Hung Out to Dry

The big news, of course, is that Eliot Spitzer will no longer be a superdelegate if he steps down as New York's governor, as several news outlets are now predicting he will do.

Really, isn't that punishment enough?

What's striking, in the avalanche of news coverage about Spitzer's secret life as Client 9, is how no one is cutting him the slightest bit of slack, including liberal outlets that might ordinarily be sympathetic to a Democrat. Not the NYT editorial page: "His short, arrogant statement simply was not enough, not from the Sheriff of Wall Street, not from the self-appointed Mr. Clean who went to Albany promising a new and better day."

And not the Daily News: "Eliot Spitzer brought his once-promising governorship to a crashing end with a display of recklessness and hypocrisy of such magnitude that you had to question his sanity. Three words to the man: Just get out."

Now, I'm not suggesting we should waste a smidgen of sympathy on a man who betrayed the public and his family with the shockingly self-destructive act of hiring hookers (and inducing one to violate the Mann Act!). But usually there's some kind of debate. The argument over Bill Clinton's conduct (and yes, he made the famous finger-wagging denial) convulsed the country for more than a year. Hey, Marion Barry was elected mayor again after being videotaped smoking crack with a woman not his wife.

You could, if you were so inclined, argue that most johns aren't prosecuted for what Spitzer did, so going after the guv would be selective enforcement. Or you could argue that prostitution is a victimless crime (and a lucrative one for "Kristen" and her fellow escorts).

But it seems that Spitzer had no allies left. Both parties in Albany had tired of his arrogant, self-righteous style. This was a man whose office targeted the Senate GOP leader in the "Troopergate" scandal. A man who told the Assembly's GOP leader, Jim Tedisco: "Listen, I'm a [expletive] steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else."

Roll back the tape, however, and you find immense media praise for Spitzer as state attorney general, such as the 2002 Time cover story on "Wall Street's Top Cop" that explained "how a rich kid from the Bronx became the people's champion."

To be sure, Spitzer's probes of Merrill Lynch and other brokerages revealed that analysts were lying about stocks to win investment banking business, an effort that Time said was "fundamentally reshaping America's markets." Now, however, much of the focus is on the extent to which Spitzer overreached: driving CEOs to quit without evidence, demanding that New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso give back $140 million in allegedly excessive compensation. To fit today's narrative of power-crazed overreaching, Spitzer's accomplishments are downplayed or erased.

He won the governorship with the biggest landslide in New York history, and now has blown up his career. No one can truly answer the question: What was he thinking?

This can't help: In a quickie Marist poll, 70 percent of New Yorkers say Spitzer should quit. And the state GOP says it will begin impeachment proceedings within 48 hours.

"Gov. Eliot Spitzer remained in office Tuesday evening, offering no public statements on whether he would resign following allegations that he was linked to a high-priced prostitution ring," says the New York Times.