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The rise to power of Eliot Spitzer, the scourge of Wall Street and one of America's most controversial politicians, by the reporter who knows his crusade best
Few politicians have burst onto the American scene with as much impact as Eliot Spitzer. He has exposed wrongdoing by stock analysts, mutual fund managers, and insurance brokers, and he has investigated corporations that have misled or defrauded investors and consumers. When federal regulators have fallen down on their responsibilities, Spitzer has stepped in to protect ordinary, middle-class Americans. His actions as the New York State attorney general have made companies change the way they do business, which in turn affects every American with a retirement plan, an insurance policy, or a prescription to fill.
No reporter has had better or more complete behind-the-scenes access to Spitzer's operation--and to the strategies that have underpinned his crusade against these powerful forces in the American economy--than Brooke A. Masters of The Washington Post. In Spoiling for a Fight, she presents a portrait that is at once dramatic and revealing, raising the question of whether Spitzer's way of conducting government business is good or bad for America.
Combining passion and zeal with a savvy understanding of the press, Spitzer has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and now has his sights set on higher office. This revelatory book shows Americans how Spitzer has transformed their lives and what his crusade could mean for the future.
Review:
"Masters's examination of the New York State attorney general's seven years in office is timely, given Spitzer's prosecutions of powerful financial industries and his candidacy in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Even if Spitzer fails in his bid for the governorship, the book is worthy of study because it clearly explains the complicated, unsavory practices of insurance companies, mutual funds, Wall Street brokerages and the New York Stock Exchange. The author also skillfully places Spitzer in the context of previous reformers within government, especially Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis and Rudy Giuliani. She shows, too, how philosophical differences between state and federal regulators over the past 100 years set the stage for the crusading Spitzer. Masters, a New York — based reporter for the Washington Post, holds degrees from Harvard University and the London School of Economics that prepared her well for dissecting the arcane, corrupt industry routines usually unknown to consumers. Though Masters received cooperation from the 46-year-old Spitzer and many of his aides, this warts-and-all book demonstrates how the mostly sincere, mostly decent Spitzer can be hurt by his overweening ego and quick temper. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"If you're not a political junkie, a New Yorker or a financial- services executive, the name Eliot Spitzer may not ring a bell. In the next few years, I'll wager, you'll be hearing it often. Spitzer is the New York attorney general who — much like Rudolph Giuliani in the late 1980s — is becoming a national figure by spearheading a series of high-profile investigations into the brokerage, mutual-fund... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) and other financial industries. As the presumptive Democratic nominee in New York's gubernatorial race, he should move up the Hudson River to Albany in January, at which point his name will be thrown into far bigger hats. Obama-Spitzer 2012, anyone? As Brooke A. Masters ably demonstrates in her new biography, 'Spoiling for a Fight,' what makes Spitzer special is that he appears to be that rare political animal: a mainstream liberal Democrat with an actual, functioning backbone. As attorney general, he has been a one-man wrecking crew, taking on and besting everyone from Merrill Lynch to the somnolent Securities and Exchange Commission, which sought gradual change over coffee at Starbucks with Wall Streeters while Spitzer took the Merrills of the world to court. Reading this book, one comes to believe that he is the real deal: honest, fearless and very, very smart. While Spitzer has yet to perfect the role of glad-handing Gotham pol, there is nevertheless an unmistakable whiff of Clinton or Kennedy in his story. Masters, who covers white-collar crime for The Washington Post, does a fine job here, briskly tracing Spitzer's rise to public office, parsing his headline cases and, to her credit, shining the spotlight on the individual lawyers in the attorney general's office who actually initiated many of the investigations that form the foundation of the Spitzer legend. The book is well-researched, evenhanded and thoughtful; Masters will no doubt become cable television's leading Spitzerologist for years to come. About the only mark against 'Spoiling for a Fight' is that Masters never truly finds an authorial voice; thorough as her research is, the book reads like a 300-page newspaper article. Masters is especially adept at placing Spitzer in a historical, political and legal context, drawing parallels, for instance, between his career and that of another progressive New York attorney general, Theodore Roosevelt. (Don't laugh; she makes the case.) Spitzer, who granted Masters several interviews, goes to great lengths to emphasize (convincingly) that he is not some rock-throwing, anti-capitalist radical; like Roosevelt, he embraces the free-market system, working inside it to correct deficiencies. The fact that a New York official pursued the cases that Washington should have — it was Spitzer, for instance, who felled Merrill's two-faced Internet analyst Henry Blodget for his conflicts of interest — was as much a product of the SEC's coddling of Wall Street as of the attorney general's own aggressiveness. (An SEC friend, speaking at a Spitzer roast, read a mock telegram 'from Eliot to the Vatican. "Dear Pontiff: I have some comments on recent papal edicts. ... As I read the Stamp Act of 1785, I have the authority to tax and regulate all items passing through New York, which we believe includes Catholicism."') Spitzer justifies his incursions onto federal turf by citing the Bush administration's efforts to palm off the provision of legal and other services onto the states. Washington's retreat left a gaping hole, Spitzer contends, which states — to the dismay of corporate chieftains — had a duty to fill. Talk about your law of unintended consequences. Spitzer has been criticized by the usual suspects for over-aggressiveness, publicity-hogging and precedent-stretching — the kinds of things every chesty attorney general gets accused of. Masters' portrayal of his upbringing undercuts these charges. The son of a wealthy, up-from-the-Lower-East-Side real-estate developer, Spitzer grew up in one of those frighteningly intellectual Upper West Side households (actually, the Riverdale section of the Bronx, which is a de facto Upper West Side colony) where every child must come to the dinner table with a topic for debate and everyone argues about Kant and Kierkegaard while families like mine are watching SportsCenter. If you didn't know the Spitzer family, you'd really need to hate them. By the time he went to Princeton, Spitzer was already a wonk's wonk, the kind of earnest young heir who spent summers interning for Ralph Nader and working construction and wearing destiny on his arm like a tattoo. He took a star turn at the Manhattan district attorney's office and tried private practice for a few years, but his obvious ambition — the rare topic Masters refrains from exploring — propelled him prematurely into the 1994 race for state attorney general. He was roundly thrashed, but his poise and intellect got him noticed. Four years later, thanks in no small part to his family's millions, he won the brass ring. One anecdote in 'Spoiling for a Fight' particularly epitomizes Spitzer. In the middle of his investigation into duplicitous securities analysts, he accepted an invitation to speak at an Institutional Investor banquet honoring the 'all-star' analysts of the year. Spitzer had a fire-breathing speech prepared and resisted an aide's entreaties to tone it down. Instead, he lectured the crowd on how the 'star' analysts had let their clients down. 'When measured by the performance of their stock recommendations,' he said, 'only one of this year's fifty-one first-team all-stars ... ranked first in their sector.' The audience actually began streaming to the exits. 'I'm not going to sit here and listen to this (expletive),' one snapped. Like him or loathe him, you can't help but admire a man who can pull off something like that. Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. He is the author of 'Dragonfly' and 'Vendetta' and the co-author of 'Barbarians at the Gate.'" Reviewed by Bryan Burrough, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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The rise to power of Eliot Spitzer, the scourge of Wall Street and one of America's most controversial politicians, by the reporter who knows his crusade best.
Synopsis:
"Compelling, suspenseful, and deeply reported . . . Masters gives a dramatic inside account of the fight between Spitzer and the titans of finance."--Newsday
Few politicians have burst onto the American scene with as much impact as Eliot Spitzer. As New York's attorney general, he exposed wrongdoing by stock analysts, mutual fund managers, and insurance brokers, and investigated corporations that have misled or defrauded ordinary investors and consumers. And as the next governor of New York, Spitzer is now a rising star on the national political scene.
No reporter has had better or more complete behind-the-scenes access to Spitzer than Brooke A. Masters, who covered him for four years at The Washington Post. Spoiling for a Fight is her dramatic and revealing portrait of the politician who has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and has set his sights on higher office. And in a new afterword, she chronicles his ascension to New York's highest office and assesses his future political prospects.
Synopsis:
Combining passion and zeal with a savvy understanding of the press, Eliot Spitzer, scourge of Wall Street, has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and now has his sights set on higher office. This revelatory book shows Americans how Spitzer has transformed their lives and what his crusade could mean for the future.
Brooke A. Masters is a staff writer for The Washington Post, based in New York, where she writes about financial services and white-collar crime. She has reported on the trials of Martha Stewart, Frank Quattrone, and Bernard Ebbers. In her sixteen years at the Post, she has also covered criminal justice, education, and politics. A graduate of Harvard University and the London School of Economics, she lives in Mamaroneck, New York, with her husband and two children.
Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer
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Brooke A Masters
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368 pages
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English9780805079616
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Masters's examination of the New York State attorney general's seven years in office is timely, given Spitzer's prosecutions of powerful financial industries and his candidacy in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Even if Spitzer fails in his bid for the governorship, the book is worthy of study because it clearly explains the complicated, unsavory practices of insurance companies, mutual funds, Wall Street brokerages and the New York Stock Exchange. The author also skillfully places Spitzer in the context of previous reformers within government, especially Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis and Rudy Giuliani. She shows, too, how philosophical differences between state and federal regulators over the past 100 years set the stage for the crusading Spitzer. Masters, a New York — based reporter for the Washington Post, holds degrees from Harvard University and the London School of Economics that prepared her well for dissecting the arcane, corrupt industry routines usually unknown to consumers. Though Masters received cooperation from the 46-year-old Spitzer and many of his aides, this warts-and-all book demonstrates how the mostly sincere, mostly decent Spitzer can be hurt by his overweening ego and quick temper. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The rise to power of Eliot Spitzer, the scourge of Wall Street and one of America's most controversial politicians, by the reporter who knows his crusade best.
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
"Compelling, suspenseful, and deeply reported . . . Masters gives a dramatic inside account of the fight between Spitzer and the titans of finance."--Newsday
Few politicians have burst onto the American scene with as much impact as Eliot Spitzer. As New York's attorney general, he exposed wrongdoing by stock analysts, mutual fund managers, and insurance brokers, and investigated corporations that have misled or defrauded ordinary investors and consumers. And as the next governor of New York, Spitzer is now a rising star on the national political scene.
No reporter has had better or more complete behind-the-scenes access to Spitzer than Brooke A. Masters, who covered him for four years at The Washington Post. Spoiling for a Fight is her dramatic and revealing portrait of the politician who has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and has set his sights on higher office. And in a new afterword, she chronicles his ascension to New York's highest office and assesses his future political prospects.
"Synopsis"
by Libri,
Combining passion and zeal with a savvy understanding of the press, Eliot Spitzer, scourge of Wall Street, has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and now has his sights set on higher office. This revelatory book shows Americans how Spitzer has transformed their lives and what his crusade could mean for the future.
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