Throughout his political career, Eliot Spitzer relentlessly promoted the feminist movement’s agenda.

To curry their favor, as attorney general, he harassed pro-life health clinics and broke up prostitution rings.  At press conferences he described call girl operations as a “scourge,” as “egregious,” an “abuse of young women,” and a “systematic exploitation and suppression of young women that is simply unacceptable.”

As governor he introduced legislation “to enshrine the protections of Roe v. Wade in New York State law.”

The Catholic Courier recently reported that Spitzer’s radical bill, Reproduction Health and Privacy Protection Act (RHAPP), “would establish the choice to terminate a pregnancy as a protected and fundamental right, and would ensure that abortions were legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy…. It would also allow post-viability abortions to be performed outside of hospitals and on an outpatient basis in clinics…. The proposal also would eliminate the conscience protection in current law, which allow doctors and hospitals to refuse to perform abortions; medical students to refuse to lean how to perform abortions; and Catholic agencies, hospitals and schools to refuse to provide insurance coverage for abortions.”

It should be noted that since the Spitzer prostitution story broke on March 10, feminist groups have been silent.  Not one word; not even a statement of sympathy for Mrs. Spitzer and her daughters.

Meanwhile, Spitzer’s foe, the spiritual leader of New York’s Roman Catholics, Edward Cardinal Egan, who has huge policy disagreements with Spitzer and whose scheduled Monday, March 10, Albany meeting with the governor was abruptly cancelled, has not been silent.  The Cardinal said he would be “keeping the governor and his family in his prayers.”

One can only hope that Eliot Spitzer grasps the irony.

I was very grateful for the positive reactions to my March 2, 2008 essay “William F. Buckley Jr. – My Political Godfather.”

I was surprised, however, that so many people had forgotten or were unaware that Bill Buckley had a significant presence on New York’s political stage.

To understand why New York conservatives revered him, please read the following Buckley comments on local pols: (more…)

For me and scores of young New York conservatives in the 1960s, William F. Buckley Jr. was more than a journalist, novelist and TV personality; he was the man who fired us up to fight for our principles in the political trenches in our neighborhoods.  To Buckley’s 1965 mayoral campaign slogan, “Do you have the guts to listen?” our answer was a resounding, “Yes!” (more…)

For decades municipal bond insurers prospered:  they collected handsome fees for providing coverage that guaranteed to pay principal and interest if municipal issurers failed to pay on a due date.  This insurance underwriting job was easy because municipal defaults are rare.  Between 1940 and 1990, for instance, only three-tenths of one percent of municipal issuers failed to pay off their bonded debt – only 1,200 out of 400,000 tax-exempt bond deals.

The growth of the bond insurance business closely paralleled the increase in individual investors, as opposed to institutions, in the marketplace.  Individuals, the dominant buyers of municipal bonds, do not want to hear about a risk when talking about what is often their retirement money.  Retail investors are usually risk averse, and often will sacrifice a few basis points in yield in exchange for the added security of bond insurance.

In recent years, however, the management of bond insurance companies endangered their very profitable and risk averse business by insuring esoteric bond issues that very few people fully understood.  Also, to increase the yield in their investment portfolios they used capital to purchase these complex securities.

When the sub-prime mortgage market collapsed last year these insurers (i.e., MBIA, Ambac, FGIC) were caught between a rock and a hard place.  Their capital drastically declined because they had to write down many securities backed by worthless sub-prime mortgages held in their investment portfolios, and their pay outs on the defaulted debt significantly increased.  As a result of this predicament, the major rating agencies threatened to drop the triple A rating of the insurers.  (Two weeks ago Fitch rating service downgraded Ambac to a double A rating.)

Hoping to be proclaimed the saviors of Wall Street, New York’s governor, Eliot Spitzer, and his insurance commissioner have been trying to steamroll the major banks and insurance companies into embracing their controversial bail-out proposal that calls for: 

– the endangered insurers to split their companies into two new entities, one that contains the safer insured municipal policies and one that holds the vulnerable guarantees;

– the banks to infuse the bond insurers with the cash/lines of credit needed to maintain their triple A ratings.  (The Spitzer administration argues that the losses bank investment portfolios will take if insurance ratings are downgraded will be far greater than the amount of money they invest to shore up the ailing insurance companies.)

Sadly, on Friday, February 22, 2008, Ambac Financial Group agreed to a version of this plan.

The Spitzer solution is not only ridiculous, but is a sterling example of arrogant and overreaching government activism.  No doubt, Ambac policyholders will sue to block the plan and their shareholders will not vote to approve it.  Neither will agree to decrease the insurance risk pool.  They will not permit Ambac to abrogate contracts.

Governor Spitzer must learn that he does not have dictatorial powers; that he cannot impose his misguided policies by threats and browbeating.  Ambac policyholders and shareholders must teach Spitzer that he is not above the rules, that he cannot abuse power, that he cannot violate the sanctity of a contract and that he is not the smartest man in the room.

Three days before the New York presidential primary, The New York Times published an above the fold article titled, “As State Primary Nears, Pataki is Barely Visible.”  Rationalizing the former governor’s disappearing act, a Pataki spokesman said, “…I think he is more active with a national outlook rather than a state one.”

The real reason Pataki has become a political non-entity is that Republicans and Conservatives prefer to forget his years in office.  They are angry that fiscally, economically and culturally, Pataki sold them down the river.  They are ashamed of an administration that discarded principles and catered to enriching lobbyists, contributors and political cronies.  They are embarrassed by this gruesome Pataki record: (more…)