Learning From Scandal—Even When It’s Boring

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer is the new film by Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) that documents the high-priced
prostitution scandal that forced former New York Governor from
office in early 2008. But when you go see it (and you should) be warned: within the first 15
minutes of this movie’s start, you’ll be gripped by a raging urge to walk out
of the theater, grab some gasoline and matches, head to Wall Street and light
the whole damn place on fire. A dozen minutes after that, you’ll also want to do the same thing to the
nearest state capital. 

But
please don’t.  Not only would your
angry ass wind up in prison, but you would be missing the remainder of what is
a very instructive movie.

One of the more infuriating dynamics at play in our
nation over the last two to three years has been the interplay of the political
and corporate systems. Or more
specifically, how our political leaders, with all the levers of supposed
power—taxation, regulatory authority and enforcement responsibility—are either
unable or unwilling to corral the blatantly irresponsible behavior of financial
giants. If you have
aimed the majority of your ire at the Republican Party—thinking that George Bush was merely Darth Vader
to a much more insidious Emperor Palpatine who manipulated the economy from his
evil lair deep inside the headquarters of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or Time
Warner Cable—you probably also knew that was only a smidgen of the tale.

And
this is where Eliot Spitzer comes into the plot. As New York State Attorney General and later Governor of New York,
Spitzer was a real-life Luke Skywalker, determined to take on the forces of the
corporate Dark Side. But unlike
our plucky hero from far, far away, it was an appendage other than his arm that
wound up getting cut off—figuratively speaking—by the evil forces arrayed
against him. For yes, like so many
popular American politicians, it was a sex scandal that ended his righteous
crusade. 

Through
Client 9, in both the documentary
itself and its marketing materials, we are inundated with allusions to Greek
tragedy and Christian morality plays—wherein hubris fells our exalted
hero. But isn’t that just, for
lack of a more nuanced word, boring? We’ve heard this cautionary tale before. And it’s not even the most important of all the political
falls from grace our country has experienced.  Just ask Progressives from the 1960s who thought President
Johnson was going to lead the fight against entrenched and racialized poverty
in America, yet saw that agenda derailed by a Commander-in-Chief obsessed with winning
a war in Southeast Asia born out of French colonial ambition. 

No, what you better take
away from this film is not some staid message that it is somehow pride that
dooms our political leaders—that would be an all too convenient hook upon which
to hang failure. Government is not
a science-fiction movie masquerading as morality, with linear narratives about
wrong and right or villains draped in black and heroes robed in white. It’s about collective action that
produces for constituents what they cannot by themselves provide.  Pride in of itself is not the problem;
it’s the pursuit of policy that is disconnected from the reality of the lived
experiences of people and ultimately, in politics, the priority must be the
people.

Earlier,
I said this was an instructive movie, but to whom should those instructions
go? At the top of that list, I
would place each and every one of the leaders who have been elected newly to
office on the back of Tea Party-inspired anger. Take, for example, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Like Spitzer, Christie is a
hard-charging former prosecutor who could give a flying-fuck about making nice
with those he sees as standing in the way of his righteous battle against the
system. And like Spitzer, he is
seen by many on the Left and Right as a viable presidential contender (one of
the more interesting sub-plots of Client
9 is the thought by many that Spitzer could have been the first Jewish
President; a missed opportunity that undoubtedly saddened a Diaspora from New
York to Tel Aviv).

The lesson that Christie and
our new Tea Party-infused Congress would do well to understand is that results
matter.  Spitzer made a big to-do
about Wall Street crimes, but in the end, Wall Street screwed us all (in the
end).  As Governor, Spitzer had a
chance to turn his prosecutorial success—which is really about punishing past misdeeds—into systemic reform that
could have established a more balanced environment for sustained job creation
and economic growth.  Spitzer brought
what his gubernatorial campaign deemed “passion” into state politics but his
resultant state budget did little to improve the fiscal foundation of New York
State’s economy.

Similarly, Christie has
generated awesome reviews by the press—just check out Joe Scarborough on MSNBC
and you’ll see first-hand the man-love Christie has inspired—and his approval
ratings in the Dirty Jerz are impressively high, but what are the actual
results?  Changing the tone of the
debate in Jersey?  I would have to
agree that yes, indeed he has but you would have to agree that so has Snooki,
yet you don’t see anyone giving her a medal (a pamphlet on how to prevent skin
cancer, yes, but no medal).

If
Christie’s pitched battle against the state teachers’ unions—which is more
about saving money than actually reforming how his state finances and sets
educational priorities—does not lead to higher test scores for students; if his
shrinking of the state budget so he can cut property taxes does not lead to job
creation; and if the only positive outcome of his cancellation of the already
under construction tunnel aimed at easing congestion between North Jersey and
New York City is that Manhattan will be spared an increase in the Bridge and
Tunnel, fist-pumping, bar-hopping wannabe crowd on weekend nights, than all
that raging against the machine that he has carried over from his prosecutorial
days will be for nada.  

So should Client 9 stir up some righteous
indignation and populist anti-Wall Street, anti-government anger? Definitely. But if we as a voting populace cannot learn to stem those
Tea Party-esque reactionary impulses and instead vocally support those
officials who produce tangible results—and not run them and their party out of
office as soon as the going gets rough—then we deserve whatever system we are
left with amongst the ashes of our own gasoline-fueled rage.  

Client 9, Directed by Alex Gibney, At Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Angelika Film Center, Runtime: 118 min.