Spitzer must tell truth about scandal

The longer he ignores, the longer he runs away, the longer he stimmers and stammers the worse it looks for him. It wasn’t the crime that took down Nixon, it was the cover up. Will the same happen here? Really makes you wonder how he ran the AG office.

Opinion: Spitzer must tell truth about scandal

I grew up on Dick, Jane and Sally. You aren’t old enough to remember those children’s books? My, what you missed!

“See Dick run. Run. Run. Run.”

It’s bad enough we baby boomers had to cut our reading teeth on this stuff, but we are doomed to see and hear the world through its rhythms. Like the voices that have gone off in my head since Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s top aides got caught misusing the state police to smear a political opponent:

“See Eliot deny. Deny. Deny. Deny.”

“See Eliot spin. Spin. Spin. Spin.”

“See Eliot squirm. Squirm. Squirm. Squirm.”

“See Eliot apologize … ” Well, you get the drift.

But Spitzer’s latest strategy for dealing with the scandal – a truly serious one that has raised troubling questions about his character and political competence – could be summed up in another Dick-and-Jane construct: “See Eliot ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.”

It won’t work. Whatever advice Spitzer is getting (perhaps from some of the same advisers who told him to approach the legislature as a “steamroller,” instead of a statesman), ignoring the scandal by refusing to answer media questions won’t make the scandal go away.

“I’m not answering those questions” doesn’t cut it, and shouldn’t. Manipulating the State Police and abusing freedom of information laws to neutralize the clout of a political adversary is a very serious charge. If the proven actions of his aides weren’t downright Nixonian, they were anti-Democratic – as in keeping an elected official, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Brunswick), from exercising his legal right to oppose Spitzer’s agenda.
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