Monday, April 26, 2010

The Plague Year

The Plague Year
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Mr.Lloyd Constantine’s book, “Journal of the Plague Year,” is an insider’s account of the fall of Eliot Spitzer.
This weekend CSpan Book Review showed his appearance at a private book store in Albany.
Mr.Lloyd is a very bright, type A, energenic lawyer who was,in many ways, Eliot’s alter ego.
But his personality,I believe, is grating;confrontational;and moralistic..a Spitzer soulmate; an Eliot clone.
Lloyd argues that Eliot was a transforming,reformist leader..someone who could have changed the cesspool that is Albany.
In spite of Lloyd’s hubris, he admits that Eliot insulting Bruno,Shelly and Pataki in the first inaugural speech was a mistake.
You need to break eggs to make an omelette, but you also have to deal and broker with Bruno and Shelly.
The confrontational hubris that worked well in attacking Wall Street was counterproductive with Bruno and Shelly.
Directly trying to bring Bruno down, leading to Troopergate, was silly hubris from lawyer mindsets.
Eliot’s attempt to flip the Senate backfired. Mario Cuomo never tried that; and survived for 12 years.
The great tragedy is that Eliot could have been a positive transforming leader. His downfall has made the Capitol worse than ever.
In his strange self-centered hubris, Lloyd suggests that Eliot became Client 9 because he had stopped playing tennis with Lloyd. Eliot had too much energy stored.
Right!

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