In these, the first hours after Eliot Spitzer’s epic fall from grace, it will be difficult for Spitzer’s numerous detractors to avoid reveling in an unhealthy amount of Schadenfreude. Nevertheless, it would be salubrious to remember at this time that there are many things worse than a hypocrite. Like a vengeful, headline-hunting prosecutor who tries to build a career by persecuting others and abusing the power of the state. On Wall Street, they’re popping the champagne corks this afternoon. One friend emails:
The entire office stopped and gawked at the TVs hanging from the ceiling when the first news alerts were announced. Then a bit of a chuckle as people realized the poetic justice that this could represent. As someone who has watched Ken Langone for nearly 20 years, I can’t help but feel a bit of Schadenfreude at Spitzer’s potential embarrassment, if not political ruin. There’s a certain satisfaction that one can enjoy right now when you ponder how Spitzer tried to pursue a line of attack regarding Grasso having a love child. The one downside I see to all of this is that Charlie Gasparino of CNBC will get even more face time given he is their resident “expert” on all things Spitzer/Grasso related.
Being a Boston/Beltway type, I’m not particularly familiar with Charlie Gasparino’s oeuvre, but I’ll be sure to take notice of him in the coming days. Let’s now take a brief trip down Spitzer Memory Lane. Here’s a little op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The writer was the much-esteemed John Whitehead, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs:
Last April, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by me titled “Mr. Spitzer Has Gone Too Far.” In it I expressed my belief that in America, everyone–including Hank Greenberg–is innocent until proven guilty. “Something has gone seriously awry,” I wrote, “when a state attorney general can go on television and charge one of America’s best CEOs and most generous philanthropists with fraud before any charges have been brought, before the possible defendant has even had a chance to know what he personally is alleged to have done, and while the investigation is still under way.” Since there have been rumors in the media as to what happened next, I feel I must now set the record straight. After reading my op-ed piece, Mr. Spitzer tried to phone me. I was traveling in Texas but he reached me early in the afternoon. After asking me one or two questions about where I got my facts, he came right to the point. I was so shocked that I wrote it all down right away so I would be sure to remember it exactly as he said it. This is what he said: “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.” I tried to interrupt to say he was doing to me exactly what he’d been doing to others, but he wouldn’t be interrupted. He went on in the same vein for several more sentences and then abruptly hung up. I was astounded. No one had ever talked to me like that before. It was a little scary. It’s up to others to make their own conclusions. I have only set out here what happened.
At the corner of Wall and Broad, the trading floor erupted in cheers when Eliot Spitzer’s embarrassment was announced. The shame of the day is that something as quotidian as hypocrisy has triggered Spitzer’s downfall. Today would be a happier day if Spitzer were driven from public life because the public recoiled at his holier-than-thou prosecutions that were driven much more by a sense of ambition than a desire for justice. But the fact that Spitzer will likely be gone from public life by nightfall makes it a happy day nonetheless.
