Harry Reynolds reviews Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer by Brooke Masters, at Nth Position:
Spitzer, transforming what attorney generals do, attacked midwestern power plants for polluting New York, ripped into the Food Emporium and A&P, Gristedes and other major supermarkets and drugstore chains, for mindboggling working conditions of immigrant deliverymen, and convicted the first felonious sweatshop operator in a decade. His unsuccessful attempt to bring gun manufacturers under control proved him a man of initiative, practical, yet moral, quick to learn early the golden lesson of watching one’s back even when dealing with one’s apparent ally, a lesson he may have occasion to recall when governor. As for righteous anger, when the Red Cross attempted to divert 9/11 funds to its other causes, Spitzer seized it, as it were, by the neck, compelling it to use every cent for 9/11 victims.
Turning towards Wall Street, Spitzer saw hanging fruit ripe for the taking. When Merrill Lynch was taken by Spitzer in the direction of the gallows for bid rigging, its attorney, Robert Morvillo, warned Spitzer that “Merrill Lynch has a lot of powerful friends”.
More here.
