ALBANY — A defiant Gov. David A. Paterson Tuesday said he has been assured by reporters

and editors at the New York Times that a much-anticipated profile of him won't include details

about the salacious rumors that have been filling the Capitol's hallways the past week.

"The article will be written about other subjects, and not the ones that have been the

source of the mass speculation and feeding frenzy and circus that we have witnessed the last

couple weeks," Paterson told reporters at the Capitol.

He called the rumors, fueled by blogs and various news outlets, a "distraction" at a time

when the state is trying to deal with a number of crucial issues, including the state's

worsening budget deficit.

The governor said he would not speculate on who might be behind the rumors, other than to

say they seem "orchestrated" and timed to surface just when he began calling around the state

to Democratic insiders to gauge their support for his election campaign this year.

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who has declined to comment on the week of rumors about

the governor's personal life, is interested in challenging Paterson for the Democratic

gubernatorial primary.

"I am not trying to implicate anyone and I'm not starting rumors myself," the governor

said. "After what I've been through, the last thing I'm going to do is blame this on any other

candidate or any of the people who work for them. I don't know who did this. Believe me, if I

knew I would be addressing it."

And in aradio interview this morning on Fox Business Networks Imus in the Morning show, a still-stinging Paterson said the rumors started over a still-unpublished New York Times story have come at a tough time with budget talks trying to get underway. "I was just trying to govern the state, he said.

Paterson then was asked, and denied, the same sorts of rumors about his personal life that have been the subject in some media circles the past week.

"I have been depicted in a way that has been racialized, sexualized, hyper-sexualized, and dissolute, and the reality is it is hard to diminish this kind of uproar when it gets started, especially when no one is talking about a source and no one is even investigating who the sources are. Because, believe me, there are enough entities who wold not be wishing me well this year, Paterson said.

The governor openly wondered about relations between some special interests – presumably those opposed to some of his controversial budget plans – and "some media outlets to help create a scenario in which he does not run this year.

"For a person who has such weak poll numbers and hasnt raised enough money and has diminishing support, Paterson added, "someone is going very far out of their way to see that Im not a candidate this year.

The host asked, "I wonder if thats Cuomo?"

"I dont know, Paterson said.

Cuomo, preparing what could be a divisive primary challenge to Paterson, has declined comment on the rumor frenzy over Paterson the past week.

The Albany swirl, prodded along by some Democrats and Capitol insiders and a willing media,

began with word of a possibly damaging article by the Times looking into Paterson's personal

life. The governor, shortly after taking office in 2008, acknowledged past marital

infidelities and drug use.

Paterson said he had an in-person interview with the Times at the governor's mansion

Tuesday for an upcoming profile. "He said he would leave all that speculation for other news

sources," Paterson said of what the reporter told him about the rumors of personal

indiscretions.

Paterson has vehemently denied engaging in any behavior that would make it necessary for

him to resign. He suggested the Times should have released some sort of response in recent

days to help stop the rumors.

"They gave me an answer that they're not responsible for what media outlets say or

speculate. But I do think I was owed, as a human being if not [for] professional journalism,

the right and opportunity not to have the people of the state of New York thinking that their

governor was about to resign when there hasn't been one shred of evidence that any of these

charges that were made against me were even true," he said.

A frustrated Paterson, who thanked his family for their understanding, said the incident

has given "oxygen to those who would injure the reputations and lives if they could of public

officials and anyone else by circulating completely fabricated information about them and

their families."

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch suggested lazy journalists were partly to blame. "I

just think that there wasn't much else to write about at this point, to be candid with you,"

he said.

He said if it is true that the Times profile will include no blockbuster revelations, "then

it will be a very interesting, Pulitzer-prize winning story to figure out how did this whole

set of rumors that were deeply unfair to the governor get started."

On Tuesday night, Paterson's secretary, Larry Schwartz, wrote to the Times' public editor

complaining that while the rumors were being spread, the Times had a duty to clarify that its

profile was not about the personal details over which the blogs and tabloids and others were

having a field day.

He asked the public editor, Clark Hoyt, to launch an inquiry into the matter.