March Madness!

 

I'm not talking about the NCAA Tournament with the title of this post. Though the Tournament does signal the start of one of my favorite times of year, for spectator sports. Next come the Stanley Cup Playoffs and then the NBA Championships. Then it is time to get outside away from the tube.

 

No, I'm talking about the state of the rogue nation to my south, the United States of Greed, or as my youngest son used to call it the "Excited Snakes." I mean it's all crazy madness, the primaries, the economy, the Spitzer takedown and of course anything escaping from the mouth of the First Fool. Not that we don't have our own insanity and inanities in Ottawa, Alberta and Victoria, but that stuff is for another post.

 

Last week the first big thing was the fall of Eliot Spitzer the Governor of New York. Since he had been the "steamrolling" D.A and Attorney General, excising crime and unethical behavior where ever he found it, including busting "prostitution rings," it was at the least hypocritical for him to be availing himself of the services of a high class prostitute, I assume $4300 still purchases "high class" goods. Of course the fact that it was supposedly suspicious "banking transactions" that led to the discovery of Client #9 (Spitzer), one can only wonder how much his enemies among bankers and on Wall Street may have had to do with the "break" in the case. Greg Palast, as so often he does, provides a somewhat different perspective on the Spitzer Takedown in Eliot's Mess.

 

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

 

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours. ..../snip

 

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

 

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied. ..../snip

 

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

 

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him. Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

 

Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'

 

A man as smart as Mr. Spitzer demonstrably was (he is "alleged" to have scored perfect on the LSAT)should have known that if he wanted to be in public life AND cavort with prostitutes, he should have joined the Republican Party!

 

Meanwhile even oily, sleaze-bag, neo-con enabling traitor Robert Novak in his Chicago Sun-Times column hinted at GOP involvement in Spitzer's takedown.

 

Predicting Spitzer's departure

 

Republican political operative Roger Stone, Eliot Spitzer's longtime antagonist, predicted his political demise more than three months in advance.

 

''Eliot Spitzer will not serve out his term as governor of the state of New York,'' Stone said Dec. 6 on Michael Smerconish's radio talk show. He gave no details.

 

Asked about his possible involvement in Spitzer's fall Stone said, "No comment," but did add that, "My work isn't done there. Just watch."

 

Just so we don't get the wrong impression of how classy Roger Stone is - he currently runs an anti-Clinton political 527 group, Citizens United Not Timid, a acronym of which, understandably, has sparked fury among liberal groups.

 

Other forms of the madness to the south will have to wait until another day. Things like the economy (if there still is one by the time I get around to discussing it) or the silliness over the pastor of the church attended by Barack Obama. In the meantime...

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!