Our governor hadn’t been exactly winning the Mr Personality contest up in Albany for a while already when the news that he was a regular customer of high-end hookers crashed over the internet like a trillion gallons of water pouring through a crack in Hoover Dam. I’m writing this before midnight, but I don’t expect him to last past close of business Tuesday. After all, he wasn’t caught torturing defenseless prisoners, this is about SEX for chrissake. No mercy.
I don’t sympathize, though. Here’s a guy who spent his whole professional life chasing the bad guys and throwing the book at them as an official enforcer of the laws of the land. He had a reputation as an arrogant, pushy, in-your-face type, but we figured, Hey, he did good work and a defended the littler guys in the Wall Street firmament against the kinds of quasi-legal looting that seems to be business as usual there.
But keeping a tab with a high-end muff store and arguing with the madam about overcharges on a bugged phone line? Do these guys ever stop to think about the consequences of their self-destructive, narcissistic behavior for the polity they’re supposed to be governing?
Did Clinton, B., stop to think that his wandering weenie not only interrupted the nation’s business but also might shoehorn George W Bush into his catastrophic presidency? As the Democratic Party’s tenure at the White House collapsed ignominiously about his ears, did Clinton think to withdraw to the sidelines rather than sacrifice everything to save his own sorry behind? There really is no excuse for getting such huge opportunities to improve millions of people’s lives and then wreck them over a piece of ass, excuse my French.
In the short term, it’ll be a tabloid heyday here, but Lt Governor David Patterson could be an interesting substitute. He’s a career pol, pretty unknown to most New Yorkers, and legally blind, which is potentially inspiring. No one knows what he’ll be like as an administrator, and yet these accidental figures often occasion pleasant surprises. He’s also black, another first for our state.
All of which confirms my thesis that 2008 is going to be a helluva year and that the surprises are going to keep on coming.
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2 comments:
Good sum up. Cool read.
Spitzer's fall is truly breathtaking. At least Spitzer resigned. Meanwhile we here in Detroit are forced to endure this bunkered moron: Mayor Kilpatrick. Mayor K has probably got Spitzer 'lapped' by a factor of 10 in the personal foibles and public harm departments. We really wish our hip-hop mayor could follow Spitzer's lead and quit.
Good comment. Still, I wonder about how we just got over the Puritan influence in time for the Victorian Era. Seems we hold our elected officials to a higher standard than that for CEO's. Clinton and Spitzer got into trouble over what shouldn't be a crime, Clinton over a question that they had no right to ask. The biggest failing for Spitzer is the hypocricy. Busting prostitution rings while patronizing one: "I'm shocked! shocked! to find gamling going on here."
"Your winnings, sir."
"Thank you."
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