Home » Archives » March 2008 » The High And Mighty Fall
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03/11/2008: "The High And Mighty Fall"
When a tree falls alone in the forest, it might not make a sound, but when a law and order politician gets caught hiring hookers, he hits the ground with a loud thud. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer - who rode into office with nearly 70% of the vote based on his "tough on all crime" stance as Attorney General - is widely expected to resign his office today after it was revealed that he'd been using a high-priced call girl service and may have been laundering money for the ring as well.
This is the same guy who made a name for himself by taking on all criminal comers as Attorney General, putting himself on the national stage as the future of the Democratic party. His first act as governor was to enact tough new ethics standards - ones which he himself has run afoul of in his first year in office. But nothing prepared the citizens of New York for the bombshell announcement yesterday that Spitzer is "Client #9" in the FBI's investigation of the Emperor's Club prostitution ring.
(Quick aside here - how funny is it when something so obviously non-regal takes a name like the "Emperor's Club" - as if somehow it could cloak itself in the image. Reminds me of a seedy strip joint here in LA that I visited in my younger days. "King Henry the Eighth's" tried hard - with just as little success - to convince you that somehow it was better - more royal - than the others. It wasn't. However, if you held your ticket up just right, the girls would validate your parking in a most unusual fashion. Talent indeed. But I digress ...)
Supposedly, it's the money trail that led the feds from a prostitute named Kristy to Spitzer and their liason in Washington, DC. Prostitution charges are bad enough politically, but money crimes tend to get you federal time. In any case, it's the end of the political road for Spitzer.
An interesting side note to this case is the fact that the Lieutenant Governor of New York, David Paterson, is black - which would make him the first African-American governor of New York, and only the fourth black governor in American History. But that's not even what makes his case unique - he's legally blind, having been born with optic atrophy.
A blind governor ... a woman or mixed race president. We live in interesting political times, indeed!
