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This Spitzer mess is making at least one group of people — well, another group of people, after State Senate Republicans — very happy. Financiers are predictably cackling, especially those who have gone through what a lawyer for tycoon Richard Strong calls “the Eliot process.” (As A.G., Spitzer made Strong fork over $60 million and accept a lifetime ban from Wall Street for improper trading.) It’s a testament to the lasting effects of the process, however, that the Times fails to get any of the big fish to slander the guv on or even off the record. Instead, we get “a senior banker” quipping that “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” and “an executive” intoning “what goes around comes around.” Bo-ring! We want more color: Hank Greenberg yelling “Who’s the fraud now?!” or Dick Grasso doing a little revenge dance. Of course, as a reader of The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog — which coins the term “Spitzerfreude” — sagely notes, “This relatively small scandal certainly doesn’t mean that Grasso and Greenberg are not thieves.” True, that.
Spitzer’s Woes Are Enjoyed on Wall Street [NYT]
Spitzer Schadenfreude [Law Blog/WSJ]
