POLITICAL WITCH-HUNTING:

The Abuser Abused: Eliot Spitzer Meets the Real Governor of New York

Several glaring pieces of evidence indicate that Spitzer was the subject of a secret, free-floating federal investigation by George W. Bush's thoroughly corrupt Justice Department.

And yet....Arthur Silber -- taking the lead, as usual -- notes that Spitzer has been hoist on his own petard. He is himself a past master of the politically targeted prosecution, complete with the use of arcane, outdated laws to fetch in suspects and strip them of their rights. He has also been an enthusiastic supporter of the liberty-gutting Surveillance State and the unfettered rampages of its security apparat. [See Silber for the details.] Silber's conclusion is stark, and apt:

Prostitution involving consenting adults cannot defensibly be regarded as a crime. In that sense, Spitzer should never have been targeted at all for that alleged offense. But it is currently illegal, as all basically functioning adults are fully aware. Given Spitzer's unfathomable stupidity -- and in light of the fact that he is now the victim of the kinds of overreaching police state tactics that he himself has endlessly championed and utilized -- this can only be regarded as an instance of an especially objectionable, arrogant, overweening, power-mad, vicious son of a bitch himself getting exactly what he has been delightedly happy to dish out to others.

Let's come back to the stupidity angle. Spitzer was regarded as some kind of rising star in national politics -- even a future president. But really now -- if Spitzer is too stupid to realize what kind of country he is living in, if he really didn't realize that, as prominent political figure, his every move was under surveillance by the vast security network of the Unitary Executive, how smart could he actually be? In the end, he comes across as nothing more than a second-rate chump riding for a fall, one of many abusers of power who come to believe that they themselves will never be subject to its abuse: an old, dreary story.

What is interesting, however, is why the security apparat didn't keep the prostitution angle under wraps. They could have used it as leverage for years to "guide" Spitzer toward the "correct" policies as he made his national ascent. Maybe somebody just had a grudge against him. Or perhaps -- more likely -- Spitzer's fall was engineered as a warning (or a reminder) to even higher figures to play ball, or else. "Just remember: anyone can be gotten to, and we won't hesitate to do it. Go ahead and play the game, pander to your base, use any kind of rhetoric you want, nobody cares about all that. But when push comes to shove, you better support the interests of the imperial-corporate complex, or you are going down. You savvy?"

And that's the way it works down in the bowels of power in the shining city on the hill. Pretty, ain't it?

Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University. Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque, and is also chief editor of Atlantic Free Press. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.

This column is republished here with the permission of the author.