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You don't get it, either deliberately or due to a lack of capacity. I never suggested that Spitzer shouldn't be prosecuted if he's found to have broken the law, or that he should have remained in office as governor. I also never said I agreed with Mr. Engdahl's premise that Spitzer was taken down by the GOP and the White House, but I actually understand the points he's trying to make, whether I agree with them or not. But to see that, you'd actually have to read and comprehend what other people write, when your style is to simply associate fallacious positions to people.

You live in a binary world where every mention of Foley requires a mention of Frank, and any mention of sexual indiscretion by a Republican requires a dissertation on the Clinton Lewinsky scandal that we all lived through. That's political hackery at its best.

And please, stop infringing on my right to freedom of speech by disagreeing with me on a public forum.

Now thats what I like to see Ms SalonontheHill, your well thought out response to the commentary by Mr. Engdahl. So whats your point? Mr. Spitzer the former Governor of New York should get a walk? Its a vast right wing conspiracy by rich Republicans against against a multimillionaire Governor?

By the way when these politicians Republican or Democrat break the law or are involved in sexual situations that are unethical and inappropriate (such as to put them into the realm of sexual harrassment land) as Foley, they should resign or be removed. I notice in your post you neglected to mention President Clinton and his clearly inappropriate and unethical relationship with Ms Lewinski. Why?

As to Mr. Guiliani who I'm not very fond of, one can hardly charachterize his infidelity from his wife as a sexual scandal (as you have) that should have resulted in sanctions on him from whatever source you feel they should have come.

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The point Engdahl was making was that Republicans hypocritically chose not to call for the resignations of fellow GOPers Mark Foley or Rudy Giuliani for their sex scandals. When making a point about such hypocrisy, it would make no sense to refer to scandals that Democrats were embroiled in.

I don't know that I agree with Engdahl's point, but I do know that his piece quoted by BrightMoment above doesn't ever suggest that Democrats aren't equally as capable of being involved in sex scandals, despite your insinuations to the contrary.

Aside from which, when he states "the case is clearly political when compared with more egregious recent cases involving Republicans", the fact that Congressman Frank's moment in the sex scandal spotlight happened 18 years ago hardly qualifies it as recent.

From the wikipedia page on Rep. Frank:
____________________________
In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male escort whom Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year and reported the incident to the House Ethics Committee after learning of Gobie's activities. After an investigation, the House Ethics Committee found no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in the alleged illegal activity.[2] Regarding Gobie's more scandalous claims the report by the Ethics Committee concluded, "In numerous instances where an assertion made by Mr. Gobie (either publicly or during his Committee deposition) was investigated for accuracy, the assertion was contradicted by third-party sworn testimony or other evidence of Mr. Gobie himself."[3]

The New York Times reported on July 20, 1990 that the House Ethics Committee recommended "that Representative Barney Frank receive a formal reprimand from the House for his relationship with a male prostitute."[4] Attempts to expel or censure Frank, led by Republican member Larry Craig, failed.[5][6] Rather, the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him.[7] This condemnation was not reflected in Frank's district, where he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.
_______________________

When somebody espouses the view that the Foley and Craig scandals can't be mentioned without referring to what Barney Frank came forward about 18 years ago, and then goes around accusing others of being partisan and having agendas, I can't help but chuckle at the hypocrisy.

Super fury I stand corrected. But whats your point? The substance of my post was that the writer Mr. Engdahl neglected to mention Congressman Franks. The structure of my argument still remains in tact. Your post is intendended to make you look smart. So kudos to you. However, Bright moment in her/his opening paragraph wrote that he/she believed Mr. Engdahl to be credible. My point is that I don't believe Mr. Engdahl to be credible.

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Get your facts right before posting, Omar. Barney Franks had
an affair with a male prostitute, not a male page (see the link below for more information).

The unsuccessful attempts to expel Frank was led by Republican Larry Craig. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank

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'omar' is lecturing others on having a political agenda?

HAHAHAHAHA.

Partisanship and credibility are not mutually exclusive, and BrightMoment never suggested Engdahl wasn't a partisan.

Bright moment is presenting Mr. Engdahl as a writer whose credentials are impeccible. however, I am of the opinion that Mr. Engdahl's political leanings are quite apparent by my review of the article that Bright Moment has posted.

In Mr. Engdalh's article he cites Republican congressman Foley's sexual scandal, yet he does not reference democratic Congressman Barney Franks ethical issues with male pages employed in the House.

Mr. Engdahl speaks of Rudolph Guiliani's infidelity in his marriage (which is not a crime nor unethical as to his elected position, although it would be morally wrong on a personal level). The Author fails to mention Democratic President Bill Clintons inappropriate sexual relations with Monica Lewinski WHO WAS AN INTERN EMPLOYED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERMENT. Ms. Lewinski was only slightly older than the Presidents own daughter, additionally how appropriate is it for a Boss (President Clinton) to have a sexual relationship with a subordinate (Ms. Lewinski), from a standpoint of Sexual harrassment laws?

I am definitlely not a fan of Mr. Guiliani and I really don't know to much about Congressman Foley, but I can tell you this: This Author with such impeccible credentials (which is described in detail by Bright Moment) clearly has a political agenda.

As for Mr. Engdahl's assertion that Mr. Spitzer has not presently been charged with a crime, I believe the statute of limitations is five years. If Mr. Spitzer did not wish to resign he should have stayed on as Governor. Please do not present him as a victim

It has already come out that Spitzer was personally involved in the plot to smear Bruno.

http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/s ... 21-4f74-985c-22488f98c35c
"Late Friday afternoon, Albany County District Attorney David Soares released the most detailed report yet about his office's investigation into the so-called Troopergate scandal.

The 20-page report says that former Governor Eliot Spitzer gave his communications director Darren Dopp orders to compile and release records about Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Investigators granted Dopp immunity from prosecution in early February.

He told them when he asked Spitzer if the then-governor was sure that he wanted to release the records about Bruno to the Times Union, Dopp reports that Spitzer said, "'[Expletive] him, he's a piece of [expletive], shove it up his [expletive] with a red hot poker.'"

Dopp told the district attorney's office that Spitzer was so mad during the directive that he spit out coffee.

This testimony directly contradicts the answers Spitzer gave to investigators."

In terms of a Bush conspiracy theory; wouldn't it have been more advantageous to wait for Spitzer to rise farther and either derail him then or hold it over him? The only surprising thing is that none of the many people Spitzer screwed didn't have the insight/balls to hire a private investigator and dig this up. Then again, Wall Streeters are pussies compared to Joe Bruno.

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So wait, who "watergated" Nixon?

HAAHHAHA. that's right! Hillary specifically had a press conference to tell us that bill's d*ck was still in his pants, and the affair(s) were made up by the "vast right wing"... hehehe..

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come on, you KNOW there is a vast right wing conspiracy, the Clinton's said so!

isnt it funny, that whenever a Democrat gets busted, it's because of a "republican conspiracy"?

psst, Bush killed Kennedy too!

As for Spitzer, the innocent victim, now that he's no longer governor, his buddies State Attorney General Cuomo and Albany District Attorney Soares and other state government officials that were covering for him on Troopergate will no longer carry his water and it will soon come out that Spitzer was personally involved in the plot to smear Bruno. I guess Bush planned this one as well!?

Robert Morgenthau (NYC / DA, a Democrat and widely presumed model for original character on Law and Order) has an even better record than Spitzer in going after Wall Street criminal. Aside from the fact that he has a record of being squeekly clean and unpartisan in his work, if there are conspiracies to bring down, why have there been none against him? Is it possible there are no conspiracies?

I don't think it's impossible that Spitzer was "character assassinated" for political reasons, but focusing on this editorial is a red herring. If the editorial came out the day after Spitzer's tryst with a wire-wearing prostitute, that means it came out WELL after the investigation was already in motion! In fact the FBI was put on the case in late 2007 by the IRS due to suspicious transactions that appeared like they might be linked to corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal

But can you explain to me where the green men fit into this conspiracy?

Bush has #OOPS#ed up a lot of things, but he is certainly not to blame for Mr. Spitzer preaching ethics and morals and then banging whores. Spitzer was brought down because of an age old saying; "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Engdahl, who wrote the article below, is quite credible and I give him high props on his speculation about Bush, FBI, Wall St looking to ouster Spitzer. That's not to say that Spitzer wasn't thinking with "Little Eliot" at the time of his trysts!

F. William Engdahl

F. William Engdahl, an economist and writer, is author of the best-selling book[citation needed] on oil and geopolitics, "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order", which has been translated into Arabic, Korean, German, Croatian and Turkish. He has just[year needed] completed the soon-to-be released "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of GMO".

He has written on issues of political economy, geopolitics, energy, agriculture, WTO, IMF, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock and world grain crisis in the early 1970s. After a degree in politics from Princeton University and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm, he worked as an economist and free-lance journalist in New York and in Europe, covering subjects including the collapse of the USSR, the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis, GATT Uruguay Round trade talks, EU food policies, the grain cartel, IMF policy, Third World debt issues, hedge funds and the political role of derivatives trade.

Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively; Grant's Investor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International. He is a frequent Contributor to Centre for Research on Globalization, FinancialSense.com and 321Gold.com among other online sites. He has spoken at numerous international conferences on geopolitical, economic, GMO, economic and energy subjects, including a keynote address to the Montreaux Global Investors? Forum, the Centre for Energy Policy Studies in London, Bank Negara Indonesia in Jakarta, the International Chamber of Commerce in Zagreb and the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Moscow. He currently lives in Germany and in addition to writing regularly on issues of economics, energy and international affairs, is active as a consulting geopolitical risk economist.



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Why Bush Watergated Eliot Spitzer

By F. William Engdahl, 17 March 2008

The spectacular and highly bizarre release of secret FBI wiretap data to the New York Times exposing the tryst of New York state Governor, Eliot Spitzer, ?No.9? with a luxury call-girl, had less to do with the Bush Administration?s high moral standards for public servants. Spitzer was the target of a White House and Wall Street dirty tricks operation to silence one of its most dangerous critics in handling the current financial market Tsunami crisis.

A useful rule of thumb in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to ask what and who might want to eliminate that person. In the case of Governor Spitzer, a Democrat, it is clear that the spectacular ?leak? of government FBI wiretap records showing that Spitzer paid a high-cost prostitute $4,300 for what amounted to an hour?s personal entertainment, was politically motivated. Why?, is the interesting question.
Spitzer became Governor of the State following a record as a relentless State Attorney General going after financial crimes such as the Enron fraud and corruption by Wall Street investment banks during the 2002 dot.com bubble era. He was bitterly hated on Wall Street for that. He had made his political career on being ruthless against financial corruption. Most recently, from his position as Governor of the nation?s second largest state, and home to its financial industry, Spitzer had begun making high profile attacks on the complicity of the Bush Administration in covertly arranging bailout if its Wall Street financial friends at the expense of ordinary homeowners and citizens, paid all with taxpayer funds.

Curiously, Spitzer, who had been elected governor in 2006 defeating a Republican winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, has been not charged in any crime. However, New York Assembly Republicans immediately announced plans to impeach Spitzer or put him on public trial were he to refuse resignation. Spitzer could be asked to testify in any trial involving the Emperors Club prostitution ring. But so far he hasn?t been charged with a crime. Prostitution is illegal in most US states, but clients of prostitutes are almost never charged. The Spitzer case is in the hands of Washington and not state authorities, underscoring the clear political nature of the Spitzer ?Watergate.?

The New York Times said Spitzer was an individual identified as Client 9 in court papers filed last week. Client 9 arranged to meet with "Kristen," a prostitute who charged $1,000 an hour, on February 13 in a Washington hotel and paid her $4,300, according to the court documents. The case is clearly political when compared with more egregious recent cases involving Republicans. Republican Mark Foley was exposed propositioning male interns in Congress and Rudolph Giuliani was discovered cheating on his wife but no Republican calls for resignations.

Why the attack now?

Spitzer had become increasingly public in his blaming the Bush Administration for the nation?s current financial and economic disaster. He testified in Washington in mid-February before the US House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee on the problems in New York-based specialized insurance companies, known as ?monoline? insurers (monoline Versicherung). In a national TV interview the same day, he laid blame for the crisis and its broader economic fallout on the Bush Administration.
Spitzer recalled that several years ago the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency went to court and blocked New York State efforts to investigate the mortgage activities of national banks. Spitzer argued the OCC did not put a stop to questionable loan marketing practices or uphold higher underwriting standards.

"This could have been avoided if the OCC had done its job," Spitzer said in the interview. "The OCC did nothing. The Bush Administration let the housing bubble inflate and now that it's deflating we're dealing with the consequences. The real failure, the genesis, the germ that has spread was the subprime scandal," Spitzer said. Fraudulent marketing and very low ?teaser? mortgage rates that later ballooned higher, were practices that should have been stopped, he argued. "When mortgages are being marketed, there is a marketplace obligation to ensure the borrower can afford to pay back the debt," he said.

That TV interview was only one instance of Spitzer laying blame on the Bush Republicans. On February 14, Spitzer published a signed article in the influential Washington Post titled, ?Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers.?

That article appeared the day after his ill-fated tryst with the prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel. Coincidence? Spitzer wrote, ?"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks.?

In his article Spitzer charged, "Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which he federal government was turning a blind eye." Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime." The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet. Spitzer wrote, "When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably."

With that article, some Washington insiders believe, Spitzer signed his own political death warrant. [/quote]