The fall of Eliot Spitzer offers a reminder, after two years of tawdry Republican scandals used to brilliant advantage by Democrats, that misbehavior by public officials knows no party. Too often, people find it difficult to separate their own ideas about politics from their moral expectations. Democrats and liberals slip far too easily into a conviction that the Republican and conservative focus on equality of opportunity and the benefits of the market is merely a cover for greed and power dominance. Republicans and conservatives, likewise, believe the Democratic and liberal elevation of the government’s role in solving social problems is merely a cover for a bottomless hunger to arrogate and centralize political power. They are not content to believe their opponents are wrong. Rather, they are sure their opponents think exactly the same way they do and, therefore, that they are acting from malign intent rather than from a different perspective on how the world works best.
Conservatives tend to view the world through a moral framework, and this makes them susceptible to believing that others are immoral because they do not do so. Liberals tend to view the world through a framework of compassion, and this makes them susceptible to believing that others are heartless because they do not do so.
None of this offers a description of Eliot Spitzer, however, who is simply an Appetite in human form. He wanted to be attorney general of the State of New York, and used every means at his disposal to do so, including a bald-faced abrogation of campaign-finance laws that made it possible for his father to finance his campaigns. He wanted to become famous as Attorney General, so he read the headlines and decided he could use his office’s not-inconsiderable authority to go after anyone he chose to go after — always making sure that his opponent was not in the good graces of the New York Times at the time.
And when he became governor, almost by acclamation, he decided everything in Albany was going to be done his way — something he could have effected through the proper use of his huge mandate. Instead, he threatened people, while his people (which probably means Spitzer himself) decided to use state police as his private investigations unit.
Finally, in what I suspect was a scheme to garner a few thousand frauduent votes at an opportune moment so that he could flip the New York State Senate to the Democratic side and work his will in the State Legislature, he championed the notion of giving illegal aliens drivers’ licenses — which would have meant any illegal alien in New York State could have registered to vote through motor-voter rules without ever getting caught.
Eliot Spitzer wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. That is the consistent pattern of his public life, and it is why America will be a better place when the only power he has left is the power to hurt the people closest to him.
