INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

Eliot Spitzer's rise was through his position as attorney general of New York. In that role, he was known as the Sheriff of Wall Street, taking on corporations like AIG and Bank of America. He was aggressive, and confrontational, and the only thing he seemed to love more than going after malfeasants was reporting to the public on efforts-modesty was not one of Spitzer's more obvious traits. He had a tremendous success rate going after some of the most powerful financial institutions. Needless to say, he made some very powerful enemies. His ascent to the governorship was a foregone conclusion even before he stated his intentions to run-a full two years before the election. Spitzer won handily against a little-known Republican challenger, and billing himself as a steamroller, set out to battle the close-knit, often corrupt power structure in Albany. Needless to say, he made another set of powerful enemies, many of these the people who would normally have been his allies in the Democratic party. Then, just over a year after he took office, it was over. Spitzer was brought down by a scandal so tawdry and inane, it almost defies credibility. Eliot Spitzer was discovered to be Client 9, a regular at an elite escort service. He wasn't found out because of a chatty sex worker or a National Enquirer reporter who was in the right place at the right time, but because of the sloppy way the governor paid for services rendered and an unusually intensive federal investigation into the dealings of the service. The scandal actually made Spitzer more famous than he'd ever been. The story of the fall of a self-righteous, powerful person, the mix of stupidity and salaciousness, particularly the detail that Spitzer left his black dress socks on during the encounter, spawned reams of print and Web articles and opinions, making Spitzer something of a national joke. Certainly, the state of New York was the worse for it, the governorship left to Spitzer's less-than qualified lieutenant, David Patterson. While people were shocked, not everyone was sorry to see him go.