A war is a terrible thing to lose.

Regardless of one’s opinion as to the merits of invading Iraq in 2003, there is wide feeling, based on reality that the aftermath of the initial invasion has gone badly, both for the United States and the Iraqi people. In 2004, the people trusted the President to win the war, and the alternative was the hapless dweeb Kerry. By 2006, time had run out, and the American people clearly voted for change.

The irony is that just as the cost of war is borne largely by troops who had nothing to do with starting it, its political cost is being borne by long-time Republican members of Congress, who had no significant role in the President’s war policy or the way it was carried out.

Rumsfeld’s forced resignation signals a break in the iron triangle of the President, Vice President and Defense Secretary. The anointing of a successor in the same news cycle as the departure of the incumbent usually indicates some level of displeasure with the services rendered and the advice offered by the retiring official. In this case, the President’s announcement that he would nominate former CIA chief Robert M. Gates indicates that the decision to change Defense Secretaries preceded the election.

Eliot Spitzer’s landslide victory invests him with moral authority to proceed vigorously with his agenda for reform, which has not yet been defined precisely. However, the problems and pitfalls are so apparent that what has to be done is not difficult to discern. We hope that Governor-elect Spitzer will have the political skills to deal with the proprietors of the snake pit in Albany, which encompasses a great deal of a state government. On Spitzer ride the hopes of many New Yorkers, disillusioned by a generation of stagnation.

Citizens concerned about reform should recognize that the ascension of Governor-elect Spitzer provides a rare opportunity to change Albany. Party leaders supported him in part because Tom Suozzi’s proposals were even more radical, and Suozzi’s contempt for the supine legislature and its leaders more obvious. Politicians love to bask in the glow of winners, and often do not let ideology stand in the way of their magnetic attraction to stars larger than themselves.

We must comment on the pathetic way the children of Albany are treating their former playmate, Alan Hevesi. He was caught, twice, with his hand in the cookie jar, but many of his colleagues’ fingers are stickier than his. Watch the sheep snub Hevesi, unless they get a sign from their leaders that he has been koshered.

We note that Pataki backed off from the impeachment trial on the pretext David Kelley gave him that rules of procedure are not in place. That problem can be remedied instantly by applying existing state rules for similar proceedings. By the way, although lynching is shameful, many of the people who were lynched were guilty of the original offense. The outrage comes over the cruel, arbitrary and illegal penalty. Lynching was and is a horror, but it does not mean that those lynched were innocent.

Pataki wisely left the matter to his successor, why should he clean up the mess for Spitzer? The governor-elect had no problem with his Ph.D. running mate until the misuse of the chauffeur was leaked to J. Christopher Callaghan, who properly ran with it because it was all he had.
Callaghan, by the way, is not the bumpkin he was depicted as by the media. He should, however, have prepared much more thoroughly for his NY 1 debate with Hevesi. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

The Hevesi case is troublesome because he has unquestionably done wrong. The issue is whether his error should be allowed to override the will of the majority of the electorate that voted for him, with knowledge of his problem.

At this point, we are 46 days from Monday, January 1, 2007 - the Day One on which we are told that everything changes. We trust that the governor-elect’s staff is working hard to get the rocket ready for liftoff. Will there be ‘shock and awe’? Will Spitzer’s first hundred days be comparable to the start of FDR’s administration in 1933? As time passes, will any other comparisons of the two men emerge? We suspect the governor-elect has given the matter some thought.

You should know that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the fourth and most recent governor of New York State who became president of the United States (the first three were Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and TR). Since FDR won, other later governors tried. Dewey (twice), Rockefeller (who got to be vice president), and Averell Harriman. In December 1991, Mario Cuomo left a chartered plane waiting to take him to New Hampshire at the Albany airport. This year, George Pataki is making his way through the tall corn of Iowa, with an eye on the 2008 Republican primary.

There must be something in the Albany air that makes the governors want to leave it, and what more respectable habitation is there for them to occupy than the White House? We ask why should the Empire State have only three presidential candidates, Senator Clinton, the Democrat, Mayor Giuliani, the Republican, and Mayor Bloomberg, the independent? Governor-elect Spitzer will not be in the mix until 2012, when he will only be 53. We look to the future.

Starquest@NYCivic.org