Charles Kaiser on the media's coverage of Spitzer-gate

Stephen Colbert Was Ahead of the Curve

Last night, Colbert declared that "the Clinton campaign is now hopelessly crippled by its deep involvement in a sex-for-money bombshell." On Monday, that seemed like nothing more than his best laugh line of the night. Twelve hours later, lots of people were taking that story line seriously.

Agence-France Presse was first on the ground in Mississippi to report a voter swing because of the Spitzer sex-for-pay scandal. One voter told the French news agency: "[T]he scandal reminded her too much of former president Bill Clinton's own troubles stemming from an affair with a White House intern. 'I actually love Mrs. Clinton, but when that came on TV yesterday about this man [Spitzer], it changed my mind completely,' said the voter."

David Letterman also made the connection on Monday. Number one on his list of Spitzer's top 10 excuses: "I thought Bill Clinton legalized this years ago."

Today blogger and PR guru Ned Barnett expanded on the theme: "The real reason why Senator Hillary Clinton is the real loser is simple: Here, in the 10th anniversary year of the Monica Lewinsky meltdown, the last thing Senator Clinton needs is for America to be reminded of the facts and details surrounding her husband Bill's exploitative tryst with intern Monica Lewinsky. Yet today's fallen political unfaithful husband, Eliot Spitzer, will do nothing so much as he will remind America of that other unfaithful political husband ... Bill Clinton."

(Barnett also pointed out that Howard Wolfson's comparison of the Obama campaign to Ken Starr was a huge blunder: "It brought up what may be the most shameful and painful part of Senator Clinton's life—and the last thing she needs is for people to start remembering what her tenure in the White House was really like.")

In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank pointed out, "In selecting the Mayflower, [Spitzer] chose the same hotel believed to have been used for assignations by John F. Kennedy, and the very place where Monica Lewinsky stayed when she testified about her tryst with Bill Clinton.

The Associated Press also thought the Spitzer mess was a blow to Clinton, who recently had intensified her criticism of rival Barack Obama's relationship with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a political patron on trial in federal court in Obama's hometown of Chicago for alleged fraud and corruption.

Except for El Diario, which went with the straightforward "VERGÜENZA!" ["Shame!"], local tabloid headlines were a little disappointing, with the Post going with "HO NO!" and the Daily News choosing "PAY FOR LOVE GUV." (Among New York magazine's unused suggestions: NAILED, SCREWED, SPENT, RING STING, and HOOK, LINE & SPITZER.)

All of which reminded me of my favorite headline of all time, which had the dual virtues of brevity and wit:

HE CAME AND HE WENT

That how the Village Voice summarized Nelson Rockefeller's collapse in the arms of his 25-year-old paramour, Megan Marshack.

The schadenfreude was loudest on Wall Street, where there were cheers on the floor of the stock exchange, and the Dow Jones Industrial average was up by 219 points at midday today.

On editorial pages, the score was three "go nows" (Post, Daily News, and Newsday) to three attacks with no explicit recommendations (New York Times, New York Sun, Wall Street Journal) to one silence (Washington Post). On New York 1, immediately after the story broke on the New York Times website, political reporter Dominic Carter was the most decisive of all: "He cannot survive this!" Over at CNN, the reporter reading the gory details of Spitzer's tryst from the federal complaint ended by saying, "I'm nauseous now—I guess that's enough."

Newsday went with a centerfold of the all-time great political sex scandals of the past 50 years, including Larry Craig (2006), James McGreevey (2004), Bill Clinton (1998), Gary Hart (1987—complete with the famous National Enquirer cover with Donna Rice on his lap), and Nelson Rockefeller (1963—when he divorced his first wife to marry his mistress, Happy.) Newsday's Bob Kessler was also first with the news that Spitzer had used the Emperor's Club "seven or eight times" in Washington and Florida, among other places.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page saw Client 9's indiscretions as one more piece of evidence of Spitzer's "self-destructive inability to recognize any limit on his compulsions," previously on display when he tried to smear New York senate majority leader Joseph Bruno. "On any level, it was nuts."

Finally, the Washington Post offered the best coda: "By late afternoon yesterday, the Mayflower had stationed a security guard on the eighth floor to keep the scandal-minded at bay. Some of the camera-toting tourists had already dubbed it the 'Spitzer Hotel.' But Kristen and Client 9 were long gone. In their place, reporters arriving on the scene encountered a bit of fitting imagery for the New York governor: a meeting of the National Funeral Directors Association."

As for the $5,000 question on everyone's mind—what do you get for that much money?—an Albany veteran offered me the best suggestion, involving Spitzer's arch Republican rival: "He wanted her to dress up like Joe Bruno."

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Big Moment for the Gray Lady: The New York Times broke the Spitzer story on its website yesterday. These were the reporters trying to keep the paper abreast of it today: Danny Hakim ,William K. Rashbaum, John Sullivan, Jennifer Anderson, Cara Buckley, Sewell Chan, Sushil Cheema, David W. Chen, Alison Leigh Cowan, Jane Gottlieb, Jason Grant, Kate Hammer, Patrick Healy, Raymond Hernandez, C. J. Hughes, Andrew Jacobs, Daryl Khan, David Kocieniewski, Serge F. Kovaleski, Angela Macropoulos, Colin Moynihan, Don Van Natta Jr., Patrick McGeehan, Jeremy W. Peters, Sam Roberts and Stacey Stowe.

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Reporter: Richard Vanderford


Charles Kaiser
www.Radaronline.com/fullcourtpress

Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. To learn more, visit charleskaiser.com.