What Spitzer Teaches Us

In view of the Spitzer drama, let me add to the lessons that others have shared a few of my own.

The Moral Compass Lesson:

"I have acted in a way that...violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong." When you are handling lots of power, or if you simply have an ambition to handle what you think is a lot of power, you need more than just a vague, ill-defined "sense of right and wrong." You need specifically delineated moral principles. And they cannot be of your own making, because those are too easily recrafted for moral convenience. They must come from outside of you and above you. They must precede you, and must be sure that they will outlive you. They must be such that you live in reverence for them down to marrow of your bones.


The Congeniality Lesson:

It pay to be nice in politics. "Steamrollers" can accomplish only so much in a democratic government with multiple centers of power. Bill Clinton survived his Monica Lewinsky scandal partly because he had charm, he was up in the polls, and he had good standing within his party. Eliot Spitzer, by contrast, we thought on both sides of the aisle to be arrogant and obnoxious, had made himself enemies even within his own party and had slid swiftly from a 70% electoral victory to a 30% approval level. No one came running to his defense.


The Improbability Lesson:

Anything can happen in politics. George Bush was very popular after the first Gulf War to the point that Mario Cuomo, the Democratic favorite, declined to run against him. He overcalculated the predictability of politics. The events of 9/11 changed George W. Bush and his presidency in ways no one could have foreseen. In the spring of 2007, Barack Obama seemed to be running for the office of vice-president...then whoosh! Who would have thought that Gov. Steamroller would suddenly stop dead in his tracks instead of going on to run for President?


The Character Lesson:

The is not the same as The Moral Lesson. It pertains to what ancients called "the soul" but which we would call character. It is striking how everyone simply stood in awe of this man, 70% of us approving him to lead us as Governor. (I say everyone, but of course there were critical voices.) Now that he has crashed so spectacularly, everyone is coming forth with wise observations on his tragic character, on his type of soul that is so ill-suited to healthy political leadership. His prosecution of Wall Street barons is now widely observed to have been excessive, unmerciful, self-serving. (Read Amity Shlaes, "Spitzer's Apologies," New York Sun, March 12, 2008.) Perhaps this is training in the art of spotting these characters before we elect them. We will see if the critics of Gov. Spitzer who have recently emerged will apply this lesson to the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. (The Republican decision has been made, but we can still reflect

The Rule of Law Lesson:

It is heart warming to see, at least in the essays I have read, the call judicious restraint in dealing with this man at the bar of justice. I have been seeing respect for the rule of law that comes out of the British legal political tradition and a call to resist the temptation to return evil for evil, a concern for conscientious justice that comes out of the Christian tradition. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an editorial entitled "The Spitzer Rules" offered these wise words:

These columns have noted that there would be a certain rough justice in Mr. Spitzer, the Governor, being treated in the way that Attorney General Spitzer had treated his targets over the years. Nevertheless, in our system of justice, prosecutors enjoy broad discretion, and that discretion must be wielded wisely. ... It is tempting to argue that Mr. Spitzer deserves the Spitzer treatment more than many of those he made targets while a prosecutor. That may well be true in the sense that many of his victims were innocent. But the proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion dictates that the power of the state not be wielded merely to settle a grudge. Mr. Spitzer never learned that while in office, but playing by his unrestrained rules is not the same as seeing justice done.

Amity Shlaes ended on the same note in her article. "The best revenge for those on the receiving end of Mr. Spitzer's attacks is to avoid descending to his level. Even Mr. Spitzer's most-damaged targets will find odd comfort in watching him get a deliberate and fair hearing, and measured jurisprudence if it comes to that. May the law accord to him what he denied to others."

It is good see a public discussion about the nature of justice, judiciousness, and equity. The Lord brings good out of evil, and shows his mercy where we least expect to find it.

Addendum:

John Fund in "Eliot the Enforcer" points to Spitzer's "arbitrary use of power" and points to the "warning signs" we should have seen -- signs that liberals chose not to see because he taps into themes that tickled their ears. "Mr. Spitzer cloaked his naked devaluation of the rule of law with gauzy rhetoric that was perfectly pitched to make many liberals ignore his strong-arm tactics." In his Lyceum address, Abraham Lincoln warned us against men of ambition, Napoleons, who would not be content to build on another's foundation. For his part, Fund also alerts us to be cautious against men (or women, of course) of unconstitutional ambition.

An enduring lesson of the Spitzer meltdown should be that crusaders of all types who operate outside the rule books themselves merit a gimlet eye of scrutiny. An enduringly popular symbol in our culture is the man on the white horse who comes to clean up the town and purge it of its errant ways. But in the harsh reality of politics, for every selfless Lone Ranger who arrives on his trusty steed and does good, there are many more budding Napoleons who harshly impose their will -- and fall prey to vices they pledged to root out.

Kimberley Strassel takes the press corps to task in "Spitzer's Media Enablers." Disgraceful. But they never seem to learn.

Eliot Spitzer and His Kind of Democrat

Eliot Spitzer illustrates the special relationship that Democrats have with power.

It is no secret that politics attracts people who seek power. As bank robber Willie Sutton once said, "I rob banks because that's where the money is." Politics is where the power is. But the most obsessively power hungry politicians tend, in my observation, to be Democrats.

Here, in God's providence, we have Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer sharing the stage of history at the same time. Both have been climbing their way to the highest office, destroying whomever it was necessary to destroy along the way, and both are devoted to big government liberalism. It should not surprise anyone that the party that stands for the maximization of government power (albeit within the bounds of constitutional democracy--am I being generous?) is also the party that attracts the most power hungry of political people.
Eliot Spitzer drank deeply of that power and he was intensely aware of his powerful ability to knock people out of his way or cast them under his feet...even people who were very powerful in their own right such as wealthy Wall Street executives and major corporations. His reckless indiscretions and violations of the very laws he aggressively prosecuted others for breaking was an exultation in what he thought (perhaps just felt) was his invincibility.

Bear in mind that this man wanted to be President of the United States. Because of the unhealthy relationship that Democrats have with political power, we need to be especially careful when we consider giving one of them federal executive authority.
In light of the fireworks to which the Democratic Governor of New York has treated us, Hillary Clinton's ferocious bid for the presidency comes naturally to mind. But Barack Obama is no less committed to government control of the economy and of everything that moves. Of course, I have no doubt that he is faithful to his wife. But I am equally certain that he has a reckless disregard for our constitutional understanding of liberty.

POL 101 for Gov. Spitzer. Not a Good Grade.

Eliot Spitzer came to Albany in January as the you're-not-gonna-know-what-hit-you reforming governor. This hot shot prosecutor was expected to be a political steamroller, and of course a not-too-distant-future presidential candidate.

But I find that in politics nothing can be taken for granted (except taxes, I suppose).

But the Princeton and Harvard alum has found himself back in school rather than "teaching a few lessons" as we thought he would be. He recently shared this newly acquired insight: “Leadership is not solely about doing what one thinks is right.” You would think that someone would understand politics before he put himself forward as a political leader. (Consider Plato's comment on this in his "city as a ship" image in the Republic, 488a-489a.)

Let's assume that the governor is speaking honestly and that his driving passion is to serve what he believes is the public good. But politics is more than just good intentions. It requires knowledge, judgment and an ability to move people so that they want to follow you. Essentially it requires statesmanship.

Statesmanship is the just, prudent and persuasive exercise of authority.

• In order for your government to be just, you have to be morally serious, concerned not for yourself but for the public good. You are a principled political leader, not an ambitious pol.


• In order to be prudent, you have to recognize the natural limits to what can be accomplished through politics generally as well as in one's particular political circumstances. In 1787, you advocate the three-fifths compromise with the hope of defeating slavery down the road, rather than display your political purity and pass up the opportunity for a union of the American states. You must also have experience in order to judge wisely how to maximize justice in any given situation.


• If you share power with others, you need the ability to persuade them in order to bring them into concert with your just and prudent plans. This persuasive ability--mastery in the art of rhetoric--is also necessary if you wish not only to change things for the people, but also change the people themselves, to make them more inclined to justice and more open to persuasion by just arguments.
  

This week, in the course of just one day, Gov. Spitzer has had to withdraw his proposal to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens, an idea opposed by 70% of New York state voters, as well as his plan to charge sales tax on purchases make by New Yorkers over the Internet, an obviously unpopular move especially at the start of the Christmas shopping season. These sudden reversals in the face of opposition are not only humiliating, but politically debilitating. Hunter College political science professor Ken Sherrill is quoted as saying, “Spitzer has to understand that other elected officials have a responsibility to represent their constituencies.” When you share power with others, even with people of your own party, who are rightly jealous of their power and responsive to their constituencies, prudence dictates persuasion rather than mere pronouncements.

Sherrill draws our attention to the pitfalls of electing a prosecutor to a political office: “It’s one thing to not get along with people as an attorney general or as an assistant district attorney. But there’s a need for it in the legislative process.”

Thoughts rise to the Giuliani candidacy. We are tempted to support him for his toughness, whether in dealing with al-Qaeda or with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. But will the governing style the worked in New York City translate successfully to Washington DC?

FYI - a Wall Street Journal editorial today offers a very informative summary and reflection on the Spitzer record and style thus far. Here is a sample:

Given Mr. Spitzer's fall in the polls, it's tempting to say New Yorkers have learned something new about the man who said on his inauguration day that, "we must change the ethics of Albany and end the politics of cynicism and division in our state." But the bullying, the arrogance and the focus on destroying anyone who stood his way were on full display when he was Attorney General. Most of the media chose to overlook these qualities, instead extolling his "crusading" style....The only real difference between Mr. Spitzer now and then is that as Governor he is obliged to govern, as opposed to merely bringing charges amid a PR offensive and then settling before having to prove anything in court. His heavy-handed approach to the drivers license plan shows the limits of such behavior in a job where he actually has to persuade people.