Spitzer

Oh, my.

The Times had a couple of good columns, one by Gail Collins and one by John Farmer, a fellow former state attorney general. I am mostly sorry to see Spitzer go, but oh so not surprised; it's clear conservatives will stop at nothing to have their way with the country, and the only feeling I have is disappointment that Spitzer, like Bill Clinton, could be so utterly stupid. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. I don't know if his being brought down was part of a vast right wing conspiracy; the Voice's Wayne Barrett on Democracy Now certainly thinks so.

Like Guiliani, Spitzer is a blowhard and a bulldozer, not a consensus builder or a cooperator, and that personality may work really well as an attorney general but just doesn't when it comes to governing a huge dysfunctional state like New York. So it's not surprising, either, that no Democrats were willing to rally around him at the end. He was toast.

Hello, Gov. Paterson, about whom I have no opinion except that again, he's a part of the Democratic machinery in New York. I guess he does have a sense of humor, though: At his press conference on Friday he was jokingly asked if he had visited with prostitutes. He replied, “Only the lobbyists.”

Here's the "mostly sorry" part: When Met Life sold Sty Town Spitzer said he knew the guy who bought it and he was sure it was going to be a good thing. The guy was a big Spitzer donor, and Spitzer's family made their money in real estate, of course. New York City is now owned by real estate, and they are destroying the city in the name of luxury housing and profit.

Despite his faults, of course I'd prefer him to Gov. Giuliani. But now I am just left with an even deeper disappointment and a sense that this country is irreparably broken. Sorry to be so depressing from afar. I still think we should have moved to Canada.

Oh my, indeed . . .