Spitzer Meets the Left's Punditocracy

by Jeff Siegel

The American left has a wonderfully predictable ability to denigrate its own, which is one reason why we have been forced to endure the past four presidents. How else to explain the absolutely befuddling article in the current The American Prospect, which takes newly-elected New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to task for being some sort of Reagan Republican. Writes Ezra Klein: “[Spitzer] plainly feared that his focus on corporate wrongdoing would be mistaken for rank populism.”

Here in the provinces, I have not had the opportunity to follow Eliot Spitzer’s career closely. What I have seen, though, is impressive: He has thrown corporate greedheads in jail for sucking the blood out of working men and women. I even got a phone call last year about a story I wrote, from someone in his office investigating a particularly nasty – and very little reported – part of the pharmaceutical industry called the secondary market, in which legitimate prescription drugs wind up in illegitimate hands in a completely legal fashion. From there, these drugs often finance all sorts of criminal activities, and tainted or diluted drugs have led to deaths. Compare this effort to Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, who lifted nary a finger against Enron, which must have broken one or two state laws.

I don’t expect Spitzer to be the second coming of FDR (though I can hope). These days, I think those of us who care about social justice would be happy with someone who was the second coming of Adlai Stevenson. That’s why it would be nice if the Left let Spitzer take the oath of office before relegating him to the dustbin of progressivism. I’m reminded of former Texas Congressman John Bryant, who led the good fight until he was left without a seat through redistricting. Someone once launched into Bryant at a town hall meeting, questioning his votes on a variety of lefty issues. Bryant smiled at the man, and then pointed at the previous questioner, who had taken Bryant to task for daring to vote for a ban on assault weapons. “You can vote for me,” Bryant told the second man, “or you can vote for him.”

Right now, I’ll take Spitzer.

(The photo is from the State of New York and is in the public domain.)

politics
Eliot Spitzer
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