by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 11, 2008
All Rights Reserved.

aught with his pants down in an FBI sting operation, 48-year-old New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer destroyed his political career for a high-priced call girl. Spitzer was the beneficiary of his father's real estate fortune. His parents' family, Bernard Anne Spitzer, fled Austrian persecution for the promised land of the Lower East Side, near Katz's East Houston St. famous deli. Nothing gave Bernard more pride than watching his wunderkind attend the exclusive Horace Mann prep school, score 1590 [10 points from perfection] on the SAT, attend Princeton University, score a perfect score on the LSAT and matriculate at Harvard Law School. Eliot mentored under Prof. Alan Dershowitz, eventually editing Harvard Law Review. His father's fortune financed Eliot's meteoric rise in N.Y.'s rough-and-tumble politics, eventually beating Republican Dennis Vacco for attorney general in 1998.

      Spitzer's ethical crusade went from the Gambino crime family to Wall Street, making him a shoe in to replace retiring GOP Gov. George Pataki. Called “Crusader of the Year” by Time Magazine for taking on Wall Street, going after former N.Y. Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso. When he swept into the governor's mansion Jan. 1, 2007 with a whopping 69% of the vote, the sky was the limit for the brash, take-no-prisoners political star, seen by many as a future Democratic presidential candidate. When Spitzer was named as “Client 9,” a repeat customer of a petite brunette, 5-feet-5-inch-105-pound “Kristen” with the Emperors Club VP, a high-end prostitution ring, his career crashed and burned. Spitzer stoically faced the media March 10 with his grim-faced wife Silda Wall Spitzer at his side. “I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expect of myself,” said Eliot.

      Spitzer stopped short of resigning, offering an ambiguous public statement but giving no hint about his options. “I have acted in a way that violated the obligations to my family and that violate my, or any, sense of right and wrong,” prompting state officials to call for his resignation or face impeachment. N.Y State Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco promised articles of impeachment, if Spitzer didn't resign in 48 hours. Sight-impaired, African American Lt. Gov. David Peterseon waits the wings to be the third black governor since reconstruction. While Spitzer explores his options, he won't escape his self-inflicted wounds, leaving him no way out other than resigning. “I told him my thoughts were with him and wished him all the best,” said N.Y. City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, astonished that his good friend had completed what no political foe could have accomplished.

      Spitzer walked on thin ice for more than a year, spending, according to court records, $15,000 on prostitution with Emperors Club VIP. His last tryst took place Feb. 13 at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, where the governor paid $4,300 for “Kristen,” to watch is political career go up in smoke. “Kristen” traveled from New York to D.C., violating the 1910 Mann Act, traveling across state lines to engage in prostitution. No one knows whether Spitzer used N.Y. State Troopers or bodyguards to aid-and-abet his illicit activities. “Interstate transportation for sexual purposes is a federal crime . . . We all think now he's negotiating a plea,” said state Sen. Martin J. Golden (R-Brooklyn), a former police officer. While not charged yet with a crime, Spitzer has no choice but to accept a plea deal and go quietly into the night, forever a disgraceful footnote in New York's celebrated history.

      When Internet journalist Matt Drudge exposed 52-year-old President William Jefferson Clinton's affair with 21-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998, it revealed his painful self-destruction. Ten years after the scandal, it's still not clear all Clinton's motivations. He once told Mike Wallace June 21, 2004 on “60 Minutes” that his anger over the Ken Starr investigation drove him to irrational behavior. “I did something for the worst possible reason—just because I could,” calling his actions with Lewinsky “a terrible moral error.” “Moral errors” usually have to do with a defective conscience, not as Clinton suggests, repressed anger. Spitzer, too, showed a pattern of deceptive behavior, leading to his self-destructive conduct. When he met with “Kristen,” he wasn't thinking about the damage he was heaping on himself, his family and his supporters.

      Spitzer's case it yet another example of how untreated mental problems wind up sabotaging the careers of otherwise bright and gifted people. His inflated ego blinded his reality-testing, leading to the risky behavior that cost him his career. While Spitzer hasn't resigned yet, there's no survival for his unforgivable infractions, forcing him to accept the painful consequences of his behavior. “I'm a [expletive] steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else,” Spitzer once told N.Y. GOP Assembly Leader James Tedisco while running for governor in 2006, demonstrating the kind of intemperance coming back to haunt him. No one feels more humiliated and disgraced than his father Bernard, whose only mission was to see his promising son rise to the pinnacles of success in elective office. Now that Eliot's fallen from grace, he's got a lifetime to figure out what went wrong.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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