And so Eliot Spitzer is gone, delivering the same type of condemning speech to mark the departure that he dished out for years.
Only this time he inveighed against himself.
As the state's attorney general, Spitzer always liked the fast plea deal followed by the big press conference that announced its conclusion.
Then he could move on to the next task.
Spitzer, never one for going to trial, held the biggest press conference of his life -- like Gloria Swanson* at the end of Sunset Blvd. -- and tried to show as much ordinary humanity as he could for a broken, sick individual.
It has been two days since cheers erupted on the trading floors...
on the shocking announcemnt that Wall Street's old assailant had been caught not-so-figuratively with his pants down.
Now he has turned into a Spitzer-style defendant: No long defense, an agreement to somehow make it right.
He moves on, leaving David Paterson, his hand-picked 2006 running-mate as governor.
Paterson will be different in more ways than his status as the first African American New York governor or his visual disability.
He was said to be collegial in his time as legislative leader, and unlike his predecessor has never utilized the pointed finger as a political instrument.
In Albany, they are even talking about getting the budget done on time now that his ally has left the building.
In politics, you couldn't find a more different profile in Paterson. If Paterson gets in trouble it could be because of his sense of humor, rather than his lack of one. His background is one of political pedigree, from the Harlem Democrats, rather than self-styled outsider-reformer.
The chemistry is changed.
*Thanks to the alert Suffolk man for correcting my error in saying it was Joan Crawford
Comments (1)
No Mommy Dearest in Sunset Blvd, it was Gloria Swanson.