There is a concerted, ongoing campaign to damage the Democratic front-runner in New York's gubernatorial race, State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

At issue is a telephone conversation between Spitzer and the Pataki-appointed head of the LMDC, John Whitehead. Whitehead wrote an op-ed, some months ago, for the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page, in which he harshly attacked Spitzer for what he described as prosecutorial misconduct. Cynics would say that Wall Street regards any investigation into its dealings as misconduct, or rather impudent effrontery. Subsequently to this editorial, Pataki appointee, Suozzi donor and former Reagan administration official Whitehead claims to have received a phone call from Spitzer – it being a phone call, there are no witnesses – in which Spitzer allegedly threatened to 'go to war' with him. Spitzer's office denies this charge; Spitzer has gone so far as to call Whitehead a liar.

What followed is a textbook example of how swiftboating works in New York.

The NYSRP demanded an investigation into the alleged threats on December 27th.

Podhoretz over the Murdoch Post penned an Op-Ed the next day, in which he described Spitzer's 'shameless posturing', called him a 'thug' and a 'goon', while accepting the Whitehead allegations at face value.

The extremist right-wing web site Newsmax.com hit into the same groove the same day.

On January 3rd, Sean Hannity claimed that Spitzer had made a similarly threatening call to him in 2000. The Post carried this story on the next day.

The Post followed up with another Op-Ed on January 4th. The letters in response to that appeared under the headline "Spitzer's tailspin".

That same day, MSNBC's Charles Gasparino outlined the 'controversy' in a web-only piece.

The New York Sun published another take on the 6th, titled "Spitzer denies threatening Whitehead", the body of which was so tepid it looked like an admission of guilt.

And finally, the story made it into the mainstream media with an article published in the New York Times on January 7th. Spitzer's people, who presumably realized that they could not let these charges stand unanswered, noted that he is passionate about his beliefs.

This is a classic example of how a story gets started, built up, and carefully fed, until it leaches from the various right-wing rags into the real media, who tend to report 'controversies'.

No doubt, there will be more.

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