Protect the Process

The morning line on Governor Spitzer is that he'll be out of office by the end of today, if he's not out by the time this newspaper reaches the breakfast table. And that may well be the rational outcome of the current crisis. He reportedly spent yesterday huddled with lawyers in his apartment in Manhattan, trying to plot a way to avoid a felony conviction. But what we found ourselves contemplating last night was how bizarre has been the rush to judgment in this case.

Only a year and a half ago, the three biggest newspapers in the city — the News, the Post, and the Times — were assuring New Yorkers that Mr. Spitzer was going be the savior of the state. "For too long, corrupt politicians, union bosses, trade groups and well-situated favor-seekers have controlled government in New York — and their grip has only tightened during the tenure of lame-duck Gov. Pataki," quoth the New York Post. "So it's time to take back New York."

Yet yesterday, the Post turned around and demanded Mr. Spitzer's resignation "Now." It did so on the basis of a report by a competing newspaper's Web site. Talk about a failure to stand by your man. Not that the Post was alone in this. The Daily News did pretty much the same thing, saying to the man it endorsed so warmly, "Just get out." The Times didn't call for him to leave, but it issued a scathing editorial about the Democrat that it, too, endorsed so fervently little more than a year ago.

We don't carry any brief for Mr. Spitzer. But we don't mind saying that however much Mr. Spitzer may have injured the polity in this state, it may not be more harmful than the drumming out of office, all in the space of a few hours, of a leader elected by 69% of the voters. This is not a sentiment that has lately crept up on the editors who conduct these columns. We defended President Clinton against both Paula Corbin Jones and the special prosecutor, arguing that the only the House of Representatives had authority to impeach him.

The Spitzer case is different. The crimes he is suspected of having committed are being looked at by federal prosecutors. They aren't bound by the impeachment procedures in a state that is subsidiary to the national government. If, in the privacy of that Fifth Avenue apartment, they are able to convince the governor and his lawyers that they could prevail against him in court, it might start to look rational for the governor to step down. But all governors coming after him will be weaker than they might have been had due process been protected for a governor who did not always protect it for those against whom he fought.