The audacity of ho

What does Spitzer's exit mean for environmentalism, and how is that funny?

Posted by David Roberts at 9:45 AM on 12 Mar 2008

Read more about: politics | state politics | New York | shenanigans | litigation

So long, and thanks for all the dish.

So how about this Spitzer business, huh? So much to say, so much humor to mine, so little of it related to the environment in any way ... days like these, I envy Wonkette.

Ah well, here's an attempt at something reasonably serious.

Spitzer was an environmental crusader as AG. Stealing Amanda's links and verbiage:

As New York's attorney general, he's sued the Bush administration numerous times over environmental issues, including greenhouse-gas emissions, mercury pollution from power plants, pesticide use in public housing, and efficiency standards for appliances.

Spitzer has taken plenty of polluters to court, too. Among his many victories, he forced six New York power plants to radically cut emissions that cause acid rain and smog, achieving reductions equivalent to removing 2.5 million cars from the road. He was also the first AG to sue operators of coal-fired power plants in other states, arguing that their pollution blows into New York and contaminates the air breathed by his constituents.

(His successor, Andrew Cuomo, is no slouch either.)

In one of his first big speeches in the gubernatorial race, he laid out ambitious green plans for NY. Sadly, all he really got accomplished before the whole whoring thing was, um, greening the governor's mansion. Wo0t! Wonder how many offsets he could have gotten for $4300 an hour?

His successor, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, would be the the U.S.'s fourth black governor and, rather randomly, its first legally blind governor. (Guess he won't be ogling hookers!) (I take that previous highly offensive aside back!)

A modicum of looking around turns up nothing about Paterson's green inclinations, so that's a big wait-and-see. My guess is that anybody in the governor's mansion in New York, unfaithful whoremongering bastard or not, will be pushed in a green direction. After all, 75% of New Yorkers already thought Spitzer should be doing more along those lines.

Perhaps Spitzer can spend some time in the political wilderness and return in a few years as the pure-hearted crusader he always purported to be, kind of like Al Gore, if Al Gore had slept with a bunch of high-priced hookers.

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12 Comments | Post a Comment

Depressing

What a shame. Spitzer took on Wall Street at a time when Bush's SEC was splayed out like a puppy, showing its belly; and most heroically, intervened in favor of NYC's community gardens at a time when that little thug Giuliani was trying to sell them off. I hate to see him go out like this.

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 10:25 AM on 12 Mar 2008

Remember Jeff Gannon?

Y'know, the "White House Reporter" and part-time male prostitute who wasn't really a reporter and who also had special access to the Bush White House for reasons that nobody there could explain.

So a male prostitute has repeated access to the Bush White House at all hours of the day in excess of any other news service employee and it results in no real investigation. A Democratic politician employs a very high class call girl and the FBI just "happens" to be tapping his phone lines. The news is released to the world just as oil prices go through the roof, the dollar drops and the market is tanking.

If anybody thinks this is a coincidence they need to grow up. That said Eliot Spitzer was an idiot for engaging in this kind of behavior and making the calls and money transfers himself. This is practically a flat proof that political elites have no more common sense than your average joe sixpack.

The environmental activists that I know, Earth First types, assume that they are under surveillance and behave accordingly. If you want to publicly oppose the powers that be you have to keep your house clean abhor shady habits and no roaches behind the couch.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 10:39 AM on 12 Mar 2008

David Paterson

The Wikipedia article on Paterson is a first for me: I had never seen one that threw up two big warnings at the top at once, one for its current inaccessibility to editing due to vandalism (!), and the other for its being connected to current news and so subject to imminent change. How one is supposed to report a change, though, when the article has been locked up is rather mysterious.

Anyway, I knew nothing about Paterson before now, though to my chagrin it turns out we were at Columbia at the same time -- typical of that chilly place, in which communities and cliques are fairly exclusive. And, even more embarrassing, I surely voted for him, along with Eliot Ness (thanks, Maureen Dowd), in 2006.

But right now, especially in view of Spitzer's fecklessness, even before now, thanks to a couple of big blunders on top of shrewd and powerful enemies, many promising things are being said about Paterson.

E.g., this, in The Advocate, a major voice for the LGBT community, especially the G part (and with the shamelessness and tastelessness and senselessness of a lot of us short-sighted Gs, they do not mind adorning even the most serious and respectable news items with images of shirtless men):

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid52612.asp

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:29 AM on 12 Mar 2008

Sucks that he's such an idiot

Like Tom, I find this depressing. For years I nurtured a political crush on Spitzer because he was such a bulldog in fighting pollutocrats and corrupt corporate titans. Last year I was disappointed to see that he couldn't govern as well as he could litigate. But that's nothing compared to this disappointment. How could he be so outrageously stupid? What an idiot. What a waste.

by Lisa Hymas at 11:32 AM on 12 Mar 2008

Holler Logic

The average Joe Six pack would have had better sense than this. We just watched the Republicans spend 8 years and 40,000,000 to nail Bill Clinton.

Was the guy so dumb he never knew he had people out to get him. He made it to easy for them.

Then again it's something most of us don't have to worry about, I can't afford the high price spread!

Im hearing something about $80,000 dollars worth of physical therapy now, this is what the guy needs to be neutered for.

You got people sleeping under bridges and on grates in New York and this horny bum blows enough on hookers to feed the homeless in New York City for a month.

He ain't gonna get much sympathy here1

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 11:52 AM on 12 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

The replacement is peak oil aware

I've read at energybulletin.net that the replacement is peak oil aware, meaning he sees better with no eyes than most economists with two.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 12:42 PM on 12 Mar 2008

Hmmm, wiretapping ...

isn't that Cheney's favorite past time? I do smell a set up. Too bad, this guy could have done some positive things. He made a silly mistake that may cost us all.

You are welcome in my "kitchen" for a recipe, family moments, a laugh, and some political discussion.

by Expat Chef at 2:11 PM on 12 Mar 2008

Old Yiddish Proverb

When the putz stands, the brains lie in the ground.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

by wesrolley at 2:28 PM on 12 Mar 2008

Well, one could argue

that by spending his disposable cash on non-polluting, green services rather than old-economy manufactured goods, Spitzer was displaying exemplary environmental leadership.

by eriqa at 4:10 PM on 12 Mar 2008

Fighting Inflation

He may well be kinky green but this is an abhorrent practice to a fical conservative.

Considering the inflated prices the Emporer Club charges its clientel and Dudley Do Rights willingness to accept the fee.

I normally don't believe in restraint of trade but I hope these prices don't trickle down to street level.

Then again this may have been a case of retaliatory sex. How often do you get the chance to screw a politician. It's usually the other way around.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 6:39 AM on 13 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Ho? What an ungreen epithet. Like the ungreen n*r

"Spitzer was an environmental crusader as AG."

Uh - uh. Mr. Roberts needs to consider The Long View -- The Long View most especially when thinking goes to "the environment."

An environment is far, far more than what he apparently chooses to know it to be and encompasses a passel more than Mr. Roberts also apparently chooses to write about. An environment starts with WHO a person is. And this man? Spitzer? this daddee? What an environment it was that, from withIN himself, he created for and began (of that we know, of that made public) with kiddos -- HIS kiddos -- when they were as wee as four years and only as old as eight years. What a role model.

FLIP / REVERSE. Consider the DEhuman with her toy boys or girls over at least a decade's worth. Had a mama created -- and kept up the "maintenance" of -- such an environment for either her little boys or her little girls? Just see how skewered she'd've had to become -- and right off stat. I mean IMMEDIATELY. Plus besides her having to, as Erica Jong, stated commit hari kari, she would have had to do it on national reality TV with a bunch of OTHER women -- as well as laughing men -- HOOTING and HOWLING her on with her own suicide.

NO one -- who knows "environment" -- is laughing. We KNOW. Cuz, unlike Mr. Roberts, we have (the wisdom of) The Long View.

Legion True
Iowa
http://bluemaas.public.iastate.edu

by Legion True at 11:00 AM on 13 Mar 2008

Spitzer's "date"

...at least she used mass transit.

by lilybelle at 4:11 PM on 13 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

ADVERTISING POLICY

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