The Morning Read: Tuesday, December 5, 2006

In what might be considered a rhetorical response to Hillary's line about hope not being a policy, Obama said last night that in America, "We have an empathy deficit."

One of Hillary's prospective hires is Chuck Schumer's "alter ego" Phil Singer.

Hillary hired Howard Dean's New Hampshire director and one of John Kerry's 2004 campaign aides.

She's telling lawmakers "I'm really going to go for this."

Eliot Spitzer paid $1.35 million in bonuses to campaign staffers.

He'll also use his leftover campaign cash to pay for the inauguration.

Albany DA David Soares spoke about the Alan Hevesi situation, and pushed back on leaks from other offices. Soares "said he broke his silence partly out of frustration over a newspaper story, citing anonymous sources, that indicated a pending state report on Hevesi's misuse of public resources would spur Soares to bring criminal charges."

An aide to Spitzer said they're continuing their investigation of Hevesi.

After about a year in her leadership post, Council Speaker Christine Quinn got mixed reviews on the issue of reform.

And the New Yorker's Ben McGrath tries keeping up with Al Sharpton.