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December 3, 2008 6:40 PM

Eliot Spitzer is back in the public spotlight as a biweekly columnist for Slate. His first column argues against bailouts. More background info.
posted by jourman2 (28 comments total)

Sorry - better link.
posted by jourman2 at 6:42 PM on December 3, 2008

Sometimes I think those right-wing types who grumble about "the death of shame" have a point.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:46 PM on December 3, 2008

does it involve hookers?
posted by Chocomog at 6:48 PM on December 3, 2008

y'all don't understand how "hope" died in NY with Spitzer's downfall. i own Daily Gotham and get to see NY politics front a center most of the time. to say people are just getting out of the shock is an understatement.

looking back ... sigh ... i can see that electing him governor was a bad idea. he's a DA by heart and his style just didn't work with running a government.

it will be interesting to see how he takes to being a political commentator.
posted by liza at 6:57 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was going to make a joke about hookers, but instead read his column. He makes a lot of good points that I haven't heard anywhere else.
posted by 445supermag at 7:21 PM on December 3, 2008

Has Slate got some kind of standing option on people to whose names "disgraced former" gets prepended? This feels like a bizarre Spitzer/Henry Blodget buddy thriller. A crusading prosecutor. The high-flying Wall Street insider he took down. Now, they've washed up at the same dead-end online magazine — and they must work together to expose a terrifying conspiracy to loot the national treasury. Before it's too late.
posted by enn at 7:27 PM on December 3, 2008 [5 favorites]

I dislike Spitzer and was looking forward to disliking his column, but it's actually pretty damn good.
posted by brain_drain at 7:34 PM on December 3, 2008

The man accomplished a lot. I could give a shit if he slept with an escort.
posted by jcruelty at 7:43 PM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

The man accomplished a lot. I could give a shit if he slept with an escort.

I'd feel the same way IF HE HADN'T PROSECUTED PROSTITUTION RINGS.
posted by gman at 7:51 PM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

Ok, you have a point there!
posted by jcruelty at 7:54 PM on December 3, 2008

Also, an actor's political views determines how I judge their performance in a film.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:54 PM on December 3, 2008

Well, he's not a hypocrite on this one. Call him 'consistently anti-protectionist'. He against protecting the sleazy financial sector with bailouts and when he's with a hooker, he's against protecting himself with condoms.
posted by grounded at 7:59 PM on December 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

"None of the investments has even begun to address the underlying structural problems that are causing economic power to shift away from the United States, sector by sector"

H.I., you're young and you got'cher health, what do you want with a job?
posted by Smedleyman at 8:05 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

I got sucked right into his column and arguments, and then at the end realized "oh yeah, I was supposed to be ready to snark at this."
posted by intermod at 8:07 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Spitzer is a pompous asshole who has no credibility. I wonder if he left his socks on when he wrote this?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:14 PM on December 3, 2008

Has Slate got some kind of standing option on people to whose names "disgraced former" gets prepended? This feels like a bizarre Spitzer/Henry Blodget buddy thriller. "A crusading prosecutor. The high-flying Wall Street insider he took down. Now, they've washed up at the same dead-end online magazine — and they must work together to expose a terrifying conspiracy to loot the national treasury. Before it's too late."

And let me guess, Hitchens would be the grizzled Editor In Chief who makes them turn in their guns and Blackberries due to their loose-cannon antics?
posted by Afroblanco at 9:14 PM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

What? Chinese jets?

I tried to read it, but as far as I could tell it was the same utter gibberish that's been flying out of uniformed mouths everywhere these last few weeks.

the process of creative destruction that capitalism depends on.
Seriously, dude. What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Saying. "We had to burn the economy in order to save it?" I know it's Slate and not a real magazine, but come on. I'd rather read a column by the hooker.
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:50 PM on December 3, 2008

Him and the "lol no bailouts" crowd seem to live in a magical gumdrop world where those big bad financial firms and those evil unionized Big 3 automakers are swept off the map by some magical hand of God, and somehow everything remains JUST FINE for everyone else. No jobs are lost, there's no cascading impact on the economy, everyone whistles a jaunty tune and goes on about their day.

if you don't even bother to mention the disaster letting these institutions fail would be for the economy, the country, and the world, you are not qualified to write a column on economics or anything else.
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:55 PM on December 3, 2008

And let me guess, Hitchens would be the grizzled Editor In Chief who makes them turn in their guns and Blackberries due to their loose-cannon antics?

Saletan would be the creepy pathologist who pretends to be a scientist.
posted by benzenedream at 10:00 PM on December 3, 2008

Benzenedream, I don't really see how that Feministe article makes Saletan out to be that bad. He makes a case for contraceptives from a pro-life standpoint, and they get mad at him because They want to see women punished for being autonomous, sexual human beings. That’s it, end of story. Which is quite possibly true, but it reads to me as them being the crazy ones, not him.

Not that he's NOT a little bit crazy, but I think he ends up as a force for good in total.
posted by Lemurrhea at 10:30 PM on December 3, 2008

Seriously, dude. What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Saying

It's Schumpeter. I mean, there's plenty to criticize here, but knowing econ 101 might be a good start.
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:51 PM on December 3, 2008

I have no problem with spitzer making a living opining about the financial industry but please, dearest slate, can't you make him get the whole "I fucked a hooker please forgive me" spiel out of the way? because that's really the 800lbs gorilla in the room. address it once and for all in a sincere way (negative example being that news conference) and we're done.

nobody ever admits to their mistakes.
posted by krautland at 5:15 AM on December 4, 2008

It's really easy to be against bailouts. It's pretty easy to suggest vague things like small, nimble banks or entrepreneurial auto manufacturers. It's much harder to show that these things would realistically work. Should we have our own Great Leap Forward and start manufacturing cars in our backyards?

I also find it weird that no one mentions that our government already subsidizes certain industries. Would Boeing be around without defense contracts? Would pharmaceutical companies have new drugs without government-funded research at universities? Could someone point out which developed country has no government involvement in business?

Sure, a lot is wrong with these companies, but some capital-intensive things are probably better done at a large scale, and I'm not sure public private partnerships are necessarily a bad thing.
posted by snofoam at 6:37 AM on December 4, 2008

snofoam, what is also often lost is these our 'free-market' capitalist companies are usually competing with subsidized global firms. eg. Boeing et. al. v Airbus et.al, GM/Ford/Chrysler vs the rest of the world
posted by sfts2 at 8:37 AM on December 4, 2008

y'all don't understand how "hope" died in NY with Spitzer's downfall.


The guy accomplished nothing in his 1 year as Gov, so hope was pretty much already on the fence. I think shock set in when he had to resign, shock over his actions, followed closely by disgust at the hypocrisy of it all.
He left, Patterson took office, and it would appear that he is far more effective in the office than Spitzer was in his short stay.
The man is not missed, and is in fact, barely remembered.
posted by a3matrix at 8:45 AM on December 4, 2008

sfts2: exactly! if someone wants to subscribe to the ideology that a free market exists and that it can solve all our problems, that's fine, but that doesn't mean it will actually work in the real world. someone might as well suggest prayer as an alternative to bailouts.
posted by snofoam at 9:37 AM on December 4, 2008

We shouldn't have bailouts? Ok, sure, Spitz, but aren't you a little late on that one? I mean, I'm with you on discouraging things like "too-big-to-fail" banks, etc., but I think that could probably be handled through aggressive anti-trust regulation irrespective of the bailout.

The bailout that already got voted through, in fact.
posted by klangklangston at 11:40 AM on December 4, 2008

Thinking with your dick occasionally doesn't mean you're unfit to hold down a job. He did make it pretty far, you know. Moreso than most of the people in this thread; assuming he's an idiot in all respects because he did something monumentally stupid is, well.. stupid.
posted by flippant at 1:38 PM on December 4, 2008