iSaratoga Exclusive: Spitzer won’t resign

Folks, you heard it here first: embattled Gov. Eliot Spitzer will remain in office for the duration of his four-year term. That’s according to an anonymous source claiming to have no particular relationship with the governor or his family, but who once served a top Spitzer aide a cup of coffee late one night in a Long Island-area Dunkin’ Donuts.

“He’s really quite resolute about staying,” reported the source, declining to discuss the type or quality of coffee he served to the aide. “After all, who doesn’t bang a hooker every now and then?”

For those of you who might have taken a few too many over-the-counter cold pills with lunch Monday, iSaratoga’s soon-to-be award-winning community blogging singlehandedly blew the lid off of the most sensational political sex scandal to hit the press since Bill Clinton’s unlit cigar found the wrong bodily orifice of a young intern. While some media outlets are erroneously reporting the New York Times as the source of the infamous Emperors Club VIP story, it was a snide, off-the-cuff comment by iSaratoga’s lead pundit that prompted the story to break.

In other news, iSaratoga has adopted the aptly dubbed “Times Union Philosophy,” in which this site will now arbitrarily lay claim to and ‘exclusivize’ any stories determined to be super sensational. The TU demonstrated this philosophy Tuesday morning, when the Albany paper fantastically claimed the Hookergate scandal was a manifestation dredged up by their own, gritty investigative reporting.

“The allegations, first reported on the New York Times Web page, came to light after a reporter from the Times Union began asking questions last week about Spitzer's use of a state airplane for a trip from Buffalo to Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13,” the reporter brazenly claims. “The paper then made a formal request for the records of Spitzer's Washington, D.C., trip.”

There’s certainly some truth to the paper’s “formal request.” But the Times Union no more prompted the federal investigation into Spitzer’s alleged malfeasance than did the pimple-faced coffee geek pumping a steady infusion of caffeine into the ongoing media frenzy outside the governor’s office. In fact, the New York Times account directly contradicts the TU’s theory. In a follow up story, the paper claims the whole affair was launched after a routine inquiry by the Internal Revenue Service into suspicious cash transactions. Alas, the Times mentions nothing about state airplane use, a subject which the Times Union seems quite fixated upon.

But when the big kid from down the block drops into your party and kicks over your sandcastle, its best to tell friends you punted the creation yourself. Then, maybe all the other kids will think you’re tough. This is especially the case for the TU, which enjoyed an unusually close bond with the now deeply troubled Spitzer administration; having a scandal like this soar right beneath their radar is quite damning.

Conversely, Hookergate may well have saved another seriously ailing newspaper. The New York Times was just a few steps away from joining its ubersensational neighbors in the Big Apple. The Times’ Web site was so inundated with hits Monday that the page often took minutes to load. Even the slack-jawed cable news nitwits couldn’t dream up anything better to film than flat-screen monitors tapped into the paper’s online site. In one instant, the New York Times restored much of the luster to its tarnished reputation.’

Were it opposite day, Spitzer would be equally contented in wake of the scandal. Instead, the Steamroller is facing a decision most pundits –especially one space cake-eating nimrod at FOX News –have already made for him. However, the pundits at iSaratoga are less convinced, especially given the anonymous tip from a Spitzer Administration outsider.

Let’s look at it this way: you’re flying a plane that suddenly goes into a death spin toward the earth. Do you give up and just let the thing crash, or do you grab the controls and try to pull out one of the most daring landings in the history of aviation? In Spitzer’s case, he’s got another 33 months to right the flight path and pull a miracle out of his ass.

After all, the governor has hit rock-bottom. There’s really nowhere to go but up. And if up is no longer an option, then it is Spitzer’s obligation to make the story as sensational as possible. Right now, his scandal is singlehandedly spiking newspaper sales, driving media Web hits and arguably creating more online chatter than any scandal in the history of the Internet. Simply put, Hookergate is moving the economy in previously flat-lined sectors.

Sure, the state and national Democrats won’t like it if the Pimp of Wall Street continues to strut. In fact, they’ll probably have him assassinated, which will again move newspaper sales in the right direction.

The flap could also be a nice way to dove tail into a discussion about legalized prostitution, a veritable cash cow waiting to be milked by state legislators. Were they to remove the thin veil masking the so-called “escort services” and massage parlors (i.e. the neighborhood ‘rub and tug’), legislators could have a tax revenue windfall to literally correct a failing budget. The Pataki Administration’s legacy to debauchery was legalizing gambling, so it would only be fitting if the Spitzer Administration’s legacy is legalizing hookers. Just think what a red light district could do for a rust-belt city like Amsterdam.