He can’t take the Libertarian approach, because he’s prosecuted another prostitution ring. This isn’t just a sex scandal, either, as the Mann Act violation makes it felonious if a conviction occurs. He can’t even go the populist approach. Yes, he went after the real corporate prostitutes who, like Enron and KBR and so many others, damaged people’s lives in profound ways. But you can’t win populist appeals when you’re paying caviar prices.

From USA Today on the night he won the governor’s office in 2006:

“Today was a victory not of one candidate or one party, but of all those irrepressible optimists who have hoped and dreamed of a resurgent New York, a New York that still exists as a symbol of creativity and ingenuity to all the world,” Spitzer said in remarks he was scheduled to deliver. “A New York whose greatest days lie ahead.”

“From here on out, we need a politics that binds us together, a politics that’s forward-thinking, a politics that asks not, ‘What’s in it for me?’ but always ‘What’s in it for us,”‘ Spitzer said in the text.

“This will be the true test of whether we rise or fall in the coming months and years,” Spitzer said. “Because in the end, it is not simply a budget or a bill or an act of government that will pave the way towards progress and prosperity, but the people’s belief that what happens in this state matters in their lives; that it matters to their children; and that it matters to our future.”

To his supporters, Spitzer quoted poet Walt Whitman and the last Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo, in calling for a brighter vision of New York’s future.

“On the great arc of New York history, it has been this pursuit of a common good that has led us toward uncommon greatness,” Spitzer said. “It’s what led Governor DeWitt Clinton to ignore the skeptics and fight for an Erie Canal that transformed New York into an economic giant.

“It’s what led Gov. Teddy Roosevelt to take on the machines and clean up the corruption that kept a government from serving its people,” Spitzer said. “And it’s what led Governor Al Smith to give voice and hope to the working people who toiled away under the factory smokestacks.”

“We humbly stand on the shoulders of all those who came before us of individuals who captured the high ideals and great hopes of what make New York the spirit and engine of our nation,” Spitzer said.

Voters interviewed Tuesday often said they favored Spitzer for his crusading work as attorney general.

“I like how he took such an aggressive approach against corruption on Wall Street and went after people regardless of how powerful they were,” said Al Smith, a mail carrier from Minoa, near Syracuse, who voted for Spitzer. “It gives me some hope he can maybe reform Albany.”

Clearly, he needs to huddle with his lawyers and see if the following will suffice as a private plea bargain: assuming there’s no clear violations of rights done by the investigators, he will agree to step down as Governor on the last day of August, and will afterward plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

Once that deal is (privately) arranged, he’ll simply announce that he compromised his fight against powerful law violators with a stupid choice but, because of ongoing initiatives and efforts, he’ll take some time to work with Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, to make sure that the interests and aims of all New Yorkers will be served throughout so that an orderly and effective transition can occur.

Buying some time to let the scandal fade, and granting the post-Dem-Convention campaign period for his fellow Dems to run unimpeded, he’ll be able to convey that he’s still going to do some essential work for New York, but will yield to a position of taking the honorable course of resignation - something very few Republicans have done.

He may be submitting his resignation tonight, if the Fox News report is correct, but I hope he stretches out the effective date of that, so he can complete any remaining initiatives he was fighting for. Since any higher office ambitions are now quashed, he may actually be able to fight for things without any hedging, and I hope he’ll do so, so he can at least maintain his legacy as a fighter and champion against the entrenched and far more damaging whores he pursued.

One thing that keeps coming to mind as I consider the Bush/Gonzalez US Prosecutors scandal: why can’t they track down Osama Bin Laden, or the numerous war profiteers, but can go after a political opponent for his moment of personal weakness?

The answer should be obvious.

Update 4:05 pm PDT: From a Digby post on Spitzer, a commenter responds:

it’s weird that we still don’t know why the feds were wiretapping on some seemingly inconsequential prostitution case in the first place. Is that something the feds spend a lot of time doing these days?

Uh, Digby…

Wiretapping?
DOMESTIC wiretapping??
For, um, POLITICAL PURPOSES???

Move along, nothing to see here.

John H. Farr | Homepage | 03.10.08 - 5:47 pm | #

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