James Taylor? The Steamroller of Sensitivity? Barf.
On a more serious note, I suspect that Greg Palast is right -- the sex thing isn't what we should be talking about (seriously or sniggeringly). We should be talking about Spitzer's enemies. We still do have a Rove Justice Department. Not really a time for cock jokes.
Lindsay is on the "why did they target Spitzer" angle, too. I'm fine with pushing this line, as long as we're clear that Spitzer was caught red handed doing something an anti-corruption politician shouldn't even think about doing.
Absolutely -- it seems completely clear to me that this was a politically motivated investigation.
Can't we have justice, and cock jokes?
"a napalm bomb for you, baby"???
Hot.
I'm the other way by now. I'm fine with calling Spitzer an idiot, a clown, and an abuser of women, as long as we realize that he's a key player being taken out by the Bush Administration at the behest of an industry that's getting a trillion dollar buyout at our expense.
I really love cock jokes, and debates about prostitution too, but I think that we've misplayed this one.
Lindsay seems to be taking a shot at the journalistic big time. Maybe we should adopt her and direct some of our vast wealth her way.
Why should she get to go to the French Laundry?
5: Nice. Were you saving that one up?
7: or we could just go to her blog and click on her advertisers.
We should be talking about Spitzer's enemies. We still do have a Rove Justice Department. Not really a time for cock jokes.
It's hard to believe that the Rovians move easily in the various departments at a time when it seems clear that the Dems are about to return to the Executive. Maybe it started earlier and just couldn't be slowed? Maybe someone was opportunistic in leaking to the newspapers?
10: done.
I saw Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist last night. It suffered from translationese and could have been a little crisper, but still a pretty great farce of discomfort. The main character is a maniac trickster figure who gets inside a police station and, pretending to be a police officer, tapes the police admitting that they threw a blameless anarchist suspect out the window and covered it up, and reveals to a journalist that the police have agents provocateurs in the feeble anarchist cells that they investigate instead of the neo-Fascists.
At the climax, the maniac fits his own detonator to a replica bomb and, with the police handcuffed and trap, sets the bomb to go off. The journalist can save the police (who will kill the trickster before he can reveal what he knows) or she can leave them to die. In one ending, she bolts with her story; in the second, she saves the police, who trap her in the room to die because she knows too much.
There's a monologue where the Maniac, explaining to the reporter that her story will be forth little if it just points to the police and not to the system, indicts the back-and-forth of scandal and reform, or as Fo calls it in a postscript, "the indignation which can be relieved by a little burp in the form of a scandal." The monologuing pushed on into Halliburton and Iraq, and even up to "whether the whore of the Governor spits or swallows" (bdum!) but I was disappointed that when they freestyled their current events into it they didn't really say anything that the audience couldn't respond to with "well I'm voting for Obama so there!"
Anyway.
Rove has had time to plant a lot of his people in Justice. The big story with Goodling and the others is that they were hiring ideologues for the civil service positions, not just the political-appointee positions. Simultaneously they were driving out the old professionals. My guess is that the impending power transfer enlivens these people, rather than slows them down.
This is (has been) partly or mostly a state prosecution (investigation), but there are plenty of NY people after Spitzer too -- some of them Democrats.
Everything with Spitzer gets oddly personalized. the things he's been doing with Wall Street seem about right, but he's gotten little support. Possibly because a lot of Democrats, big and small, have Wall Street connections (and money). And NY politics seems unbelievably nasty.
It's hard to believe that the Rovians move easily in the various departments at a time when it seems clear that the Dems are about to return to the Executive.
Really? As long as they keep their paper-shredding and disk-wiping up-to-date, I'd be surprised if they weren't baking mud pies all the way through the Inauguration.
Speaking of Dems with Wall Street connex, how are Corzine and Spitzer? Corzine had seemed pretty good there for a while.
Lindsay seems to be taking a shot at the journalistic big time.
She has been for a while. And she's damn good.
NY politics seems unbelievably nasty.
Worse than other states? I'm not sure about *that*. There is one wierd thing about NY state politics right now, and that's the Republicans are looking at the end of their control of the (wackily gerrymandered) state legislature. Joe Bruno, the majority leader, has been fighting like hell for every last seat, and every last perojative while the gettin's good. Spitser, bless his heart, waded in and pissed everyone off. Still, we're one seat away from flipping the legislature, it'll probably happen in 2008, and then the districts will be redrawn and Bruno will *pouf* into irrelevance. If the Feds don't get him first.
Seriously, though, New Jersey local politics is a lot worse.
You say pejorative, I say prerogative.
The nasty thing about New York is that intra-party politics is as vicious as inter-party politics elsewhere. That's how Giuliani and Bloomfield got elected.
And, nastiness-wise: RUDI!
You say pejorative, I say prerogative.
In fact, I wrote "perojative," which is neither here nor there.
Don't let the problems with the html in that comment prevent you from clicking through.
Zomg. McGreevey knows how to play this game. Why wasn't Spitzer taking notes?
the weekly romps, from 1999 to 2001, that typically began with dinner at T.G.I. Friday's and ended with a threesome at McGreevey's condo in Woodbridge.
Nice detail, the T.G.I. Friday's. Will New Jersey ever overcome its reputation for vulgarity?
24: you can get that three-course-for-$11.99 thing. It only makes sense.
McGreevey. Spitzer. Bear Stearns. All Dickensian names.
Gah, I feel like channeling McManus. This week looks like it'll be Charlie Foxtrot all the time.
Mrs. Matos McGreevey has very little to complain about if her husband was treating her to Friday Night Specials with that cutie.
26: Ixnay Kabbala Yolanda Wimple Igloo Moobies
Felch is a good one. Can't see why it is only 5th.
Pennyfarthing Mushroomwater
That Greg Palast article is incredibly wrongheaded. I am certain the Spitzer was a target of a politically-motivated witch-hunt, but otherwise Palast has no idea what he's talking about. At this point, the Fed has to take dramatic steps or we are all fucked. We are in the middle of the biggest economic crisis of our lifetimes (for anyone less than 67 years old).
it seems completely clear to me that this was a politically motivated investigation.
This is not at all completely clear to me, so...what am I missing? Except at the very highest end of the chain of command, I'm not seeing Rovian Bush appointees, and it only got to the highest end of the chain of command because of the work of people who were, so far as I can make out, not only not Bushbots but even and actually faithful NY Democrats. What am I missing/overlooking?
Nice detail, the T.G.I. Friday's.
Yeah, as I said at my place, I guess Red Lobster's just too crowded or something. I love the picture they chose to pair with the article.
Department of Understatement
"A former aide to James E. McGreevey said today that he had three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife before he took office ,challenging Dina Matos McGreevey's assertion that she was naive about her husband's sexual exploits."
Palast is a Chicago School economist, Walt. So "Palast has no idea what he's talking about." doesn't hold. And what you're saying doesn't contradict him, as far as I know.
As I've said, I expect the Democrats to cave in, the Republicans to regroup, and the malefactors to profit. In the end, the people who caused the disaster will be better off, and everyone else worse off.
Mary C, I don't know at what level the Feds are involved, but I'm confident that Spitzer's Wall Street enemies, many of them Democrats, are playing this.
Walt, I just looked at Palast again and don't know what your point is. What he's saying is that people will lose their homes but the government will rescue finance. Isn't that the truth?
36: I wouldn't have expected you to be so respectful of teh Chicago School, Emerson.
Also, I agree with Walt. Yes, the malefactors will profit, because they've rigged the system so we don't really have an option but to help them. Spitzer is a sideshow, and not really relevant to what's going on in the market right now.
Whether the Bear Sterns bailout is exactly part of this is hard to say, but I do believe the Fed is flailing about as part of a genuine effort to stop things from getting even more horrible, markets-wise. I also believe it'll probably be futile.
Oh. Maybe I agree with everybody.
Yay!
I love having you guys on my side. it's like not having a side at all.
Democrats are realists, pragmatists, and technocrats, which is why they always lose and always do the wrong thing.
I know! Let's elect a Democrat to clean up this mess, become unpopular, and then hand the government back to the Republicans so they can have more fun! Just like last time. Another Rockefeller Repulican Democrat.
John were you even alive during the New Deal? I'm beginning to doubt.
Let's elect a Democrat to clean up this mess, become unpopular, and then hand the government back to the Republicans so they can have more fun! Just like last time
There are other Democratic responses to economic crisis to emulate, is my point.
Has either Clinton or Obama addressed this? Is there any sign that any Democrat is on top of the situation? How much money did Obama and Clinton get from the perps?
We seem to be in "We need to do something RIGHT NOW to ward of disaster, regardless of what we should have done a year or two ago". Again. That seems to be the Democrats' philosophy.
But people have been talking specifically about this for three to five years.
Obama acknowledges recession and insolvency of financial system, proposes irrelevant tax breaks
33: Huh? Maybe you know something I don't, but AFAIK, it's a federal investigation, out of the office led by Bush appointee US Attorney Michael Garcia. What am I missing?