IN’s Cooper: Spitzer’s not ready for prime time

Too bad Sen. Joseph McCarthy didn’t live long enough to enter the modern media age. Imagine the ratings sensation he could have created had he been signed by Fox to go head-to-head against CNN’s latest property, Eliot Spitzer.
Yesterday, the ratings-impaired unit of Time Warner announced that New York’s former crusading attorney general and former governor would be the co-anchor of a nightly show with political columnist Kathleen Parker. It’s a high-concept pairing, as they say in TV land: smart, pretty right-wing female trades verbal jabs with famous, left-wing alpha male. You can be sure CNN’s advertising sales team is wildly enthusiastic about the duo.
But where does Mr. Spitzer’s disgraceful behavior and dubious record fit into this happy picture? Nowhere, it seems.
Unlike Paris Hilton or the dopey Rod Blagojevich, Illinois’ impeached governor, who took time out from preparing for his federal corruption trial (now under way) to appear on “Celebrity Apprentice,” Princeton-educated Mr. Spitzer doesn’t want celebrity for celebrity’s sake. More like Richard Nixon, he craves the public spotlight because he wants to be seen as thoughtful, serious and a man of major importance.
The truth is, Mr. Spitzer is petty, vindictive and dangerous. And don’t forget, he’s a john.
When he resigned the governorship in March 2008, a cloud hung over Mr. Spitzer’s head in the form of a federal investigation of his conduct. In November of that year, prosecutors in charge of the case said he would not face criminal charges, noting that they had found no evidence of misuse of public funds.
But instead of retreating to his half-a-billionaire father’s real estate business or doing something else away from glaring cameras, Mr. Spitzer decided that he would remain on the public stage and continue to “contribute” (the phrase currently preferred by the self-absorbed to describe their sharp-elbowed attempts at being the center of attention).
What exactly did Mr. Spitzer “contribute” during his time in public office?
Unlike most New York attorneys general who focus on consumer rights cases and local fraud issues — and Lord knows, we have plenty of those here in the Empire State — Mr. Spitzer sought a higher profile by going after areas that traditionally were left to the feds, namely securities fraud and white-collar crime. In response to his charging then-AIG chairman Maurice Greenberg with criminal and civil fraud in 2005, former Deputy Treasury Secretary and retired Goldman Sachs chief executive John Whitehead wrote an Op-Ed piece in The Wall Street Journal saying that Mr. Spitzer had gone too far.
In return, Mr. Spitzer phoned Mr. Whitehead and said (according to an account by Mr. Whitehead, which Mr. Spitzer denied but never refuted): “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.”
Very thoughtful and statesmanlike, wouldn’t you agree?
By the way, the criminal case against Mr. Greenberg was dropped; the civil case is still under way.
As governor, Mr. Spitzer had no more success dealing with the state’s dysfunctional Legislature than previous governors. Maybe the reason was his abrasive personality. No doubt this wasn’t helped by his ordering the state police to keep special records of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s whereabouts when the Republican traveled with police escorts in New York.
Had he been in power in the 1930s, Mr. Spitzer would have found a soul mate in Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, who also was a champion of the common man against the forces of corporate evil, while lining his own pockets in the process. But this is a new century, and Mr. Spitzer already has full pockets. Sidetracked in politics, there is now the intoxicating world of video to conquer. What better place for a man of overweening ambition?
I’d just like to ask Mr. Spitzer a question much like one posed to a Wisconsin senator by Boston lawyer Joseph Welch at the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings: “Sir, have you no sense of shame?”
I guess we already know the answer.

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