Recall the story about a group of blind men describing an elephant? Each person describes a very different animal depending on where he is standing. If you want a modern example of how some people can look at the same thing and come up with totally different, in fact quite opposite descriptions, compare George Pataki's 2006 State of the State address (which can be found on his website) with the description of New York State found in Jay Gallagher's "The Politics of Decline" and Mark Bitz' "Creating a Prosperous New York."

In his state of the state Governor Pataki describes a state that has made great strides since he took office in January 1995. Jay Gallagher, Gannett Bureau chief, and Mark Bitz, owner of a turkey farm in central New York, describe a state in economic and political crisis - a crisis which has gotten worse, not better, under the Pataki administration.

Pataki says, "the new course for New York that we charted back in 1995, has made New York a stronger, safer, cleaner, more prosperous state than it's been in generations."

Gallagher looks at the same animal and sees a governor who failed to act when he had the opportunity to control state spending or to address major problems that have resulted in job loss, high taxes and out-of-control public expenditures.

While Pataki touts accomplishments, Bitz cites statistic after statistic that suggest that New York is losing ground to other states - even those with similar climatic conditions.

Who's right? Does the governor have a hold of one of the elephant's solid legs while Gallagher and Bitz are describing its slippery trunk and wispy tail?

The governor does have some reasons to crow. New York weathered the impact of 9/11 as well as could be expected and in the early years of his administration some of the bureaucratic and policy impediments to economic growth, such as high workers' compensation costs were addressed. However, that very issue is back on the agenda in 2006 as are others that were supposed to be dealt with, including high energy costs and an aging transportation infrastructure.

In the governor's defense New York's economy is highly dependent on the swings of an increasingly international economy. When the stock market has a good year, New York has money to spend; when the market is down, we have to borrow. But again one's perspective depends on where you are standing. Despite positive developments in what has been dubbed Tech Valley, upstate New York continues to fall behind with little to offer young people in search of career opportunities. When Democratic gubernatorial Eliot Spitzer compared the stretch between Schenectady and Buffalo to Appalachia, he was more than half right.

Can Governor Pataki (along with the other members of the decision-making triumvirate Majority Leader Bruno and Speaker Silver) be let off the hook by saying they've done the best they could with the hand that was dealt them? I think not and, if you read Gallagher and Bitz, you'll probably agree.

There's too much evidence of Albany's papering over deep-seated problems. Gallagher details major failures in detail: the failure to address the loss of manufacturing jobs, the failure to stop runaway Medicaid costs, the failure to come up with a way to finance a public education system that doesn't measure up to what other states get for much less, and the failure to anticipate the iceberg of a public pension system that could result in municipal bankruptcies.

While these problems don't lend themselves to easy solutions, New York's political structure favors "solutions" that add another layer of taxpayer-funded wallpaper over a bleeding stain.

Both Gallagher and Bitz zero in on the fact that politics in New York is profoundly undemocratic. While pretending to fight each other tooth and nail in front of the voting public, the two major political parties can be found dividing up the spoils backstage by drawing election districts to avoid direct competition. Nor is either writer satisfied with the reforms the legislature passed in 2005 in the face of embarrassing criticism from academic and other quarters.

Whether the specific solutions suggested by Gallagher and Bitz are the right ones is not the question of the day. What comes first is whether enough New Yorkers are willing to take aim at the Gordian knot of state government - to borrow Bitz' imagery - starting in November 2006 by voting out incumbents who won't deal with the problems?

To that end one wishes that Mr. Gallagher had discussed the role New York's newspapers play in driving public interest in state government. Can we cast some of the blame on the failure of the state's papers to engage their readers in how the state is being run?

Nevertheless, the problem is not a lack of information. Anyone who picks up both or either of these well-written volumes will have plenty of ammunition first to become enraged and then to become engaged in working for change. The authors are to be commended for caring enough about New York to describe the elephant as they see it.

Peter Pollak is the Editor of the Empire Page and Founder/Chairman of Empire Information Services.