I sure hope the worm turns with the exposure of the hypocrisy of the Spitzer case.  Between Foley, Craig, and Vitter, the media couldn't tie them closely enough to the Republicans.  Now with Eliott Spitzer and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, why is it not harmful to Democrats?  Perhaps because the media is careful and selective about including the "D" after their names?

The real story in the Spitzer affair is the complicty of the media. Spitzers rise to the governorship would not have been possible without the willing cooperation of a news media that lapped up his press releases and called him the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and a "Tireless Crusader".  A media which took glee in the destruction of prominent people, not because they were guilty, but because they were successful.

Hidden from view by these accomplices was his absolute ruthlessness and lack of perspective.  He intimadated the board of AIG into firing Hank Greenberg. He sued Dick Grasso and board members (except Democrat Carl McCall) of the NYSE over a pay package. 

Where was the critical examination by the press. Why did no one wonder why hedge funds were locating out of New York State and out of his reach. Where was the outrage in 2005 when he said to John Whitehead, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs:

"Mr. Whitehead, it's now a war between us and you've fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter."

Spitzer's rise was aided and abetted by a fawning media. One wonders of the reports at 60 Minutes spend even a millisecond reflecting on the consequences of their actions.

The news media in the United States is the only industry that I can think of which daily gets away with producing a defective product. No other industry, not Wall Street, not Pharmaceuticals, not Detroit could get away with so consistently producing such defective work.

It is a crying shame. It would be great of journlism schools would begin a real examination of the trade. But these schools only fuel the disease. These people in the media cause real lasting damage in their determination to turn facts into a  morality play they call a "story".

There is so much more to come out about Spitzer, that will go way beyond his dicktatorial activities.

For instance, get this from John Podhoretz...

Eliot Spitzer, Crook
John Podhoretz - 03.10.2008 - 18:32
The thing is, Eliot Spitzer is a crook. I’m not referring to the current prostitution scandal. I’m not referring to the scandal last year involving his senior aides and the leaking of confidential police information to the Albany Times Union. I’m not referring to the threatening phone call he made to the august John Whitehead, retired head of Goldman Sachs, who had the temerity to question a case Spitzer was building against an old friend of Whitehead’s. I’m referring to his conduct dating back to 1994, when he designed a complex scheme involving loans and real estate and collateralized apartments to evade campaign-finance laws so that his own father, Bernard Spitzer, could pay for his campaign as attorney general of New York state. Millions of dollars. And then, in 1998, running for the same office, he did it again. It’s hard to explain, but basically, Spitzer’s father gave him a lot of real estate. He used it to secure loans totaling more than $8 million. Then his father paid back the loans. He was supposed to pay his father back. He said he did. Then he acknowledged he hadn’t. Then somehow it all went away. I’m not a big fan of campaign-finance laws, but they are laws, and they are supposed to apply to everybody.

The rules don’t apply to Eliot Spitzer, or at least, that’s how Eliot Spitzer has acted throughout his public life. Sic transit gloria mundi

Vote 4 change. Vote 4 anything. See Jack & Mr Shy's first campaign ad for the ONLY viable 3rd party candidate.

My husband passed away 16 years ago. Nonetheless, if he were alive today and pulled this crap, he wouldn't have made ANY announcement. I would have been the one making the speech. And it wouldn't have been pretty either.

“Over on MSNBC, Alan Dershowitz raged against American prudishness: "Big deal, married man goes to prostitute…Thus, Spitzer’s lying and adultery and illegal cavorting with prostitutes across state lines is all America’s fault. We wouldn’t have hypocrisy if we could just jettison our primitive morality.

James Carville, who quickly suspected a vast right-wing conspiracy on CNN: "I smell a rat here! This thing has gone really overboard. I wonder who is behind the information." “

...of course it was the VRWC, the defenders of morality. What these "fools" don't realize is the "depth" of our membership. And this "depth" will not be mocked!

v

10 How long will the enemy mock you, O God?
Will the foe revile your name forever?
22 Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long. Psalm 74