Will he continue on Spitzer's path?...
Somehow, I think we'll hear about Spitzer again, he's going to come back. Although I usually disagree with Dershowitz and pretty much hate the guy, I agree with him when he said that Spitzer should have stayed on and fought it. Clinton did not resign, so why did Spitzer?

This doesn't help Clinton. Both Spitzer and Paterson are commited Clinton superdelegates. By resigning, Spitzer has thrown his vote away.

..the popcorn warmed up in anticipation if what Spitzer and Dershowitz would dig up on NY state Republicans as a means of fighting back an impeachment bid....

I agree, S-P...Spitzer looked to be on the rise, politically, and he certainly was effective as Attorney. His #2 is going to have a hard time dealing with the opposition now that he's going, going, gone.... Republican politicians flush with success are almost the most insufferable people I've ever seen--the make the arrogant Spitzer (already a thing of the past) seem meek and retiring in comparison...

-5.75,-4.05
"We're all fucked. It helps to remember that." --George Carlin

nobody knows what to say, S-P. And boy have they been saying it at length!

Certainly there are lots of ways to look at it. The best I have is "at least there is none of that foot dragging pretense that he did nothing wrong...he screwed up [literally :(] and is facing up to the damage promptly and recognizing the high standards to which he particularly could expect to be held."

The worst is that the whole affair [damn! what is with English vocabulary today?] reinforces, via this outcome, that mere personal sexual behavior, even consenting behavior, is to Americans a worse lapse than conspiring via multiple elaborate lies to take a nation into a disastrous war and destroying any career or reputation that gets in ones way.

A prominent New York lawyer who has written for Harper's Magazine about the politically-motivated dismissals of US Attorneys in the Bush Justice Department says he believes there's a strong case that the fall of New York governor Eliot Spitzer was politically motivated.

[snip]

"Note that this prosecution was managed with staffers from the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice," Horton writes on his blog, "No Comment." "This section is now at the center of a major scandal concerning politically directed prosecutions. During the Bush Administration, his Justice Department has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every one involving a Republican."

In his post at Harper's, Horton notes:

(1) The prosecutors handling the case came from the Public Integrity Section.

(2) The prosecution is opened under the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. You read that correctly. The statute itself is highly disreputable, and most of the high-profile cases brought under it were politically motivated and grossly abusive. Here are a few:

* Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was the first man prosecuted under the act — for having an affair with Lucille Cameron, whom he later married. The prosecution was manifestly an effort "to get" Johnson, who at the time was the most famous African-American. (All of this is developed well in Ken Burns's film "Unforgiveable Blackness"

*University of Chicago sociologist William I. Thomas was prosecuted for having an affair with an officer's wife in France. Thomas was targeted because of his Bohemian social and his radical political views.

* In 1944 Charles Chaplin was prosecuted for having an affair with actress Joan Barry. The prosecution again provided cover for a politically motivated effort to drive Chaplin out of the country.

* Canadian author Elizabeth Smart was arrested and charged in 1940 while crossing the border with the British poet George Barker.

(3) The resources dedicated to the case in terms of prosecutors and investigators are extraordinary.

(4) How the investigation got started. The Justice Department has yet to give a full account of why they were looking into Spitzer's payments, and indeed the suggestion in the ABC account is that it didn't have anything to do with a prostitution ring. The suggestion that this was driven by an IRS inquiry and involved a bank might heighten, rather than allay, concerns of a politically motivated prosecution.

"The answer of the Justice Department to all this is likely to be: Trust us," Horton concludes. "This has nothing to do with Spitzer's guilt or innocence. But it has everything to do with the fading integrity of the Public Integrity Section."

Raw Story

Shift in Tone Likely With New Governor

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: March 12, 2008

As Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson prepared to succeed Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Tuesday, there was one thing every politician in New York seemed to agree on: Mr. Paterson is no steamroller.

Mr. Spitzer once bestowed that nickname on himself, and went on to earn it with a confrontational, sometimes bellicose political manner that alienated not only Republicans in Albany but also many of his fellow Democrats. Mr. Paterson’s temperament and style, his friends and fellow officials say, is as mild and subtle as Mr. Spitzer’s is not.

“David is a guy who likes to be liked,” said George Arzt, a New York political consultant who once worked for Mr. Spitzer. “He does not live on the edge. He does not thrive on confrontation. He is the opposite of the steamroller.”

But a major shift in tone — and, perhaps, a lengthy honeymoon with Legislative leaders — is perhaps the only sure outcome of Mr. Paterson’s formal ascension to the governor’s office on Monday, a event likely to be as seismic as any in New York political history.

Elected sixteen months ago to the largely ceremonial post of lieutenant governor, Mr. Paterson, unlike Mr. Spitzer, has no sure mandate of his own. His years as the minority leader of the State Senate left him with some legislative history, but in Albany, where the governor, the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader hold nearly untrammeled power, that post gave him relatively few opportunities to significantly shape legislation.

“He really didn’t have a chance to develop an agenda and forcefully act on it, because if the majority leader or the Speaker don’t want it, it doesn’t happen,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs.

Speaking on condition of anonymity out of respect for Mr. Spitzer’s announcement on Wednesday, a top aide to Mr. Paterson noted that the lieutenant governor was well-known and well-liked among members of the legislature, and that he would live up to his reputation for humility. But that did not mean, the aide said, that he would be a pushover.

“On the one hand, don’t expect any major changes, the aide said. “On the other, he is not Eliot Spitzer.” Mr. Paterson, the aide said, would work to build consensus in Albany, after a year when wrangling between the governor and his partners in government sometimes ground business down to a halt.

“He is going to be a consensus builder,” said the aide. “But it is also going to be someone who is going to build a consensus with principles.”

Left unclear is the fate of Mr. Spitzer’s legislative initiatives, including proposals to reduce property taxes, revamp state campaign finance laws and require a commission to redraw legislative districts.

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