David Weidner of Dow Jones’ Market Watch writes, “The real Eliot was always there. We just averted our eyes.” We, white man? Plenty of conservative and libertarian writers expressed their concerns about Spitzer’s Giuliani versus Drexel Burnham with the Marshall stacks turned up to 11 approach. But in contrast, the liberal New York media were typically more than happy to roll over for someone like Spitzer, Weidner notes:
It’s the editors and reporters who stepped out of their roles when it came to making Spitzer too good to be true. Big papers dutifully leaked embarrassing details about Spitzer’s targets, generated by the attorney general’s office, while protecting the source of the information. In most cases, reporters put careerism ahead of fairness or, at least, questioning the tactics of one of the state’s leading law-enforcement officials.
At the height of his power, Spitzer was in control, and instead of challenging him, the media was part of his machine.
Doesn’t this sound identical to the New York press’s see-no-evil approach to Hillary Clinton, particularly when she first ran for the Senate in 2000?
One of the media’s Folk Marxist tropes is a century-old line that’s still trotted out to this day: “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” (Gee, that’s the very definition of objective and clinical, huh?) No wonder the press saw Spitzer as a kindred spirit.
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