Spitzer

Schadenfreude, or something like that, compels me to publish here something I wrote and published over the summer.  This appeared elsewhere and not Daily Kos, in part because the national audience need not dwell on the vaunted dysfunction of the state in which I have lived and worked for more than 30 years.

In light of today's stunning, and to me welcome and almost predictable news (not the specifics, but the hubris and arrogance behind it, perhaps) with a few explanatory links added in this version, might now interest the wider audience.  I publish it again so that at least a few people understand that this is not just some minor lapse in what is claimed to be a stellar career

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The Governor of the State of Dysfunction

I do not like Eliot Spitzer and he, in turn, does not like me. I guess I should be flattered that he has any view of me at all, but if I explain further or discuss my reasons, my already shaky anonymity as Barth the Blogger will be completely gone. I have my reasons for not liking him; they are very good ones and I intend to write about them on another occasion...

You should not like him either for less personal reasons, perhaps, but good ones nontheless.

All of this is a prelude to my comments on the helicopter issue, or "troopergate" as Albany has come to call it. [A Gail Collins Op-Ed written after this post was originally published gives a decent summary of the Albany version of "troopergate" to which I was referring.] You may find these views to be unfair and entitled to know that I have a pre-existing antipathy for its target. That does not make what I am about to say any less valid, I submit.

The idea that the Governor, just as with his counterpart in the national government, is unaware or does not countenance the use of the government he heads to further his political ends, is so ludicrous as to be unworthy of serious discussion. The fact that the press and broadcast media let him, or the President, get away with this fiction, is one of the reasons why they are being supplanted by "alternative media" such as blogs, and why the Iraq disaster was allowed to happen.

As for the Governor, his ruthlessness, and desire to win at all costs, was first seen when he cheated and lied his way into the Attorney General’s office by concealing illegal contributions from his father, seen again on countless instances during his tenure as Attorney General but most memorably in his threatening exchanges with John Whitehead [a brief summary of which, written by the said Whitehead appeared here], his amazing claim, a month into his governship that he already had "done more" than any other in the state’s history(a history which includes both Roosevelts as well as Grover Cleveland, among the U.S. Presidents that first served in that office, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, would-be President Samuel Tilden, some guy named Thomas E. Dewey and another named Nelson Rockefeller, just for starters) and that he is a "f’ing steamroller" (he used the full word).

The use of the State Police as a political tool and his Acting Superintendent of the State Police (I don’t know how he is even that since the Governor has not seen fit to send his nomination to the Legislature for confirmation as, ahem, the law would require) telling the Attorney General that some political appointee is his "superior" (which one of them has the authority accorded to "police officers"?) is of the same piece. The head of the administration sets the tone for his government. It would be hard to be sleezier than his predecessor, and beyond comprehension that he could approach the level of the President, but in his delusions of royalty and his desire for a dictatorship, he really is right there with the best of them.

And he has not yet completed his seventh month on the job. Only 41 left.

Well, as it turns out,maybe not.  There is more to come from me on this explaining yet again why the refusal of the press to do its job has caused all of this, just as it has caused so much harm to our national government, to happen

•  Didn't Vote for Him

  But I still bet the Wiretap is Illegal.

  by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 05:45:15 PM PDT

  •  it's not

    The complaint and application for a search warrantshould meet with your approval, but in any event, met with a United States Magistrate Judge.

    by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 05:49:17 PM PDT

    •  Who appointed the judge? We know USAs r corrupt

      Oh, he was appointed in 1993.

      But the White House could have gotten to him.

      They've politicized the DOJ to the point where no reasonable person would ever believe them.

      Nothing is going to meet with my approval out of this wretched stinking bush White House.

      And nothing should meet with anybody else's aproval besides the approval of bush's little partisan hacks.

      by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 05:56:15 PM PDT

      •  all judges are not corrupt, and neither are all..

        ...or even most United States Attorneys.

        by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:20:53 PM PDT

        •  I doubt that

          See why smart people don't Republicanize the DOJ?

          And idiots do?

          by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:29:39 PM PDT

          •  I am not sure what you are saying...

            if you think al judges and all US Attorneys are corrupt, you have lost your senses.

            Demonizing your opponents is foolishness.

            Stooping to the level of Karl Rove is daft.

            by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:52:22 PM PDT

            •  They could clear the air about the USAs but

              instead they stonewall.

              I despise the demon opponents for that.

              All patriots should.

              Oh and damn Karl Rove and bush and every one of his cronies and everybody who carries water for these crooks.

              They're turning the screws against the USAs in this country to lock up Democrats.

              They're spying on everybody and blackmailing all.

              And you can't minimize that.

              Perhaps they even found dirt on YOU.

              by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 07:24:40 PM PDT

              •  The man who convicted Libby is...

                a United States Attorney.  The people who blew the whistle on the US Attorney scam were US Attorneys.

                by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 07:39:56 PM PDT

                •  All Hail the bushie US Attorneys!

                  What a brilliant Regime we are living under!

                  "Terrorists in Detroit."

                  "Roger.  All internet traffic and phone calls from Detroit will be intercepted.  Immunity required retroactively or more attacks will be perpetrated against Americans."

                  Everything is working perfect!

                  Oh well.

                  At least one person is not scared to keep talking to the water carrier for the Republican DOJ.

                  by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 07:43:06 PM PDT

                •  Here's a fine diary from the front page

                  My progressive friend.

                  http://www.dailykos.com/...

                  Republicans really are evil, and since Newt Gingrich they have been trying to destroy [eliminate] us.

                  by eroded47095 on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 08:14:53 PM PDT

•  this is another symptom

  to a problem that is systemic. the remedy is an article v convention. http://www.foavc.org

  until we get enough citizens in favor of holding our first national convention of state delegates, we will suffer the slings and arrows of institutionalized corruption.

  the frightening thing is, that a body can suffer only so many slings and arrows before talk of a remedy is comedy. fortunately we are not there yet.

  http://www.articlev.org

  by john de herrera on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 05:49:20 PM PDT

  •  way too scary for me

    I suspect the first ten amendments of the current Constitution would not stand a chance.

    by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 05:52:03 PM PDT

    •  ...

      you think with the country as polarized as it is today, that just anything would ever get ratified? the convention is merely the proposal of ideas, not one letter of the constitution is added (and btw, that is all an amendment can do--add words, in order for it to be as you erroneously suppose, an amendment would first need to be ratified saying it's ok if amendment proposals can suggest rewriting any one of the seven articles of twenty-seven amendments).

      yet the convention itself as an open discussion, would give people like you, as state delegates, a moment to build consensus with others about what amendment proposal could possibly garner the approval of 38 states.

      the only thing to get ratified today would be electoral reform. nothing else would fly. an amendment to standardize The Vote.

      yet the convention itself would give guys like eliot spitzr pause to think.

      by john de herrera on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:04:12 PM PDT

•  this was a neo-con son of a bitch

  i posted a diary earlier about his trashing of dean in 2003 over the war; his boasting privately last year that he was more of a hawk than bush.

  tonight is a great night.  as a resident of ny
  this fake phony disgrace will no longer be my governor..he reminds me a lot of someone else from this state

  by maxnyc on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:09:38 PM PDT

  •  i can't stand the guy....

    but unless by "neocon" you mean "Jewish" he isn't.  (Even if you do mean that, he is barely...)

    by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:19:47 PM PDT

    •  i dont characterize neo-cons

      by whether they are jewish or not (buchanan does)...

      but i do know he had neo-con objectives in being EXTREMEXTREMELY pro-war..read my diary earlier..it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy

      http://www.dailykos.com/...

      by maxnyc on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:25:33 PM PDT

      •  Ok, I read what you said.

        I do not think that views on the war are so easily categorized.

        Here is my previously expressed view on that (somewhat off target, but since you bring it up with regard to Gov Spitzer)....

        No matter how much a piece of garbage has been deposited in the White House, when the President says we are facing a dire threat, I listen.  Since the last president who possessed an intellect beyond comic book level also felt that this Hussein character posed a threat to us, it seemed even more important to listen carefully before jumping to the usual post-Vietnam conclusion that whatever it is, it’s best not to engage anyone militarily.

        So I listened.  What I heard scared me.  I knew that the people running Iraq had no relation to the people who attacked us in 1993 and on 9/11, but it is a volatile part of the world filled with irrational people who seem to be less cowed by the use of force than one would like.  I listened to the Secretary of State, who had been chairman of the joint chiefs of staff the last time a president to my liking had occupied the White House, and saw that CIA director, also appointed by that president I liked, and thought that this might be something.

        Unlike many of you who are obviously much smarter than I am, then, I do not think that the question of what to do in Iraq was as clear an issue.  The guy snookered us last time we went to war with him, and massacred people who he basically told General Schwartzkopf he would not.  We probably ought not ot have trusted him, but we did not have many choices then, since our government was not in the control of people who fantasize about the world of 1946, and the collective security that we depend on today would not permit a unilateral take over of a soverign country.

        Frankly, some of those who argued against this new war made the argument for war more appealing since I heard in some of them the antagonism against war under almost any circumstance, something I do not condemn and sort of admire, but do not feel it to be a reasonable military stance at this point in our history.

        My family and friends recall that by the time of "shock and awe" and, in fact, when the now famous resolution was voted upon, I had decided that the authorization for  the use of force should not be approved at least at that point, but, frankly I did not come to this conclusion until almost the very end of the debate.  By then, it seemed to me  that the resolution should not be passed since none of our traditional allies, except the UK, were supportive and when the President and his allies made comments which suggested they were not taking the UN inspections as seriously as was warranted, especially given how significant we found it when Hussein had kicked them out several years earlier.

        But, I was not married to anybody who was President of the United States, nor did I attend briefings from the military. Given all of that, and the assurances (empty as they turned out to be) that the authority would only be used if necessary, and the obvious mod of a country whipped into a frenzy by claims of mushroom clouds and the like, I cannot bring myself to condemn a person for not seeing it the same way I did, even though we have since found out that much of what was said to Congress and the public, and the UN was false.

        Senator Obama’s view at the time is really entitled to no more weight than mine.  Neither of us was asked to vote on the resolution and had no responsibility for its consequences.  He had no special intelligence briefings.  His duties in the Illinois State Senate had little bearing on this issue.  He was a citizen with the right to his opinion, but I do not know what its basis was.  He sais he was not against all wars, and I take him at his word—especially since he sounds as if he is willing to risk a war with Pakistan to capture Osama bin-Laden—but I just don’t know.

        Yes, as it turns out he (and I) were right and those who voted for the resolution (and trusted the word of the President of the United States) were wrong.  That entitles him to one point, I guess.  It does not make him, or me, a foreign policy expert or a great military genius.

        The bad guy in all of this is George W. Bush, and those who supported him, not Senator Clinton, not Senator Edwards and not Senator Kerry [or this Spitzer].    The failure to understand the country's trauma after 9/11, combined with an educational system that has not given most of us the tools or interest in distinguishing between Sh'ite or Sunni, Al Qaeda or Hussein, makes many a bit more holier than thou.

        by Barth on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 06:57:39 PM PDT