WP book review: Eliot Spitzer: In the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt?

[DeepModem Mom]

The Contender
New York's wildly ambitious attorney general took on Wall Street corruption -- and isn't done yet.
Reviewed by Bryan Burrough
Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page BW05

SPOILING FOR A FIGHT
The Rise of Eliot Spitzer
By Brooke A. Masters

If you're not a political junkie, a New Yorker or a financial- services executive, the name Eliot Spitzer may not ring a bell. In the next few years, I'll wager, you'll be hearing it often. Spitzer is the New York attorney general who -- much like Rudolph Giuliani in the late 1980s -- is becoming a national figure by spearheading a series of high-profile investigations into the brokerage, mutual-fund and other financial industries. As the presumptive Democratic nominee in New York's gubernatorial race, he should move up the Hudson River to Albany in January, at which point his name will be thrown into far bigger hats. Obama-Spitzer 2012, anyone?

As Brooke A. Masters ably demonstrates in her new biography, Spoiling for a Fight , what makes Spitzer special is that he appears to be that rare political animal: a mainstream liberal Democrat with an actual, functioning backbone. As attorney general, he has been a one-man wrecking crew, taking on and besting everyone from Merrill Lynch to the somnolent Securities and Exchange Commission, which sought gradual change over coffee at Starbucks with Wall Streeters while Spitzer took the Merrills of the world to court. Reading this book, one comes to believe that he is the real deal: honest, fearless and very, very smart. While Spitzer has yet to perfect the role of glad-handing Gotham pol, there is nevertheless an unmistakable whiff of Clinton or Kennedy in his story.

Masters, who covers white-collar crime for The Washington Post, does a fine job here, briskly tracing Spitzer's rise to public office, parsing his headline cases and, to her credit, shining the spotlight on the individual lawyers in the attorney general's office who actually initiated many of the investigations that form the foundation of the Spitzer legend. The book is well-researched, even-handed and thoughtful; Masters will no doubt become cable television's leading Spitzerologist for years to come. About the only mark against Spoiling for a Fight is that Masters never truly finds an authorial voice; thorough as her research is, the book reads like a 300-page newspaper article.

Masters is especially adept at placing Spitzer in a historical, political and legal context, drawing parallels, for instance, between his career and that of another progressive New York attorney general, Theodore Roosevelt. (Don't laugh; she makes the case.) Spitzer, who granted Masters several interviews, goes to great lengths to emphasize (convincingly) that he is not some rock-throwing, anti-capitalist radical; like Roosevelt, he embraces the free-market system, working inside it to correct deficiencies....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080300929.html

[Pirate Smile]

1. I thought this was interesting from another review of the book:

"The Wall Street Journal picks an anecdote of his father making him cry while playing Monopoly at age eight. "Young Eliot had landed on a property full of houses and was unable to pay the rent. Yet what really had him blubbering was the fact that his father, Bernard, had been able to build on the property only after ordering his son to sell it to him." According to the elder Spitzer, the experience "convinced Eliot, never defer to authority." It's an observation that anyone facing off against him in a courtroom or an election should note."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/07/28/spoiling_for_a_fight.html

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Great anecdote -- thanks for the link, Pirate! nt

[bleever]

2. Recommended.

Eliot Spitzer has picked and won some good fights, like Patrick Fitzgerald.

To me, he seems like another guy to whom "law and order" means protecting the Constitution and We the People, instead of the status quo.

That makes him quite a rare and valuable specimen.

[Nite Owl]

3. That's our Eliot!

In the debate with Souzzi they were both asked if they had any intention of running for President some day. Eliot said no, Souzzi said yes. Last poll had him some 69 points ahead of his opponent in the primary. As far as the Republican running against him I'm not sure people actually know there is one.

[felman87]

4. I was thinking more like

Obama-McCain 2008 but that'll never happen.