Elliot Spitzer: If they can't use the honeytrap on him this time, will they try to off him altogether?
Before Eliot Spitzer's infamous resignation as governor of New York in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for controlling the banks.
It may not be a coincidence that the revelation of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers." The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the states. It was an issue of the federal government versus the states, with the Feds representing the banks and the states representing consumers.
Five years later, Spitzer has set out to take some of that local regulatory power back, in his run for New York City comptroller. Mounting the attack against him, however, are not just Wall Street banks but women's groups opposed to this apparent endorsement of the exploitation of women. On August 17
th,
the New York Post endorsed Spitzer's opponent and ran a scathing cover story attempting to embarrass Spitzer based on the single issue of his personal life.
Lynn Parramore, who considers herself a feminist,
countered in an August 8
th Huffington Post article that it is likely to be in the best interests of the very women who are opposing him to forgive and move on. His stand for women's reproductive rights and other feminist issues is actually quite strong, and his role as Wall Street watchdog protected women from predatory financial practices. As New York Attorney General, he was known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street." He is one of the few people with not only the insight and experience to expose Wall Street corruption but the courage to go after the perpetrators.
Comment: With the news that the only evidence of a 'chemical weapons attack' having taken place in Damascus is a series of videos uploaded to Youtube by agitators in Syria the day BEFORE the attack is supposed to have taken place, it's starting to look like no such event took place at all. We're still gathering evidence, but it seems more likely at this this stage that, as we learned after the Houla Massacre, these victims we see onscreen were in fact attacked by 'the rebels' - place and date unknown - then videos of the horrific deeds were uploaded online, and the Syrian govt blamed in the full glare of international media attention.