Spitzer's Media Enablers

WSJ ^ | March 12, 2008 | KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

[Milhous]

Yet from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer government power, rather than a skeptic of it.

There, fixed it. In the words of Steve Boriss:

1. The role of the press - Jefferson's vision for the role of the press was completely integrated with his vision for the country. He believed that each of us is born with God-given rights that must not be taken away - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The potential thief he had in mind was government. Accordingly, he thought that the single most important role for newspapers was to serve as a "fence" to prevent government from encroaching on individual rights.

But modern journalism has hopped this fence by tending to side with the government establishment, often protecting it from people and corporations. Jon Ham notes that newspapers typically feature government as an enlightened class and make use of a "standard journalism template that the private sector has questionable motives, i.e., profit, whereas the public sector’s motives are pure, i.e., altruistic." PBS' Bill Moyers now tours the country lashing out against the dangers of too much corporate control over the news media, while singing the virtues of government-controlled NPR and PBS. This anti-corporate attitude has its roots in Marxist, not Jeffersonian thought. As ABC's John Stossel points out, corporations do not have nearly the same power as government entities, which are "coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force."

[justiceseeker93]

Patterson, the putative next Governor, is a raving ultra-leftist lunatic.

Endorsed by none other than Al Sharpton!

[justiceseeker93]

Don’t think Spitzer is going to prison, but I’ve heard he’s resigning today.

He just doesn’t have the same Teflon as the Clintons.

[justiceseeker93]

Well, the Dems have always been a culture of loose sex, violence, and especially, death.

Yes, the history of organized crime's involvement in American politics is connected predominantly to the 'Rat party and 'Rat politicos, and that holds even today.

[societygirl]

Yes, the history of organized crime’s involvement in American politics is connected predominantly to the ‘Rat party and ‘Rat politicos, and that holds even today.

Can you say The Kennedys?

[justiceseeker93]

...knowingly committed multiple felonies...

You may eventually be correct, and I'm not a Spitzer fan, but I don't think the facts are clear enough at this point to spell out the "multiple felonies" he may have committed.

Right now, the only crime we can be sure of is that he patronized prostitutes. I believe that is a misdemeanor in just about every jurisdiction in the US.

[justiceseeker93]

Can you say the Kennedys?

Yes, there's no question that Joe Kennedy made very good money from bootlegging during the Prohibition era, which contributed a large chunk to the Kennedy family fortune. Without that, Jack, Bobby, and Ted would probably never have risen as far as they did.

[justiceseeker93]

The man is clearly dangerous, and uses his office to threaten people and deny them their rights. Then we have to hear the nuts of the left say Bush has killed democracy in America.

Excellent point. The same applies even more so to the Clintons, and they are even more dangerous because of the trail of dead bodies in their wake.

[Milhous]

Thanks for posting your insight. Further research makes it easier to understand popular resistance to the PATRIOT Act.

How an information system helped nail Eliot Spitzer and a prostitution ring

...

The Wall Street Journal reported that Spitzer’s transactions looked like they were kept below $10,000 to avoid federal reporting rules. This behavior to avoid the $10,000 threshold also helps the Feds find strange behavior, say 150 transactions between $7,000 and $9,000. The Journal notes:

There has been a massive federal crackdown on money laundering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and banks have been extremely diligent in filing such reports. Those reports often include details of transactions done by innocent people.

Indeed, these reports are absorbed by the Treasury and crunched in a database to highlight potentially suspicious activity.

[societygirl]

Or FALLEN as they did. Look what they came from.

[Grampa Dave]

There once was a Govn’r named Spitzer, Who couldn’t control his own spritzer. He used his account for Kristen to mount, Got caught and it’s too late to diss her.

Eliot remember to say, "I never had sex with that ho, er woman!"

"Eliot -- PHONE HO"

Thanks for the memories #9

There once was a Govn’r named Spitzer, Who couldn’t control his own spritzer. He used his account for Kristen to mount, Got caught and it’s too late to diss her.

Eliot remember to say, "I never had sex with that ho, er woman!"

"Eliot -- PHONE HO"

Thanks for the memories #9

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more.

. . . What the media never acknowledged is that . . . [on] his first day in public office . . . Mr. Spitzer became the big guy . . . who deserved . . . more scrutiny than . . . [any mere CEO].

It is patent that there is a symbiotic relation between "liberal" politicians like Elliot Spitzer and Big Journalism. Kimberly Strassel makes that clear in this piece. As Rush pointed out today in discussing this very article, Mike Nifong was simply an Elliot Spitzer wannabe. The only difference between them is the different ways that they were brought low, and I assume that Spitzer will have lost a great deal he will not spend even one night in jail for his real transgression - which was behaving in the prosecutor's office in exactly the bullying way that journalists feel free to act.

I think that we need to do some serious wordsmithing to find a pithy way of expressing the symbiosis between journalism and "liberal/progressive" politicians. The only difference between "liberal" politicians and "objective" journalists is that the latter work for newspapers or broadcast networks.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Oh but 40 years ago, did you know he was in Vietnam?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

The article on ABC called him a “White Knight!”

[Veto!]

Perhaps by this time next year someone will write the same article with Obama inserted instead of Spitzer. Horrible thought, but the media is surely complicit in any and all stupidities, mistakes, and downright evil thoughts and deeds Barak Hussein gets caught in.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keeping tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the prosecutor, who can use his awesome state power to punish, even destroy, private citizens.

That is the function of a free press. Contrary to the presumptuous claims of Big Journalism, however, Big Journalism is neither the whole of "the press" nor is it free. It is not free, in the sense that you or I cannot enter the field by the mere act of acquiring the requisite technology. The reason is that we are expressly forbidden by the government to engage in broadcast journalism without a license to broadcast, and - more generally - we are not part of the Associated Press, and we do not subscribe to the fatuous conceit that all journalists are objective.

Yet from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it. Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more.

. . . the media never acknowledged . . . [that on] his first day in public office . . . Mr. Spitzer became the big guy, the titan.

Precisely. The fawning coverage of Eliot Spitzer, not despite but because of Spitzer's actual record of abusing power, is a picture of the actual nature of Big Journalism. The only difference between Spitzer and Michael Nifong is that Nifong was a mere wannabe in comparison to Spitzer. Accordingly Nifong was vulnerable to higher state governmental authorities, in a state which is not nearly as dominated by "liberal" politics as New York is - and therefore it was possible for Nifong to be caught without the help of Big Journalism.

The fact that such help from Big Journalism was not forthcoming for the victims either of Nifong or of Spitzer puts the lie to the conceit that journalism is objective (a conceit which traces back only to the advent of the telegraph and the monopolistic Associated Press). Wikipedia describes the classic dystopian short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. In that dark story, there is a town which conducts a lottery once a year - the "winner" of which is stoned to death by everyone else in town.

That happens in America. But in real life, an Eliot Spitzer of a Michael Nifong typically functions as the arbitrary selector of victims to be destroyed - and Big Journalism functions as the villagers with stones inflicting much of the arbitrary abuse.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[The Energizer]

I don’t forget the voters, who elected him. They are responsible, too.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping. Very good article, thread, comments. BTTT!