This is rich. According to a dispatch by David Wighton in the Financial Times, Attorney General Spitzer is in a swivet because he thinks that Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former head of American International Group, is, as the FT puts it, “orchestrating a campaign of media attacks against him.” It seems that the Lord High Executioner, as the Wall Street Journal calls the AG, has interrupted his denunciation of various untried (even un-indicted) tycoons to complain about an article critical of him that was issued in the Wall Street Journal Friday by John Whitehead of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

The FT quotes a person close to the attorney general as suggesting that Mr. Greenberg had been “calling round” to ask friends to give him public support. Let us say that Mr. Greenberg hasn’t called us. But it makes you kind of wonder who is that person “close to the attorney general” who is doing all the talking? It certainly couldn’t have been Mr. Spitzer, because he was recently honored by the FT as its “Man of the Year.” But Mr. Spitzer certainly knows a thing or two about orchestrating a campaign of media attacks. If Mr. Spitzer decides actually to bring a charge against AIG or Mr. Greenberg, the voire dire – what with Mr. Spitzer’s recent television performance and other public statements – may have to be held on Mars.