Death of a Legacy...

Jim Cramer, Eliot Spitzer and Slate.com's Cliff Sloan [Classmates at Harvard Law School]
From one of my oldest friends....this picture, and the line, "Simpler Times."

The e-mail that was there to greet me when I opened my inbox this afternoon didn't exactly get me thinking of the Spitzer scandal. The scandal had been dominating my free thoughts for the last few days.

As news of Eliot Spitzer's penchant for prostitutes broke, my response was absolute disbelief. The man, whose political career was based on ethics and morals, was a genuine do-gooder. Genuinely, he wanted to make a difference. I will say that now, as pundits and rivals say otherwise. They say he was arrogant. They say he was reckless. They say he destroyed reputations. Yes, hard to deny, they say he is a hypocrite. Now that they have opportunity, they've been saying a lot of things.

Most significantly as they say his crusade was for political gain, I say his moves against the Wall Street establishment were taken at great risk with no guarantee of anything. This is best exemplified when, in 2002, he made a case to go after the conflict of interest in investment banking research, his press conference regarding Merrill Lynch was unable to find no public officials willing to show their faces. Wall Street held power...most directly in campaign contributions...more indirectly in other ways. Yet, he pressed on.

His two-term role as attorney-general of New York brought much success to cleaning up white-collar crime on Wall Street, dealing with issues that had been ignored for years [I debated going into details, but I realize the typical blog reader doesn't have the patience...do the reading...it's been documented]. Briefly, he took on issues, such at excessive executive compensation, market timing and conflicts of interest in investment banking research, which the New York Attorney General's Office had never touched. These responsibilities were left [or, for that matter, not left] to federal jurisdiction. A single man working in an unproven office hardly guaranteed political gain. As there was no precedent for his actions, the chances of falling were quite likely.

After everything is said and done, he won't be remembered for successes as Attorney General, nor for his call to reform in the Governor's office, which may or may not have been a success. The sad thing is we will never know. Not to justify his actions for they are unjustifiable. I wonder, though, if it was anybody else.............

Canada needs an Eliot Spitzer.