GOODY TWO SHOES: The Definition Of Chutzpah: Part II
Roughly a week after former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) found out that he would be the only player in his tawdry ho-hiring scandal to escape prosecution (fifth item), he wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post (“How to Ground The Street”), in which he offered advice on how to keep financial markets in check. But the man who couldn’t keep his own unsavory appetites in check used some curious language (boldfaced by The Stiletto), which seemed to offer a terse recap of his own transgressions:
President-elect Barack Obama will soon face the extraordinary task of saving capitalism from its own excesses, much as Franklin D. Roosevelt had to do 76 years ago. …
During my tenure as New York state attorney general, my colleagues and I sought to require investment banking analysts to provide their clients with unbiased recommendations, devoid of undisclosed and structural conflicts. But powerful voices with heavily vested interests accused us of meddling in the market. …
No major market problem has been resolved through self-regulation, because individual competitive behavior doesn't concern itself with the larger market. Individual actors care only about performing better than the next guy, doing whatever is permitted -- or will go undetected. …
The so-called moral hazard will serve to devalue risk in the market, and this too will have a debilitating long-term effect on capital flows.
The Wall Street Journal was simultaneously bemused and indignant over Spitzer’s gall:
[F]ederal prosecutors declined to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer for soliciting prostitutes while Governor and before that while the chief law enforcement officer (Attorney General) of New York … exercise[ing] more prosecutorial restraint than Mr. Spitzer ever showed to his targets as he sought to build his political career.
Spared a criminal charge, Mr. Spitzer is now re-emerging to offer advice on how to reregulate Wall Street and to assert that he was right all along about everything (save the call girls). …
[H]e was essentially unchecked by others in government or the media. His power made the man think he could get away with anything. It takes remarkable nerve now for Eliot Spitzer to invoke the financial meltdown as personal vindication.
Editorial Note: The bionote at the end of Spitzer’s op-ed reads: “Eliot L. Spitzer was governor of New York from 2007-08 and state attorney general from 1999-2006.” Seems to The Stiletto that some significant biographical information is missing: “Eliot L. Spitzer was the attorney general of New York from 1999-2006, after which he was elected the state’s governor but was forced to resign a year later after revelations that he spent $80,000 on hookers.” Much better, dontcha think?
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