Last November, voting for Eliot Spitzer for New York Governor, I recalled Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.  “Will Spitzer live up to expectations, or down?”  I later wrote.  Few ask any more.

            Spitzer entered office the Sheriff of Wall Street:  confident or cocksure, depending on your view.  We knew that he would walk a mile for a camera.  We know now that he doesn’t  care if state government even runs in place.

            In nine months, the self-proclaimed reformer has done the impossible:  make predecessor George Pataki look good.  Having lived down to great expectations, our new Governor, were he honest, would resign.  He won’t, since he’s not.

            Spitzer took office touting himself a “f____ steamroller.”  First, he bullied fellow Democrats, then tried using state police to smear GOP State Senate leader Joseph Bruno.  Caught, he refused to testify, mocked subpoena, and covered up, aping another Eliot, T.S., who wrote:  “We are the hollow men … headpiece filled with straw.”

            In January, a Quinnipiac University state poll gave Spitzer 75 percent approval v. today’s 47. In an overwhelmingly Democratic state, 78 percent of all voters now say he should testify under oath about what he knew – and when he knew it.  Decent men come clean.   Indecent men play dirty with the opposition:  worse, the law.

            Recently, Spitzer said he will grant drivers’ licenses without a Social Security number to prove eligibility, spurning immigration status.  Illegal aliens snub the law.  The reformer would enable them.  On 9/11 2001, animals took the lives of nearly 3,000 New Yorkers.  Mind-blind,  Spitzer disregards how lax security can kill.  Message:  Terrorism, come on down.

            Spitzer’s crackpot scheme would let virtually anyone get a license, ignoring background and intent.  Illegals could open a bank account, register to vote, or enter a Federal building, violating Congress’ new National Identity card legislation.  Spitzer would risk the life of each New Yorker to save the unsaveable:  the wreckage of his office.  Whose view?  Not mine alone.

            Ex-New York Democratic Mayor Ed Koch calls the Governor’s plan “bizarre.”  A  Conservative Party ad blasts “Border Line Insanity.  Along the Mexican border, police lock up illegals.  Spitzer rewards them.”  Even the sans spine Republican Party attacks Spitzer’s defending the indefensible.  A state Zogby Poll rejects the plan, 58-35 percent, each region turning a clear thumbs-down. 

            State county clerks would have to administer this farce.  Instead, they voted decisively

to condemn.  Spitzer “has forgotten … 9/11,” said one.  Another:  “It will cause a significant influx of illegal immigrants.”  Typically, the reformer vilified critics:  “Dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong … and” – my favorite – “ethically wrong.”  A toady even said a driver’s license should depend on “skill, age, and lack of incapacities.  It should not be based on citizenship.”  Such logic would give a license to Osama Ben Ladin.

            Spitzer’s madness is clear.  Political method, though, exists, too.  Reeling, New York’s scandal-stained Governor needs to appease what one columnist calls his party’s far-left “wackadoo” wing that excused Chappaquiddick, condoned Bill Clinton’s perjury, demanded an outcome-based 2000 Florida recount, and made Paul Wellstone’s memorial service an orgy of slash and hate. 

            Last November, I wrote that to succeed, Spitzer would have to “confront [t]his base,” preferring, as it does, multiculturalism, identity-group politics, and open borders to the middle class, general interest, and U.S. sovereignty.  Confront it?  Spitzer obeys it.  Once he vowed reform “substantial in size and historic in scope.”  His real reform is to trash his oath.  

            Spitzer has shredded credibility: thus, trust.  Without trust, you cannot lead.  An honest Legislature would impeach the Governor.  An honest Sheriff would hand in his badge.  In one sense, Spitzer resembles an unstable diva.  In another, he paraphrases Rene Descartes:  “I lie, therefore I am.”

            Gerald Ford pronounced ours “A Nation of laws, not men.”  Spitzer deems himself the law.  Such a man is unfit to be Governor.

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