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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – CNN's primetime talk show anchored by disgraced ex-New York governor Eliot Spitzer and journalist Kathleen Parker debuted to scathing reviews, with comments on Tuesday ranging from "unbearable" to "icky" and "obnoxious". Spitzer, a Democrat who was forced to resign in 2008 for hiring high-priced prostitutes, and Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative Washington Post columnist, were hired by CNN in a bid to add some fireworks to its struggling evening news line-up. But barely a good word could be found on Tuesday for the new "Parker Spitzer" show, which debuted one night earlier as a daily discussion...

Is CNN a joke or have we gone back to the Dark Ages? No sooner has the dust cleared on brain-dead racist Rick Sanchez than the network brings us a new show with whoremaster Eliot Spitzer! CNN, lest we forget, is a news organization. They want us to respect them. How desperate for ratings they must have become. With MSNBC presenting the execrable Olbermann, even though no one watches him, CNN cannot stand still. Out goes the wretched Sanchez, in comes the sleazy Spitzer.Well, I guess it’s okay. The ex-gov of New York’s prostitution scandal was way back in 2008....

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he will back Democrat Andrew Cuomo come November, but it sure didn’t sound like much of an endorsement. “Everybody knows that behind the scenes that he’s the dirtiest, nastiest political player out there,” Spitzer said of Cuomo Thursday.

This year marks the centennial of the Mann “White Slave Act,” when Congress made it a federal offence to transport a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.” Though the act is still on the books (as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer can tell you), and has been made gender-neutral, it is usually seen as a relic of nineteenth-century moralism. In fact, no act did more to overturn the nineteenth-century constitutional order. The Mann Act was boldly challenged the idea that the Constitution limited Congress’ power the ends enumerated in Article One, section eight. It established an all-purpose federal...

When F. Scott Fitzgerald observed that there are no second acts in American life, he obviously couldn't have had before him the example of Eliot Spitzer and his adoring media. Once dubbed the Crusader of the Year and the Sherriff of Wall Street, Spitzer was to the mainstream media the embodiment of an exciting new kind of Democrat, a tough-as-nails moderate who might revive the party nationally under the banner of what Fred Siegel and Michael Goodwin have dubbed "Spitzerism." Although Spitzer's escapades with high-priced call girls brought his career crashing down in 2008, the financial crisis that began to...

The former CEO of CNN and the creator of its Crossfire show, Reese Schonfeld, has slammed the new CNN show that will be hosted by Kathleen Parker and Client Number Nine aka Eliot Spitzer. In his Huffington Post blog, Schonfeld not only blasts the proposed new show but provides some interesting background on the original Crossfire in its early years: As the former CEO of CNN, and the creator of Crossfire (the show, not the name -- Paul Bissonette, CNN's PR man, came up with that), I think I'm qualified to comment on the new, not to be called Crossfire,...

As has been speculated for about a week now, Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker will be paired up as co-hosts of a new 8pmET “spirited, nightly roundtable discussion program” on CNN. The Crossfire-like show replaces Campbell Brown’s program – which she announced she was leaving last month. Let’s take a look at the key players. Spitzer was a surprise regular guest on Dylan Ratigan’s new MSNBC show starting almost one year ago today. Over this past year he’s risen through the ranks at MSNBC and began anchoring occasionally a couple months ago during news hours. He also, of course, is...

Eliot Spitzer has found a new woman. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is the "leading candidate" to share a new 8 p.m. show on CNN with the former governor, according to sources close to the talks. Parker, 58, is probably best known for a column she wrote in September, 2008 calling Sarah Palin "out of her league" and urging her to get off the Republican ticket. The show -- which will air opposite Bill O'Reilly's ratings juggernaut show on Fox News Channel -- will be an updated version of CNN's old "Crossfire" program.

CNN's Campbell Brown has resigned. The following are statements from both CNN President Jon Klein and a heartfelt letter from Brown explaining her reasons for leaving. STATEMENT FROM JON KLEIN, PRESIDENT OF CNN/U.S. "Today is about Campbell. We want to wish her well as she begins the next phase of her life. We respect her decision to leave. We will announce our programming plans in the coming weeks." An Excerpt From Brown's Statement "Simply put, the ratings for my program are not where I would like them to be. It is largely for this reason that I am stepping down...

Eliot Spitzer was once so voracious for sex that he ordered three different hookers for three separate visits - all in the span of a few hours in one day, an explosive new book claims. The passage from Peter Elkind's "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," describes how the Attorney General-turned-governor procured the women from his favored service, the Emperors Club VIP, using the alias "George Fox." Here's the passage from page 122: "On one occasion, George Fox had booked an appointment in the late morning at the Mark Hotel, on the Upper East Side, just five...

Get caught with your pants (but not black socks) down consorting with hookers after hypocritically spearheading investigations of prostitution rings? No problem if you are a liberal. There is always a chance for political redemption with the aid of the mainstream media. Such was the case this past week with Client # 9 aka Eliot Spitzer. First Spitzer lets us know about the terrible pain of irrelevance in a Fortune magazine article: ...But he also says he is "in unceasing agony" and "incredibly frustrated" over no longer being "where I would like to be" -- finishing his first term as...

A new book by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s ex-best-friend offers to fill a gap that has frustrated analysts of Spitzer’s aborted career: A grand unified theory of Spitzer’s spectacular fall, which ended with his resignation and disgrace nearly two years ago. Lloyd Constantine, a Spitzer mentor who became a close friend and top deputy, believes that Spitzer’s “compulsion” to use prostitutes began to twist his friend’s character during 2006, the year he was elected. Spitzer came to office knowing he was doomed, according to Constantine, and acted irrationally from the moment he arrived - his time in Albany...

New York Governor David Paterson attempted to suppress an investigation into an aide’s alleged beating of said aide’s girlfriend, and lied to an ethics panel about the free tickets he scored to the World Series. In this, he follows Eliot Spitzer, whom he succeeded after Spitzer attempted to convince a banker to contravene federal banking laws (that is actually why he had to resign, not because he hired a prostitute, but since prosecutors decided for unclear reasons not to indict him, that part is forgotten). Paterson, in his sure-to-fail attempt to hold on to power for a few more months,...

Former sex worker Kristin Davis, dubbed the "Manhattan Madam," said she intends to run as a Libertarian in the race for governor of New York. Davis has help from a well known Republican operative, Roger Stone, who worked with former presidents including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. "This is not a hoax, a prank or a publicity stunt. I want to get her a half-million votes," Stone said. Davis has talked about running against former Gov. (and alleged former client) Eliot Spitzer. In 2007, Stone tipped off the FBI to Spitzer's predilection for prostitutes, landing Davis nearly four...

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer will speak at Syracuse University next week on the financial crisis. Spitzer's talk, "From Libertarianism to Angry Populism: Have We Learned Anything From the Crisis of the Past Two Years?" will begin at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Maxwell School auditorium. Spitzer resigned in March 2008, after barely more than a year in office, amid accusations he patronized a prostitute. The talk is free and open to the public.

Is Mark Sanford's behavior contemptible enough to make him King of Heels, or does that (dis)honor belong to John Ensign, Eliot Spitzer or John Edwards? ... Let's compare [them] low-blow by low-blow ...

THERE'S a huge difference between what South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford did, and what ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer did. "I didn't fall in love with any of them," Spitzer was overheard telling LMDC executive director Avi Schick the other day at Solo in the Sony Building on Madi son, where they had the $24 prix-fixe lunch. And Spitzer didn't use any taxpayer money on his trysts, while Sanford is reimbursing the state about $12,000 for travel expenses to Buenos Aires. Schick had Vietnamese beef spring rolls and a grilled chicken salad.

(CNN) — OK — this one's really got to hurt. A new poll suggests that a majority of New Yorkers would prefer to have disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer in office right now instead of the current governor, David Paterson. And the Marist College poll, released Monday, indicates that less than 1 in 5 New Yorkers approve of the job Paterson's doing as governor. Paterson's a Democrat, but even among his own party, only 22 percent think he's doing a good or excellent job in office. This new Marist poll continues a trend seen in other recent surveys of New...

SO maybe Eliot Spitzer did kill AIG, after all. Nobody doubts the in surance giant is basically kaput, or that the promix ate cause is billions in losses in obscure instruments known as credit-default swaps, or CDSs. But American International Group didn't go deadly deep into CDSs until after New York Attorney General Spitzer had forced out Maurice "Hank" Greenberg out as CEO. GO back to March 2005, just days after Spitzer scored his biggest scalp during his eight-year tenure as the Sheriff of Wall Street by compelling Greenberg's departure. The new CEO, long-time AIG executive Martin Sullivan, held an...

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin's Tree of Death April 20, 2009 David Klinghoffer I've long been fascinated by the image of the Tree of Death, parallel to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and cryptically referred to in mystical texts explaining the Hebrew Bible: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:9). Come and behold: as soon as night falls, the...