Spitzer Fire
Who is more ridiculous: the jerk or the jerks who report on him?
By now, everybody knows that reform-minded/law-and-order-spouting
New York governor
Eliot Spitzer has been implicated in a major call-girl ring bust. (Pun-lovers,
don't go there.)
This is sad for his voters, supporters, and family, of course,
but given things that are really wrong in the world, we'd rank this particular
non-event substantially below, say, African genocide and (only because Spitzer
is an elected official) a half-step above Britney's shopping list.
Reaction from the high-end press (never mind that the New York Times broke the story) has been
restrained. The mouths watered at the tabloids, on the other hand, and we got
headlines like "PAY FOR LUV GUV" from the Daily News, and the
minimalist "HO NO!" from the New
York Post. Thanks to the Internet, anybody can play the tasteless headline
game. You can take your turn at the Write Your Own Post Headline blog. (Ignore
the morons who didn't get the gag and merely contributed stupid comments.)
On the official side of things, there seem to be two slightly
divergent state-run New York
governor sites. The one linked from the current New York State site (click
"Governor Spitzer," under "Executive") takes you to a place
where the "Governor's Photo Gallery" features a string of inconsequential
podium shots, which no doubt flattered certain constituents when they were
posted.
But there's a parallel "Governor's Photo Gallery,"
reachable via a presumably decommissioned official Spitzer bio page. This one
features lots of happy Spitzer family pictures — including a few very sad ones
of the grinning gubernatorial cad posing with his teenage daughters. There's a
good chance these are not the photos that the state of New York wants to show up under the next Luv
Guv headline. Thank you for the irony, Google.
The blog people are out in full force, of course, with the
predictable wide range of opinion — from the dismissive "Dog Bites Man Story"
to an especially repulsive one titled "Burn in Hell, Eliot Spitzer."
But the prize (so far) goes to the Slice site — a forum
apparently devoted to pizza. Here we learn that the wayward state executive
doomed himself to ignominy by once endorsing an upstate pizza chain over
genuine New York–style pies.
We think we have this one covered from every possible angle.