Warren Goldstein on Eliot Spitzer for The Huffington Post

Roger Clemens and Eliot Spitzer: Hubris and the Cocoon
By Warren Goldstein
Posted March 12, 2008, The Huffington Post


Like most New Yorkers, I've been watching the news over the past few days with a mixture of astonishment and, well, astonishment, as Eliot Spitzer has completed the Tri-State Trifecta of disgraced gubernatorial resignations. That's right -- you forgot about John Rowland, right? So here's a prediction: voters and pols are going to start paying a lot more attention to a job just about no one says she or he really wants -- Lieutenant Governor!

But the Spitzer saga is really a boon to literature and religion teachers everywhere. Where else can you see such a classic, right out of Shakespeare and the Greeks, absolutely textbook, flesh and blood demonstration of hubris, the overweening pride that leads, inevitably and inexorably, to the collapse of a public figure?

Pride goeth before a fall, says the Good Book, and who in a state full of A-list Alpha males and females, had more pride oozing out of his pores than our ex-Governor? The first Jewish President? What was he thinking about?

And of all the whorehouses in all the world to patronize. Let's see. Spitzer is (until Monday) governor of the Empire State, and has tried running it as though it were his little kingdom, so of course he spends his high rolling roll at the Emperors Club! We don't even need Tom Wolfe any more to make this stuff up!

Which brings us, believe it or not, back to Roger Clemens, who lives in such a cocoon spun out of his own pride and wealth that he thinks he can make the steroids charge go away with bluster and assertions that are even internally contradictory. Even though he'd "never discussed" HGH with Brian McNamee, turns out he'd had a major discussion with him about his wife and HGH. So was it a discussion or not? Not in Roger-land, where the only measure of truth is what Roger says it is or was. Roger, too, mistakes himself for a god who can make the world believe what he says. He too, I don't mind predicting, will be hoist on the petard of overweening pride.

But the cocoon for ballplayers -- and we should be thinking about this as the season gets closer -- gets respun every spring. Even Andy Pettite, who at least had the good grace to admit he'd done what he'd done, says he wasn't cheating -- he was just doing it for the team, just trying to heal a little quicker to help out the team. Say what? If taking banned drugs is cheating, then the whole point of taking them is to heal quicker to help out the team so the team will WIN.

Yet more hubris. More cocoons trying to protect the wealthy and talented from the realities of human life, the realities most of us live with every day.

Client Warren Goldstein on Huffington Post

Bucking the Conventional Wisdom: Why I Am Voting for Barack Obama, and Why I Bet on the New York Giants
Huffington Post, February 4, 2008

Forty-eight years ago, on the playground of Crown Elementary School, in Coronado, California, I knew that Richard Nixon should be the next President of the United States, and campaigned vigorously for him among my classmates. He'd been Vice-President for eight years, for goodness' sake, and John F. Kennedy hadn't run anything. I was nine years old, but I'd absorbed the conventional wisdom surrounding me in that Republican town, and, as it turned out, the state as well. Nixon took California in 1960. When I learned that my parents had voted for Kennedy, and as Democrats from Democratic families had never considered doing anything else, I felt betrayed.

The conventional wisdom is powerful stuff, based in experience, and it always assumes that the future will look much like yesterday and today. It's a useful guide to all kinds of things, from whom your parents are going to vote for, what your spouse would like for a birthday present, and what it takes to be a credible candidate for President. (Lots of experience, a substantial track record, and anointing by the party insiders.)

But every now and then the political calculus changes, and the conventional wisdom suddenly becomes as relevant as yesterday's stock closing prices. That's what happened during the civil rights movement beginning in Montgomery Alabama in 1955. Instead of the "slow, steady progress" on civil rights urged by proponents of the conventional wisdom, the movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. upended normal political life. Ordinary working African-Americans boycotted the Montgomery buses for 13 months, ultimately forcing a Supreme Court decision outlawing the city's segregated bus seating. While Hillary Clinton was right in pointing out the importance of Lyndon Johnson to passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, it's also true that any Democratic president, including John F. Kennedy, had he lived, could have signed them. The deeper truth is that no such bills would ever have gotten close to the President's desk without the movement sparked and led by Martin Luther King.

For 35 years, as she's fond of pointing out, Hillary Clinton has worked to improve the lot of American families. I believe her, and think she might even make a pretty good president--but only that. What's wrong with her campaign, in my view, and what hangs like an albatross around the neck of a potential Clinton presidency, is that it is almost entirely immersed in and nourished by conventional political wisdom: "experience matters most;" "she's paid her dues--she deserves it;" "Hispanics won't support a black candidate;" "incremental change is the most we can hope for;" "a female candidate has to look even more hawkish than male candidates on war and peace;" "moderation in all things."

Here's a true story. My wife, the Rev. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, went to Washington DC to lobby for immigration reform last year. When she got a chance to ask Senator Clinton why even the Senate bill was so punitive and meager rather than truly comprehensive immigration reform, the Senator replied, with great condescending energy, emphasizing each word. "Politics is the art of the possible."--the all-purpose cliché defense for legislative failure--as though Donna, who has worked in the public arena as long as Hillary has, needed any reminding.

For the rest of the article, click here.

Warren Goldstein on Barry Bonds

Full story can be found in the Chronicle, Newsday, The Courant and the Star Tribue.

San Francisco outfielder Barry Bonds, one of the most talented hitters to play Major League Baseball, as well as the single most disliked player in the game, is about to break one of the most hallowed records in all sports: Henry Aaron's lifetime home run record of 755, which Aaron took away from the game's greatest player, the legendary and beloved George Herman "Babe" Ruth.

Bonds' run-up to this extraordinary record is complicated by many factors, including the likelihood that he used steroids for several years, probably lied about it to a grand jury and could be indicted for perjury sometime this year. He also appears to be a genuinely unpleasant human being.

Nevertheless, his family pedigree reaches deep into baseball's history of segregation and reintegration. Beyond his father, Bobby, a 14-year major leaguer, there's his godfather, Hall of Fame slugging outfielder Willie Mays, who began with the Birmingham Black Barons and then integrated the New York Giants in 1951, and whose 660 home runs now ranks fourth in baseball history.