BOSTON – The attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer, lashed out at President Bush yesterday, accusing him of “greed” and of “going to war against the middle class.”

Echoing Michael Moore’s anti-Bush film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Mr. Spitzer took aim at the president’s self-parodying comment to wealthy philanthropists, “They call you the elites, I call you my base.”

“That may have been a joke for him at the time, but they govern as though that was the ruling ideology of the Republican Party. It’s an ideology of favoritism, it’s an ideology of greed,” said Mr. Spitzer, who said he attended the 2000 Alfred E. Smith charity dinner in New York at which Mr. Bush made the remarks.

He said the Bush administration is creating a “barbell” society of rich and poor, while eliminating the middle class.

Mr. Spitzer, who is mulling a run for governor, sternly warned Republicans to watch their words during their national convention in New York in late August.

“Do not dare use 9/11 for political purposes,” he said.

“Neither party should use this politically. So we say to Republicans: ‘Do not go there.’ It would not be fair or right and we will not let you do it,” Mr. Spitzer told a breakfast meeting he hosted for the New York delegation. “We have seen in the 9/11 commission report how many errors we made and how many opportunities were missed.”

The breakfast was attended by Senator Schumer; Senator Kerry’s sister, Peggy Kerry; the speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver; the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, as well as New York delegates and state party officials.

New Yorkers are not just “the ATM state for the Democratic Party,” but the “heart and soul” and the “conscience” of the Democrats, Mr. Spitzer said. He paid tribute to numerous prominent New York Democrats, and added a Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt, to their ranks.

“There is no way conceivable that Teddy Roosevelt would be a Republican these days,” he said. “Teddy would be a Democrat.”

Mr. Spitzer was followed on the podium by a liberal comedian and radio host, Al Franken. “We’re not hearing a lot of Bush bashing in the hall, so why not here?” asked Mr. Franken.

“If Vice President Cheney were here today, he would tell you all to f– yourselves, and he would feel better about it,” he said, to roars of laughter, alluding to the instructions Mr. Cheney recently gave to Senator Leahy of Vermont.

“When then-Governor Bush was running in 2000, he was against nation building. What I didn’t realize is he meant only our nation,” he said.

Mr. Franken said he recently hosted President Clinton on his radio show. “You forget that a president can actually talk and think at the same time,” he said.

The extent to which Democrats should take personal aim at the president was a point of contention throughout the week. In his speech on the convention floor yesterday, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut said Democrats “should not resort to personally demonizing” Republicans to win the election. “Such tactics are wrong, regardless of who practices them, because they divide and diminish America at a time when we must stand united and strong,” he said.