(Note this previously appeared on Groundreport.com when Eliot Spitzer was still the Governor of Occupied New York. He is currently seeking the Democrat nomination for Comptroller of the City of New York. The Libertarian candidate for Comptroller is Hesham El-Meligy and the Libertarian candidate for mayor is Michael Sanchez
www.manhattanlp.org).
"Who
will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"
In the 1964 movie Becket, King Henry II of England as played by
Peter
O'Toole implores his henchmen with these words. Substitute Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno
for
Archbishop
of Canterbury Thomas รก Becket and the probable solution for the mystery hanging
over New York's State Capitol
in the Choppergate scandal appears. We
may never know if New York Governor Eliot Spitzer explicitly ordered
his aides to smear Bruno by manipulating
the State Police and the news media. He
didn't have to spell it out. That
is what makes a good henchman.
Spitzer's
aides obtained information under false pretenses from the State Police on Senator Bruno's
travels
in a state helicopter at taxpayer's expense.
Then they leaked this information to the news media to embarrass Bruno. Both Team Spitzer and Bruno are in the
wrong. The manipulation of the State
Police for political benefit is frightening.
Senator
Bruno did official business for very little time per trip on these fundraising
jaunts.
But
it is not enough to question the use of taxpayer funds for political purposes
as opposed to official business. Libertarians
like myself point out that so-called official business is political. Why do Governor Spitzer, let alone Senator Bruno or
Democrat Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, have to travel outside Albany at
taxpayer's expense? Aren't the bill
signings, facility opening ceremonies
and "fact-finding" visits really just trips to promote themselves,
their party, and state power in general?
The
distinction between official and political is false and artificial. The official visits are largely propaganda
exercises. We
see this readily enough in dictatorships, why not in democracies?
To
Libertarians, Spitzer, Bruno and Silver are the leaders of gangs engaged in
legalized theft, corrupting the voters. Their
trips are part of the corruption. The
reform mask is stripped bare from the evil Sheriff of Albany as just another rascal.
http://www.groundreport.com/article.php?articleID=2834746
Labels: Eliot Spitzer, Michael Sanchez, New York politics, NY gubernatorial election, NYC Comptroller race, NYC politics, Party, Scott Stringer, sex scandal
