Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010)

The story of Eliot Spitzer is certainly interesting: an abrasive man who fought the demigods of Wall Street; a moral crusader brought down by his own lusts. The tale also provides insights into high-class prostitution and raises the idea that a conspiracy existed against a man who made a career of making enemies. But the problem with this documentary is that is doesn't ask hard enough questions. Spitzer is allowed to brush off charges of his own monstrous behaviour; his enemies likewise side-step the charges of conspiracy; while the call-girls are allowed to simper their way through the program unchallenged. And some stories are silly - Spitzer implies his father was ruthless because he beat his son at 'Monopoly'! One is tempted to feel that all of them deserve each other; but the ordinary people of New York lost a highly flawed champion when Spitzer fell - you may not like him, but the financial services industry suffers little authority gladly, and arguably we are all now living with the consequences.

Elliot Spitzer looks dead pan into the camera and says that 'God gives all the power to the men he chooses to destroy'. If you believe in God then by now you know that he is white, rich, a WASP and more than likely a Republican. Because the lengths Spitzers enemies all rich, white, powerful republicans went to destroy Elliot is not humanly possible. The vile and contempt they have for him is only matched by the anger they unleashed on Bill Clinton. While countless Republicans are caught cheating with prostitutes, women, men, interns they seem to walk away with far less damage than there Democratic counterparts. And the simple reason is that Republicans have mastered the art of making morality an issue for Democratic leaders when they barely have any of their own. And the reason for that is the American public. We are such gullible fools that we are willing to crucify Spitzer for his sexual transgression while the rich powerful Republicans plunder, loot and rape our banks and our whole financial system. But we average Americans are so stupid and ignorant that we are more concerned where Spitzers dick has been instead of all his actions of bringing all these wall street crooks to justice. Long before AIG failed Spitzer warned and prosecuted AIG for cooking books. The CEO Greenberg resigned when much like Kenneth Lay of Enron claimed that he had no idea what was going on in his company. He then said to Charlie Rose that his stock was worthless and now only valued at 100 million. These people will never care about the common man. And they will bury any man who takes up the cause of the common man. SPITZER IS TODAY"S ROBINHOOD. So what if he is an outlaw because he banged prostitutes. Let his wife Judge him for that, not some vile greedy rich white men who think they are gods.

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York, is a man of great integrity who made a lot of enemies while he was the only one with enough guts to bring to justice men in higher positions of the financial world. Mr. Spitzer had one of the brightest futures in American politics had he still been in charge as New York's attorney general, or even as governor of the state. His victory was one of the most short lived, perhaps, in the history of politics.This powerful man was winning every possible battle against the corruption that is so prevalent in those higher spheres. Eliot Spitzer went after powerful figures, notably the case against Maurice Greenberg, who profited handsomely from his tenure at AIG, one of the firms the US government had to rescue from collapsing. Kenneth Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, and good friend of Mr. Greenberg, had a beef against Mr. Spitzer, who also dared to question the 139 million package given to Richard Grasso, former head of the New York Stock Exchange.It was Mr. Langone who vowed revenge from his arch enemy and the people in his circle that were being questioned by Eliot Spitzer. It was not too hard for this rich wheeler dealer to find the right man to begin tailing the governor. What the investigator found was a side of Mr. Spitzer that was contrary to the public image he projected of rectitude and honesty. Mr. Spitzer's weakness was for highly paid prostitutes. One in particular, caught his fancy and that proved to be the beginning of his own downfall. Unfortunately, the higher ups that were so corrupt, won. The day of his resignation several of the figures that were investigated by Mr. Spitzer toasted merrily about the fall of their avowed enemy at "21", a place where all these influential men gather to socialize.The documentary is a lesson in dirty politics. Directed by Alex Gibney, the man that has given us many interesting and informative documents in which recent history about wrongdoing by the rich and powerful go unpunished because of their access to powerful lawyers that are able to get them out of their jams with impunity. Sadly, Mr. Spitzer did not have to have resigned. After all, have we not seen other men in similar situations go on without batting an eyelash? A former American president included?

Film manages to maintain interest without seeming overtly like a propaganda piece which is what i honestly thought it would be going in. *honestly why else would the ex governor have even participated if it wasn't for the opportunity to rehabilitate his image went my logic--an idea i'm sure many other people have thought when wondering if they should bother checking this one out. I can't really say whether you should check it out or not---it will help if you have a tolerance for smirking, and self justification (and yet somehow Spitzer doesn't indulge in the latter--remaining completely on point that he had no one to blame but himself for his own actions...what can i say? i was hoping for someone who sees conspiracy theories everywhere.) Can't help but wonder how this is going to hold up in the coming decade or two. Will it hold together as a film? will it hold as a narrative that years from now people whom have never heard of Spitzer will be able to watch this and have interest in it?, sadly i think it probably will to a certain extent---not so much because of Spitzer's fall from grace (that will inevitably repeat itself in another high ranking politician and this will if anything just seem like business as usual.) but because of the various people--wall streeters, and gov. officials interviewed throughout who take delight in seeing Spitzer smeared. Its all kinds of creepy to see these guys and gals taking such glee in being interviewed about Spitzer as well as defending themselves from Spitzer's previous accusations against them when he was a crusading governor/state attorney---you kind of start to wonder what kind of documentary these guys thought they were being interviewed for exactly.I mean in what capacity did these guys rationalize themselves into being interviewed for this doc? Was it this same rationality that led to Spitzer thinking he could continue seeing these prostitutes indefinitely without any ramifications? Why do such high ranking guys of both the governmental kind and the wall street kind think they can rationalize every action they take away as if they had a perfectly logical reason for doing what they do?) If anything can be taken away from this documentary, its not that you should be careful how you conduct yourself, its not that you should be careful whose feathers you ruffle (in the metaphorical sense of course), its not even that you shouldn't have sex with prostitutes if you're a government official (you especially shouldn't have sex with prostitutes who recognize you from the news)---its that very successful high ranking people of all professions can sell themselves on anything, especially when they really shouldn't. Throughout the film the director keeps coming back to an interview with the giggling young woman who ran the prostitution ring in the first place...and she still so obviously thinks that she did nothing wrong running such a business and making a lot of money doing so. Perhaps that's even why these people are so successful in the first place. That they're such good salesmen, that they can even fool themselves into thinking they can do anything and get away with anything because they'll always be able to rationalize it away. That they're such good salesmen that even after getting caught, they can still feel like they didn't do anything wrong at all. Overconfidence kills. (also a potential question---why are all the super successful people in this movie all seem to be sociopaths as well? and what is that supposed to mean?)