Spitzer Slams Ground Zero Work

The NY State Democratic Convention is taking place in Buffalo today and tomorrow (the NY State Republican Convention is in Long Island on Wednesday and Thursday), and the gloves are coming off as the Democrats are looking to grab the Governor's house. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic frontrunner for the gubernatorial nomination, called the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation "an abject failure". Well, of course he would say that - didn't recently resigned LMDC chairman John Whitehead claim Spitzer had threatened him on the phone? Spitzer didn't mince any words: He called what's happening downtown an "Enron-style debacle." The LMDC said that Spitzer was continuing his vendetta against Whitehead, and Governor Pataki's spokesperson also used the word "vendetta" when criticizing Spitzer's words about a World War II veteran on Memorial Day, no less. Whitehead might be a WWII veteran, but a better question would be, what got done at Ground Zero?

Notably, Spitzer didn't fault Gretchen Dykstra, who resigned from the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation on Friday. Mayor Bloomberg also commented about Dykstra's resignation, saying that he asked her not to quit.

Photograph of Spitzer at the Maid of Mist ride at Niagara Falls from Don Heupel/AP; apparently he couldn't go 40 years ago because he didn't meet the height requirement