Posted on 03/11/2008 7:08:13 PM PDT by jazusamo
What was he thinking of? That was the first question that came to mind when the story of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's involvement with a prostitution ring was reported in the media.
It was also the first question that came to mind when star quarterback Michael Vick ruined his career and lost his freedom over his involvement in illegal dog fighting. It is a question that arises when other very fortunate people risk everything for some trivial satisfaction.
Many in the media refer to Eliot Spitzer as some moral hero who fell from grace. Spitzer was never a moral hero. He was an unscrupulous prosecutor who threw his power around to ruin people, even when he didn't have any case with which to convict them of anything.
Because he was using his overbearing power against businesses, the anti-business left idolized him, just as they idolized Ralph Nader before him as some sort of secular saint because he attacked General Motors.
What Eliot Spitzer did was not out of character. It was completely in character for someone with the hubris that comes with the ability to misuse his power to make or break innocent people.
After John Whitehead, former head of Goldman Sachs, wrote an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal, criticizing Attorney General Spitzer's handling of a case involving Maurice Greenberg, Spitzer was quoted by Whitehead as saying: "I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done."
When you start thinking of yourself as a little tin god, able to throw your weight around to bully people into silence, it is a sign of a sense of being exempt from the laws and social rules that apply to other people.
For someone with this kind of hubris to risk his whole political career for a fling with a prostitute is no more surprising than for Michael Vick to throw away millions to indulge his taste for dog fighting or for Leona Helmsley to avoid paying taxes -- not because she couldn't easily afford to pay taxes and still have more money left than she could ever spend -- but because she felt above the rules that apply to "the little people."
What is almost as scary as having someone like Eliot Spitzer holding power is having so many pundits talking as if this is just a "personal" flaw in Governor Spitzer that should not disqualify him for public office.
Spitzer himself spoke of his "personal" failing as if it had nothing to do with his being governor of New York.
In this age, when it is considered the height of sophistication to be "non-judgmental," one of the corollaries is that "personal" failings have no relevance to the performance of official duties.
What that amounts to, ultimately, is that character doesn't matter. In reality, character matters enormously, more so than most things that can be seen, measured or documented.
Character is what we have to depend on when we entrust power over ourselves, our children and our society to government officials.
We cannot risk all that for the sake of the fashionable affectation of being more non-judgmental than thou.
Currently, various facts are belatedly beginning to leak out that give us clues to the character of Barack Obama. But to report these facts is being characterized as a "personal" attack.
Barack Obama's personal and financial association with a man under criminal indictment in Illinois is not just a "personal" matter. Nor is his 20 years of going to a church whose pastor has praised Louis Farrakhan and condemned the United States in both sweeping terms and with obscene language.
The Obama camp likens mentioning such things to criticizing him because of what members of his family might have said or done. But it was said, long ago, that you can pick your friends but not your relatives.
Obama chose to be part of that church for 20 years. He was not born into it. His "personal" character matters, just as Eliot Spitzer's "personal" character matters -- and just as Hillary Clinton's character would matter if she had any.
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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
I am glad I don't have to ((((PING))) you! Once again Dr. Sowell hits it out of the ball park.
WHY AREN’T BILL AND HILL IN JAIL???
“I’ll be writing in either Thomas Sowell or Walter E. Williams for president...”
I love `em both, but please, do not do that. Your write-in will probably go unnoticed by the media. But a surge in Constitution or Libertarian party votes cannot be ignored, and can’t be construed as approval for either major party’s politics, either. Please reconsider, and vote for one of those parties’ candidates instead.
“or for Leona Helmsley to avoid paying taxes — not because she couldn’t easily afford to pay taxes and still have more money left than she could ever spend — but because she felt above the rules that apply to “the little people” “
It stuck in my craw that Mr. Clinton claimed he didn’t have to testify because he was President. Paula Jones, little person, was entitled to her day in court.
It stuck in my craw when Mrs. Clinton fired the Travel Office little people when they didn’t fit her agenda.
It stuck in my craw when little people in Canada contracted hepatitis C from tainted Arkansas prison blood, so that Bill Clinton could make some money.
It sticks in my craw that little people throughout the country have to pay higher energy prices. One reason is because Bill Clinton locked up coal in Utah so his buddies the Riady’s could make a few bucks.
I think i have 20 of his books and about 1000 of his articles and have learned something from every paragraph.
I do remember one disagreement and a few years later i realized i was wrong.
Thomas Sowell, such an excellent man of wisdom. Always grateful to read his columns, thanks for posting this.
Nice little zinger at the end. Thanks Dr. Sowell.
ping
Congressman Billybob
Part of the blame goes to the pundits who idolize the "little tin god" and lead him to believe he is above other people.
Because:
- He's older than John McCain.
- His health is commensurately poor.
- He hates to travel.
- No one with his level of honesty, common sense and patriotism could possibly win nomination and election.
“Character is destiny.”
~ Heraclitus
Again and again we see this in public life. As such we should be very interested in the characters of everyone, regardless of political affiliation, that we consider for high office.
Today’s quote:
The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing.
“Thomas Sowell
Let’s discuss McCain’s age
Among the painful signs of our time are the shocked reactions to Chuck Norris’ raising the question of whether Senator John McCain is too old to be president.
Have we reached the point where we have so many politically correct taboos that we can’t even talk sense?
Does a man in his seventies have less energy for either physical or mental tasks than someone younger? Those of us who are in our seventies know darn well that we can’t do everything we used to do, as well as we used to do it.
It was appalling to me when my driver’s license was renewed last year without my having to get behind the wheel of a car and demonstrate that I still could drive safely.
Even if my own driving was still all right, I could get killed by some other old-timer whose driving was not all right — and who had not been tested behind the wheel for many years.
While teenagers have high rates of fatal accidents, the decline that sets in as they mature does not continue indefinitely. The rate of fatal accidents declines to a plateau in middle age — and then begins to rise again for older people, until old-timers eventually reach the point where their rate of fatal accidents is at least as high as that of teenagers.
It is not just in physical tasks that age takes its toll. Even when our minds remain sharp, our energy levels are seldom the same, and that affects how long we can concentrate on a given day without taking a rest.
It is easy enough for me to take an afternoon nap and wake up refreshed, especially since my younger research assistants are working while I am dozing, and have plenty of material ready for me when I am ready to resume work.
But a President of the United States has to be ready to take on any crisis that arises anywhere in the world, at any hour of the day or night.
And if he has to deal with it around the clock, then he just stays awake around the clock to deal with it.
It can be a killing job. You need only look at pictures of Abraham Lincoln when he took office and compare them with the pictures of him just a few years later, when he looked like he had aged at least ten years during the Civil War.”
[Excerpt from Feb 3, 2008]
Excellent quote, that fits Spitzer precisely.
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