Spitzer Without Tears

With Eliot Spitzer's governorship hanging by a thread because of what appears to be a reckless, even ruinous run-in with a prostitution ring that was the subject of a federal investigation, plenty of New Yorkers are celebrating the downfall of a politician who, as a self-righteous prosecutor, was prone to take even mild missteps and use them to extract maximum punishment of successful individuals such as Richard Grasso and Maurice Greenberg. There were cheers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and it's not hard to comprehend why. To see a prosecutor who, as attorney general, brought Wall Street to heel by dusting off the obscure 1921 Martin Act and putting it to new use himself face possible prosecution under the rarely enforced 1910 Mann Act is a turnabout worthy of Greek tragedy.

We, however, find ourselves shorn of schadenfreude. It is true that when Mr. Spitzer was attorney general, we were among his harshest critics. And it is true that these columns, alone among the dailies in this city, endorsed Mr. Spitzer's Republican opponent, John Faso, for governor. We saw Mr. Faso as the man of principle in the election. But when the voters had spoken, and by such an astonishing margin as was gained by Mr. Spitzer, we embraced, albeit with reservations, the hope of so many New Yorkers that Mr. Spitzer had the personality to start things changing from day one. Our hostility to his program was never personal. When, on January 31, he joined our editorial board for dinner, what he said was off the record. But what we said was that our criticism didn't mean that we were rooting for his failure. We wanted to see him succeed as governor.

It's difficult — not impossible, but difficult — to see now how that can happen. In part we sense an element in which the public is just fed up with it all. Fed up with married, Ivy League-educated Democratic politicians with law degrees like President Clinton and Governor Spitzer and Governor McGreevey, who seem to equate power with license in a way that not only causes excruciating hurt to their own families but erodes the standing of our government itself. It is true that plenty of public servants had extramarital affairs, from Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson to President Kennedy. But — and we recognize the irony — the more liberal our society has become the greater the value that is attached to probity.

And criminal charges may yet be handed up, adding the governor's name to the expanding list of Albany's criminal class, sketched in the chart on page 1. The vagueness of the governor's acknowledgement yesterday suggests he is wary of that prospect. So far, the allegations by federal prosecutors involve merely a "client nine" who had, on the eve of Valentine's Day, an encounter with a prostitute named Kristen. It allegedly took place at Washington, where Mr. Spitzer was testifying before Congress about bond insurance. The narrative the federal prosecutors filed in respect of client nine suggest not only a sleazy but a premeditated arrangement, involving the transporting a prostitute across several state lines and a plan to leave a hotel door unlocked for her. What a sad denouement for the so-called "sheriff of Wall Street," who had promised to clean up Albany.

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As all this is sorted out Mr. Spitzer's enemies will want to pause as they rush him out the door. What comes afterward, at least in the short term, may be worse than the governor who James Cramer has described as "the most Republican Democrat I know," a governor who has held the line against both Senate Majority Leader Bruno's efforts to lavish spending on the state's healthcare workers and hospitals and against Assembly Speaker Silver's plans to levy a new income tax increase on New York tax filers earning more than $1 million a year. We have had our policy differences with Mr. Spitzer, but there have been elements of centrism in his policy agenda. Lieutenant Governor Paterson, in line to be governor if Mr. Spitzer resigns, will lack the mandate of a popular election, and Mr. Silver will have the upper hand in Albany. There is no evidence that Mr. Paterson has any of Mr. Spitzer's even mild inclination toward centrism. A Governor Paterson can be expected to set taxes and spending soaring. If there is a bright spot to this sad story, it is that it may hasten the revival of a Republican Party in New York that can offer both an issues-based and ethics-based contrast to the leadership represented by Messrs. Spitzer, Silver, and Paterson.