampson, Pedro Espada and Malcolm Smith.

But the complaining went on as usual at the weekend's cocktail parties, particularly around press coverage of the multibillion-dollar Aqueduct gambling deal.

If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times. "You know what this is about, right? Nobody ever complained when other people were in charge."

We interrupt this racial conspiracy theory to note that the recent bumper crop of Irish, Italian and Jewish pols who departed the capital as convicted felons includes former Assemblymen Brian McLaughlin and Tony Seminerio and ex-Controller Alan Hevesi. Former Majority Leader Joe Bruno, convicted on federal charges after an abrupt resignation, will be sentenced next month.

Ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer left over a hooker scandal. And, yes, the long march of shame includes black and Latino pols, including former Assemblywoman Diane Gordon and ex-Sen. Efrain Gonzalez, both of whom were convicted on corruption charges.

Bottom line: Albany is a regular UN of bad behavior. If the press and prosecutors are being driven by some kind of ethnic bias, they are keeping it well hidden.

Ditto for the Congressional Black Caucus, which is slamming The Times for reporting the group's fund-raising prowess has reached a sum, $55 million, that is sizable even by the low standards of cash-drenched Washington.

Much of the money is coming from corporations that hawk cigarettes, beer, Internet gambling and rent-to-own ripoffs in the districts of caucus members, and yet reportedly have won silence or muted complaints from a group that likes to style itself the conscience of the Congress.

The complaints of unfair treatment or bias ring hollow when you consider that a certain caucus member from Illinois now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The fact that black pols are being raked over the coals for allegedly steering millions, even billions, to their pals, is a kind of back-handed compliment. It signals they have made it to the uppermost reaches of the power structure.

Just where they always dreamed of being.