Welcome Instapundit readers!
I read Kimberly Strassel's piece in the WSJ this evening. The following struck me:
The fact that Spitzer(D,NY) would often find "enemies" and take off on a slash and burn campaign to destroy them with little to nothing to go on reminded me of D.A. Ronnie Earle(D,TX) and D.A. Mike Nifong(D,NC).Mr. Spitzer's main offense as a prosecutor is that he violated the basic rules of fairness and due process: Innocent until proven guilty; the right to your day in court. The Spitzer method was to target public companies and officials, leak allegations and out-of-context emails to a compliant press, watch the stock price fall, threaten a corporate indictment (a death sentence), and then move in for a quick settlement kill. There was rarely a trial, fair or unfair, involved.
On the substance, his court record speaks for itself. Most of Mr. Spitzer's high-profile charges have gone up in smoke. A New York state judge threw out his case against tax firm H&R Block. He lost his prosecution against Bank of America broker Ted Sihpol (whom Mr. Spitzer threatened to arrest in front of his child and pregnant wife). Mr. Spitzer was stopped by a federal judge from prying confidential information out of mortgage companies. Another New York judge blocked the heart of his suit against Mr. Grasso. Mr. Greenberg continues to fight his civil charges. The press was foursquare behind Mr. Spitzer in all these cases, and in a better world they'd share some of his humiliation.
Austin Texas D.A. Ronnie Earle (D), you may recall, is the one who empanelled no less than seven grand juries to secure an indictment of Rep. Tom Delay (R,TX). So far, Mr. DeLay has not been prosecuted. One would think that Mr. Earle would have brought a case by now, almost three years on.
Mr. Earle also filed charges and got an indictment, after raiding her office, against Rep. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R,TX) back in 1993. He had no evidence against her and tried to drop the charges at a pre-trial hearing. The judge didn't allow it and ordered the jury to return a "not guilty" verdict. Ronnie Earle, a major democrat contributor, clearly does the bidding of his masters and will attempt to destroy whomever they don't like.
Then there's Durham County (N.C.) D.A. Mike Nifong of Duke Lacrosse Team Scandal infamy. Nifong, with a victim whose story constantly changed, suppressed evidence, frequently talked about the case on talk shows, whipped up the Durham black community into a frenzy and ran for reelection on the case. Nifong was convicted of criminal contempt for false statements and has been disbarred. He spent at least a year destroying the lives of the players involved based on little or no evidence.
We know that liberals frequently lie and attempt to destroy people they disagree with. It's clearly even worse when they're in positions of power as in the case of these three. Consider also Sen. Harry Reid's (D,NV) abuse of power. Obviously liberals are dangerous people who will do whatever it takes to ruin your life and your reputation and rarely will they be held accountable.
What's worse is that they have a fawning media to back their plays.
UPDATE: Was listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show, from yesterday, this morning and he had this to say:
"Eliot Spitzer is what Mike Nifong wanted to be. If you really haven't followed Spitzer's career and you don't know much about him, Spitzer had to be Nifong's role model. I mean, this kind of excess -- no control, no discipline, pure exercise of political power to destroy people -- is exactly what Spitzer was engaged in."
HT: WSJ & GayPatriotWest
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