It seems to me that the agency has – or once had – a legitimate mission. But the way the government does business mitigates against the agency doing its job and shutting up about it.

It wasn’t that Chretien wanted to cut spending. He just had no choice. Federal debt had reached 80%+ of GDP and the International bankers said “If it goes any higher, we’re going to downgrade your bonds.” So Chretien cut spending. [The USA has an advantage as a debtor due to the US dollar being a reserve currency.]

He also broke every significant promise he made. Two that he kept, stopping the privatization of Pearson International Airport and scrapping the deal to buy new helicopters for the military, cost about a billion loonies each in penalties. Pearson International remains the Canadian airport I most hate to use. (Would it have been better if privatized? We’ll never know.) And when they finally did get new choppers, the price had doubled for a less capable machine.

Finally, though I hate to defend the despicable Brian Mulroney, I have to point out that almost all of the growth in the public debt in his reign was due to interest compounding on the debt run up by Pierre Idiot Trudeau.

While I will not dispute your second statement, it has no relevance to him being close to the truth. Spitzer was investigating Wall Street malfeasance and fraud directly responsible for the current economic mess, one of the very few according to the sources I’ve read.

Don’t forget that the Bushies simply don’t believe that any theft done by a corporation or corporate executive is even a crime. That’s not exaggeration, that’s simply a fact.

That might be a bit of an exaggeration.

The article notes the Canadian corporate rate is dropping to 15% maximum. I’m not an expert, but I think there are fewer loopholes to use. Still, that makes the rate comparable to the real US rate.

The FBI says that they were investigating suspected corruption and just happened (shocked! shocked they were!) upon the prostitution evidence. Why were they investigating Spitzer? He and his family are rich as hell, he has a reputation for being a business and commercial law straight-arrow; he therefore seems a rather odd target for somebody looking for financial malfeasance.

Thing to remember number 1: since the tenure of Louis Freeh the Feebs have been within an inch or two of being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.
This started during the Clinton administration when it ran a bit wild from DOJ and AG oversight, overtly aligning itself with House Republicans and their agenda in order to protect its budget.

Thing to remember number 2: Spitzer has been one of the most aggressive enemies of the kind of top-floor white collar corruption that has been the staple of the Bush administration.
Don’t forget that the Bushies simply don’t believe that any theft done by a corporation or corporate executive is even a crime. That’s not exaggeration, that’s simply a fact. Spitzer’s tenure as AG is neatly summarized by the Toronto Star’s David Olive:

[quote starts]
What gained Spitzer international renown was the painstaking work by his New York attorney general’s office in piecing together the memos and emails by which America’s largest brokerage firms were selling stock at the height of the late-1990s dot-com boom that their own analysts regarded as “crap” and “junk.”

Spitzer extracted a stupendous $1.4 billion (U.S.) settlement from 10 of America’s largest securities firms, including Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch Inc., for their dissemination of this supposed “research” to clients. He then went after dubious sales practices in the mutual fund industry.

Spitzer exposed unsavoury bookkeeping practices in the insurance trade, forcing the ouster of the CEOs of insurance giants American International Group Inc. and Marsh & McLellan Cos. He waded into the field of excessive executive compensation, forcing Dick Grasso to relinquish a portion of his huge severance package on retiring as CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.

In identifying many of the leading culprits in the loss by Main Street investors of some $8 trillion (U.S.) when the dot-com, tech and telecom markets imploded, Spitzer acted while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dozed. And in doing so, Spitzer helped bring about higher standards of transparency and CEO accountability for the authenticity of corporate financial reporting.
[end quote]

The Bush administration was a CEO administration, pure and simple. It had corporate and class interests and loyalties which were right in the crosshairs of any genuine effort to enforce the law. Militarizing police forces in order to pursue the ludicrous “war on (certain classes and colours of people who use) drugs”, raiding medical marijuana facilities and so forth… those, in the eyes of the Bush Administration, were valid uses of federal authority. Going after CEOs was something best avoided.

Thing to remember number 3: The Bush administration thoroughly politicized the Department of Justice.
Partisan zealots occupy not only the political slots in the DOJ but have dumped vast numbers of professional career staff and replaced them with even more GOP tools.

My guess? The thoroughly-Roved federal Department of Justice said, “dig and dig and dig until you find something on Spitzer”. The prostitution stuff was an easy and unexpected win, negating the need for Plan A: Siegelman him.

The better response to the crisis also has its origins in fiscal restraint exercised by the feds and almost all provincial governments starting with the Chretien Liberals in the early 1990s: most governments went from deficits to surpluses and engaged in debt reduction exercises of varying degrees of success. (The real irony was that it followed the pattern of your 1990s: the GOP went bananas on spending from 1981-1993, and it took a supposedly pink president to bring you back into the black [which was promptly pissed away by his GOP replacement]. In Canada the Liberals (who love spending) got the books under control after 8 years of Tory government failed to make a dent.)

Terry Nation pointed this out decades ago in the first season of his BBC SF show “Blake’s 7″.

In fact, we need a czar czar as well.

Obama nominating hardcore Nanny Statist to head up the CDC. The guy enthusiastically backed the trans-fat, smoking bans and calorie count requirements in New York.

Whadya spect? Elect a socialist, get a tyranny. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Elitists are elitists and the democrats have the corner on that market (along with corruption). Dem folks knows better’n us folks so dey gotta hep us lib our libes.

Tiochfaidh ar la!

Sounds like the perfect guy to usher in government health care.