SOME MORE PERSPECTIVE: Did Spitzer Fall into a Trap?

Michael Bouldin at Daily Gotham has this roundup of the evidence that behind Eliot Spitzer's downfall was a Republican conspiracy...one that doesn't excuse Eliot's stupidity, but does raises some serious quesitons about the Republican Party:

The story of Eliot Spitzer is getting increasingly tangled. Witness this from Harper's:

A reader emails with an interesting observation:

Amazing how Senator David Vitter’s name never leaked out of the Justice Department after the arrest of the D.C. Madam, but Eliot Spitzer’s name leaked out of the Justice Department within a week of the initial arrest in the Emperor V.I.P. case.

Vitter, recall, owned up to his dalliance with a prostitute after Hustler called him to ask for comment before publication. Not that employees of the George W. Bush Justice Department would ever act in a political fashion, of course. But it is curious.

Jane Hamscher at FireDogLake has some additional questions. Here are some:

What is a USA doing prosecuting a prostitution case? This isn't normally what the feds spend their time with.

Right. The same U.S. Attorneys who, as we learned some time ago, acted and were treated as an extension of the White House political machine.

How did Spitzer's name get leaked to the media, and who did it? Didn't happen to Dave Vitter.

In the D.C. Madam case, Senator Vitter's name did not become publicly known until he was contacted by Hustler Magazine, alerting him that the publication was doing a story on him. The Emperor's Club was cracked last week, and sources claim Spitzer knew about the probe on Friday. Remarkably quick work.

Why did Mike Bloomberg suddenly start talking about running for governor recently? And why did he give $500,000 to Joe Bruno? He's good buddies with Mike Mukasey. What did he know and how did he know it?

Good question. Why exactly Mike Bloomberg would pump five hundred large into Bruno's faltering majority is kind of mystifying.

It's little short of astonishing that something that happened less than a month ago, on February 13th, between two consenting adults, is now, on March 10th, splashed across the front pages of the national media.

Spitzer's biggest mistake? He's a Democrat. The Department of Justice is well known these days for applying a different standard to members of the political opposition.

But there's more. The man who most benefits from the downfall of Spitzer is Republican State Senator Joe Bruno, the man who is most at odds with Spitzer...and the one who is himself under an expanding investigation for corruption. Keep this little gem (from NY Corruption Blog) in mind when considering the implications of the Spitzer sting:

What do federal investigators hope to find concerning Senator Joseph L. Bruno's business dealings with this company? This investigation has been going on for some time leaving some to speculate that the senator's business dealings are somewhat shady:

For more than a decade, Mr. Bruno earned a salary from Wright Investors' Service, based in Milford, Conn., in addition to his legislative pay of $121,000. His affiliation with the company began shortly before he became majority leader in 1995. Neither the amount of his salary nor the specifics of his job have been disclosed, and such disclosure is not required under state ethics laws.

A number of the pension funds’ trustees also have longstanding political ties to Mr. Bruno, who has been a close ally of labor unions in the Legislature. Some of the trustees even personally lobbied Mr. Bruno about legislative issues, state records and interviews with the officials revealed. Records also show that prominent locals in New York City invested at various times with Wright, including the New York City District Council of Carpenters and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International union.

Whatever happened to transparency in government? If the feds do not find anything criminally wrong, it sure smells like there could be some type of ethics violation in the mix.

All of this going on behind the scenes just before a somewhat vague and dubious Federal investigation catches Spitzer in a traditional way to discredit a political rival. Once again, I emphasize that Spitzer's own arrogance brought him down. But it sure looks like the Republicans may have illegally and hypocritcally investigated him in an attempt to cover up their own misdeeds.

The New Republic also has an article on this.