(2010) The former New York attorney general ("the Sheriff of Wall Street") Eliot Splitzer, the white knight, moral crusader, law-and-order liberal, "every politician's dream" who could have become the first Jewish president of the United States, resigned from office in March 2008 after one year as governor following reports of his having been a client in a prostitution ring.

Smart and wealthy ("a member of the lucky sperm club") with a beautiful wife Silda and children, as a virtuous public servant he took on fraud and corruption, white-collar criminals and environmental abusers, before inexplicably committing a violation of his family and his sense of right and wrong. Falling from a height of hubris as in a Greek myth or Shakespearean tragedy - "Those whom the gods would destroy they make all powerful" - his hamartia ("you cave to temptations") may have been exploited by several Iagos.

How could he have been such an idiot? While like President Bill Clinton in that both men as targets of the far right insisted they could compartmentalize their sexual peccadilloes from their ability to govern, Spitzer had a terrible temper (the obverse side of his passion) that resulted in his making minatory remarks that would come back to harm him; unlike Clinton he hasn't yet recovered his former stature with the public.

While Spitzer doesn't blame others, accepting the judgment of having brought himself down ("I make no excuses"), documentarian Alex Gibney, who wrote and directed this who-done-it, insinuates that Spitzer had enemies in the wings waiting for a misstep.

Recognizing that the financial institutions can't be left to regulate themselves, his efforts to change the system of dishonest practices on Wall Street - stepping in when the SEC abdicated its responsibilities - by attacking late trading in mutual funds and exorbitant executive compensation and bonuses, created powerful enemies, such as the chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange Dick Grasso (sued for taking a $140-million retirement package), billionaire venture capitalist and investment banker Ken Langone (friend of Grasso), and the CEO of AIG Maurice "Hank" Greenberg ("All I ask for is an unfair advantage"). Further, as governor - elected in 2006 for his passion to reform government - Spitzer went after the Republican Senate majority leader in Albany, Joe Bruno, following his pledge to clean up the graft and double-dealing in the state's legislature.

Unwilling on camera to speak directly about his philandering, Spitzer nevertheless gave his opponents the opportunity to take him down when a leak from a tear in the aorta to the heart of his credibility bled out, terminating his political career.

Though 22-year-old NY Confidential escort Ashley Dupré (real surname Youmanis: "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," who posed nude for Playboy in the May 2010 issue), who also used the name "Kristen" at the Emperor's Club VIP, captured most of the headlines for being associated with George Fox (pseudonym for Spitzer), only once was Spitzer with her (and never wore just his block socks to bed), spending more time with his escort of choice, the Emperor's "Angelina" (whom Gibney interviewed, but because she refused to be on camera or have her voice recorded, actress Wrenn Schmidt plays her part in the film).

Paying $1,000 to $2,000 an hour for the privilege of being with an escort, somehow one of Spitzer's payments drew the attention of the FBI with a suspicious activity report. Did political consultant Roger Stone, hired by Bruno, initiate the investigation into the Emperor's Club? Why did US Attorney Michael Garcia, a Republican appointee, demand that Spitzer, while still attorney general, back off his investigation of AIG's allegedly cooking its books (a case the feds then declined to pursue), and later devote extraordinary resources to a prostitution ring, using the Mann Act (which had never before been employed to prosecute customers)?

Considering the number of other political figures known to have engaged in extramarital affairs with call girls (e.g. Republican Congressman David Vitters, now a senator), what other motivation was there to go after Spitzer other than to tarnish his reputation as a prominent Democrat? Never charged with a crime, the purpose of the entire episode may have been simply to have a salacious leak involving Client-9's name.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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