Interesting that they revived the wiretap for an occassion when Spitzer was scheduled out of toen.

So… The feds were OUT TO GET HIM!

OK, it’s clear: This up-and-comer (so to speak) has solid liberal credentials and is a real ruling elite “insider”; the establishment press loves him. The groundwork is already being laid for his public absolution. The cover story: He stepped on too many evil toes and they took him out. He’s a victim, not just a… well.. john.

That the governor of New York has been caught exchanging Spitzer with top-dollar whores in high-priced hotel rooms matters for only two reasons:

1 ) - Most pressingly, he put himself in a position to be blackmailed. Remember, this guy was being groomed to step onto the national stage as a big-time Democratic contender. Do we really need another coochie hound in the Oval Office? And a politically vulnerable one at that?

2 ) – If hypocrisy was a crime, he’d be Dead Man Walking. Spitzer aggressively prosecuted prostitution rings as attorney general, condemning such behavior in mighty high-falutin’ terms. He’s never been shy about parading his family around for political photo ops. He cannot now be seen as anything more than a two-faced liar. These types, no matter how talented, are getting tiresome.

Highly motivated but spiritually shiftless, Spitzer has been the beneficiary of very, very good press (some of it spookily fawning - like the “60 Minutes” profile a few years ago that did just about everything but snuggle up and blow gently in his ear). On the good side, his prosecutorial resume includes relentless pursuit of some pretty slimy white-collar sleaze. On the bad side, he seems to favor a political approach that would be welcome at a Borgia family pheasant shoot: He engages his state security apparatus to background political opponents, and he’s more than happy to use legislative power to remake the world to his own standards. For instance, his attempt to force church-affiliated hospitals to perform abortions is downright sinister.

So… it’s up to the voters of New York to forgive and forget, or, (dammit, I can’t help myself) SPITZER HIM OUT.

I have no emotional stake in Spitzer one way or the other beyond cringing at the unseemly conduct he's obviously engaged in. I always have some degree of sympathy for public figures whose private pecadillos are made public because of the humiliation it causes them and their families whereas private citizens can engage in the same behavior and while painful and embarassing, at least the whole world doesn't find out about it.

My concern is not about Spitzer at all, but instead I am wondering how a wiretap only a few weeks ago led so quickly to the public revelation of the information about one of, if not the most, powerful Democratic Governors in the nation? It isn't like he was busted in a local sting operation after all.

We know who's running the Justice Department and it isn't Judge Mukasey: it's the Bush White House. That alone is reason enough to be skeptical about this situation in terms of wanting to really evaluate all the information to make sure that this is, in fact, what it appears to be on the surface. We know, albeit we still need the smoking gun, that they crucified Don Siegleman in Alabama for partisan political reasons. We also know that for the past 20+ years, one of the primary occupations of GOP strategists was to decimate up and coming Democratic leaders who could be competitive nationally or who are already clearly setting their sights on the White House. Gary Hart and Gray Davis come to mind here.

Though not a prosecutor myself, I have been close to many prosecutors professionally and personally and have a bit of a feel of what the pace of this things is like. The timetable here is incredibly fast compared to a typical investigation leading to indictment, etc. Too fast for me to be comfortable with the entire story of irregular financial transactions catching the eye of the FBI's public corruption guys and leading to this. I've not heard a good explanation (though there could be one)as to how and why these particular transactions were even detected or of interest as opposed, for example, to the billions of transactions that must be occuring daily all over the country. I'm not saying I know or have good reason to suspect there is a political motive for all this, the objective of which is to take out Spitzer. I am saying, however, that something doesn't feel at all right about this to me. Something doesn't smell right about it. Would it really be out of character for the Bush justice department to target a strong Democratic leader in an important state who is engaged in a bitter partisan struggle with the GOP there?

In a case like this it is very easy to succumb to the details of the crime in question and the scandal itself. If this is a politically motivated situation that would, of course, be a critical element in it all---that the scandal would be enough to defect any interest in finding out how the bust really came about beyond the official explanation. But who has a motive here in terms of bringing this to light so quickly? Who has a motive in toppling or fatally damaging Spitzer politically so that he is at least crippled, as a practical matter, as Governor and/or completely eliminated as a future political contender nationally? I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but I see no reason to remain highly skeptical about what really happened here and why unless and until some very tough questions are asked, and a great deal of scrutiny is given to the potential role of Bushco which has run the most partisan political DOJ operation in the history of the country. Would anyone be surprised if they had a hand in this that was not exactly as explained thus far. I sure wouldn't. When you are as corrupt as Bush and his henchmen are, and as arrogant in violating the law as they have been, there is no deed that should go without extraordinary scrutiny even when it does involve some seamy, embarassing, and weird behavior as this case does.

So, I'm reserving judgement for now as to exactly what this situation is all about and why it came about as it did. I hope the media does it's job here and is as skeptical as they should be and also that they dig into all this and go over every official explanation of what happened and why, with a fine toothed comb.

There are a lot of things we probably won't know if Spitzer resigns and no charges are brought. But I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to undergo a humiliating trial in hopes of showing that the Feds were motivated by politics and moralism more than by what they're supposed to be motivated by and devoting their limited resources to -- upholding the law in ways that really count.

A man can often be judged by his enemies. The fact that Eliot Spitzer treated our corporate overlords shabbily, running roughshod through their comfortable, gentleman's club of corruption, speaks well of him.

Nor am I affected in any way by the notion that, over the past couple of years, he's shelled out about 40,000 of his own money for high-priced hookers. Sure he's busted some prostitution rings and milked them for publicity, and sure, he can be fairly called hypocritical, but let's not obscure the fact that one of the two prostition sex rings he shut down was a sex-tourism company specializing in prostitution of a much less savory sort; ie. exploitation of sex slaves, children and the poor. Judicial notice may be taken of the fact that if hypocripsy constituted a resigning offense we'd have no one in government.

Particularly amusing is the part of this story wherein the FBI gets permission to continue their investigation into his affairs due to his "high political office." As if anyone can imagine the Bush DOJ denying such a request.

Kabuki.

Interestingly, the $40,000 seems to have been spread out and at roughly four grand a pop that's only about 10 happy endings. Throw in the fact that it was all his money. I don't see where this effects what he's accomplished to date or could still accomplish if this was treated as the lets-move-on story it is.

I love the sanctimonious "black mail" talk too. The only blackmail going on is right now by the Bush DOJ. Yes, he broke the law. Slap him on the wrist like every other tom, dick or harry.

The FBI's involvement has not been much noted. I recall not so many years ago a man named J. Edgar Hoover kept files on everyone and routinely kept his eyes open for dirt on political opponents.

From Curt Gentry's J. Edgar Hoover:

To Hoover, as to Machiavelli, knowledge was power, and the chief source of that knowledge was, and remained throughout his long tenure as director of the FBI, his informants, who infiltrated every part of the government.

Name a bureau or department or regulatory office, William Sullivan once said, "and we had one or more informants in it, usually a lot more.

Surprisingly, more than a few of these informants were homosexuals. According to a former Hoover aide, in doing background investigations the agents would sometimes dicover that a person was a homosexual. If he occupied a strategic position, one giving him access to information of interest to the Bureau, the agents would attempt to "turn" him, and - since the alternative was exposure, dismissal and the denial of any future government work - quite often they were successful.

In other words, if we found out that so and so was one, and most of them were quite covert about their activities, that person would be "doubled" and would become a listening post for the FBI.

It was axiomatic at the time, that the main reason homosexuals should be denied government employment was their susceptibility to blackmail.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover proved this was true by blackmailing them himself.