Spitzer

Don’t cry for Spitzer. He was no progressive. These overweening hyper-prosecutors (Rudy G., anyone?) are incredibly dangerous, even when they go after the bad guys. Tom Robbins, whose piece in this week’s Voice is quite good, notes Spitzer’s similarity to the last golden boy prosecutor to ride the political system up, up, and almost away: Thomas Dewey. (As in Dewey Defeats Truman.) In 1936, Dewey became famous for putting away Lucky Luciano, but it eventually developed that he did it crookedly, with perjured testimony. Now, Luciano was undoubtedly a mobster, but that is no excuse for subverting the rule of law. Dewey eventually helped get Luciano out of jail and exiled, perhaps out of his own guilt.
*
Now, Patterson sounds much more promising. A progressive, who has long reprsented a poor district that's most African-American, he has a sense of humor. Unheard of in Albany.