Michael Nutter was to John Street as (BLANK) is to Michael Nutter.

a) Kermit the Frog

b) Councilman Bill Green

c) Cory Booker

d) Donovan McNabb.

The correct answer is of course, Bill Green, Council gadfly, microphone magnet and know-it-all.

Which is probably why former Mayor Street could be seen wearing a beatific smile in Council chambers Thursday as Mayor Nutter delivered his budget address into the stony silence of his erstwhile colleagues on City Council.

He knows just how Nutter feels when Green goes off, critiquing the mayor’s every move as inadequately researched, poorly thought out and thoroughly unacceptable.

He knows exactly how it feels, since Nutter played the same role in Council throughout the Street years.

And Green, of course, rather transparently hopes the “chief critic to mayor) analogy will someday be extended further - to “mayor who succeeded  the first guy in the office. ”