Eliot Spitzer

As one media reporter who was genuinely concerned about the turn CNN seemed to be taking last year when it hired Eliot Spitzer, I am not going to try and hide how impressed and pleased I am with the lineup the cable news network announced today. Yes, I am happy that Spitzer is gone. I thought his presence threatened the credibility and trust that CNN had built over the years through the hard and principled work of its journalists. But I am also encouraged about the future of CNN shown by its clear commitment to journalists like John King and Wolf Blitzer.

The inaugural class of the Towson High School Athletics Hall of Fame, featuring Michael Phelps (2003), Randy Dase (1972), Sue Beeler (1958), Billy Jones (1964), Jaimee Reynolds (1998) and Jack Thomas (1970), will be honored April 19 at halftime of the Hereford-Towson boys lacrosse game. At 5:15 p.m., five minutes before the opening faceoff of the varsity game, a flagpole and plaque will be dedicated to Mike Godzik (1965), who died in 2008 and in whose name an annual award is given to a boys lacrosse player.

At a time of broad skepticism and disenchantment with government's ability to regulate America's economic giants, Eliot Spitzer has captured the public imagination as a modern-day crusader for the common man. As New York's attorney general, Spitzer is shaking the foundations of the $7 trillion mutual fund industry with a team of 15 lawyers - a tiny force compared with the legions of federal regulators and prosecutors who have been driven by his revelations...

I promised myself I was going to give CNN's new weeknight host Erin Burnett a full week of shows before I reviewed her. It was hard keeping that promise Monday night when I saw her pay a visit to the Occupy Wall Street encampment so she could look down her nose and mock the folks there. I thought it downright cruel the way she and her producer cut one kid from the herd and then tried to make him look like a fool. This was cool kids mocking outsiders on the playground, and it made me angry.

Eliot Spitzer signed off for good at CNN Wednesday night following the announcement earlier in the day that his "In the Arena" show would be replaced in the prime-time lineup Aug. 5. Spitzer, who started out paired with Kathleen Parker in "Parker-Spitzer," one of the most ill-conceived shows in the history of cable TV, kept his farewell remarks to a minimum quoting a famous passage from Theodore Roosevelt as to how critics don't matter, but...

NEW YORK - Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg took the Fifth Amendment "dozens of times" when he was questioned yesterday about possibly illegal transactions between the giant insurance firm he headed for nearly 40 years and a unit of Warren E. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., sources told Newsday. Greenberg, 79, who stepped down last month as chief executive officer of the world's largest insurer, American International Group Inc., invoked his right against self-incrimination to all questions except his name during an approximately 45-minute session with state and federal regulators, the sources said.

VARIABLE ANNUITIES - investments that combine market risk and a life insurance guarantee - are on the hot seat again. The regulatory wave that in recent years has swept over Wall Street analysts and mutual fund market-timers appears to be headed to sales practices and pricing of variable annuities. But this time it will be difficult for ordinary investors to express shock and awe. Few investors knew the extent to which brokerage analysts shilled for favored companies. Fewer still understood how mutual funds were manipulated, at their expense, to profit from discrepancies in prices of underlying securities.

Shortly after the allegations surfaced about Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, CNN wrote on its Web site: "Welcome to journalism in the Internet Age: an age when a 30-year-old former CBS gift-shop clerk like [Matt] Drudge, armed with a computer and a modem, can wield nearly as much power as a network executive producer or the editor of The New York Times." Fast-forward to last week and arguably the biggest political sex scandal since then (though there have been plenty of lesser ones)

Politicians take people's money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can't be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation they are more reliable in delivering. It's not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another, as Eliot Spitzer and a woman called Kristen reportedly did in a Washington hotel room. I understand why Mr. Spitzer's alleged hiring of a call girl was stupid, selfish, reckless, immoral and a betrayal of his family.

NEW YORK'S alpha investment houses have agreed to stop rewarding their stock analysts for knowingly lying to the public. This will "change the way Wall Street operates," said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and the ridiculous thing is, he's right. Banning "objective" analysts from flacking for investment banking clients is a major concession for Wall Street, a fat holiday kiss for which Manhattan expects you to be grateful. But it does not mean stock research will improve. Not paying analysts to intentionally give bad advice is different from getting analysts to give good advice.

As one media reporter who was genuinely concerned about the turn CNN seemed to be taking last year when it hired Eliot Spitzer, I am not going to try and hide how impressed and pleased I am with the lineup the cable news network announced today. Yes, I am happy that Spitzer is gone. I thought his presence threatened the credibility and trust that CNN had built over the years through the hard and principled work of its journalists. But I am also encouraged about the future of CNN shown by its clear commitment to journalists like John King and Wolf Blitzer.

Eliot Spitzer signed off for good at CNN Wednesday night following the announcement earlier in the day that his "In the Arena" show would be replaced in the prime-time lineup Aug. 5. Spitzer, who started out paired with Kathleen Parker in "Parker-Spitzer," one of the most ill-conceived shows in the history of cable TV, kept his farewell remarks to a minimum quoting a famous passage from Theodore Roosevelt as to how critics don't matter, but...

When CNN hired Wolf Blitzer from The Jerusalem Post in 1990 to be its Pentagon correspondent, the first thing his new employers tried to do was "teach" him how to be a TV performer. "They sent me to coaching and voice lessons and all sorts of stuff — it was making me crazy," Blitzer said. "And I remember saying to my wife at the time, 'I'm never going to make this. ... I think I made a huge mistake in taking this job.' " But when Blitzer told his boss, Bill Headline, CNN's Washington bureau chief at the time, about his misgivings, Headline surprised the veteran Middle East correspondent with his answer — "Forget everything.

Winokur can't stop beat: She'll be back in 'Hairspray' Marissa Jaret Winokur will return to Hairspray on Dec. 9 for the final four weeks of its Broadway run at the Neil Simon Theatre. She will join Harvey Fierstein, her original co-star, in the long-running musical that opened in August 2002. He came back to the show this month. Winokur won a Tony Award for her performance as Tracy Turnblad, the full-figured teen who yearns to dance on a TV show in 1960s Baltimore. She recently appeared on the top-rated television reality series Dancing with the Stars.

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers stock has fallen by nearly half since last spring. The menswear chain is defending itself against two shareholder lawsuits. Analysts worry it might get squeezed between a falling economy and rising costs. "Short sellers," who will profit if the shares fall further, are betting on it. How does the company respond? With a passive-aggressive pout guaranteed to egg on the skeptics. Bosses Robert N. Wildrick and David E. Ullman don't take questions on conference calls with stock analysts.

Politicians take people's money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can't be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation they are more reliable in delivering. It's not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another, as Eliot Spitzer and a woman called Kristen reportedly did in a Washington hotel room. I understand why Mr. Spitzer's alleged hiring of a call girl was stupid, selfish, reckless, immoral and a betrayal of his family.

NEW YORK -- Ensnared in a prostitution scandal, Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned from office yesterday, leaving it to his successor to sort out another mess: a politically torn legislature facing a $4.4 billion deficit. The first-term Democratic governor resigned after a federal wiretap investigation revealed he was a client of a high-priced prostitution ring - by some accounts he might have spent $80,000 during numerous liaisons with employees of the Emperors Club VIP call girl service. Spitzer, his wife by his side, stepped down from his post in a somber news conference yesterday morning.

Stepping into the gay marriage fight for the first time since it erupted in New York a week ago, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer warned yesterday that state law does not permit same-sex unions and cautioned that ceremonies already performed there may be illegal. Meanwhile, a new front in the battle over same-sex marriage opened yesterday in Portland, Ore., where county officials issued dozens of licenses to gay couples after deciding that state law allowed the unions. Mayors and county officials in four states have allowed gay marriages, including thousands in San Francisco, which started the wedding march Feb. 12. The marriages have met with calls for a constitutional amendment banning the unions.

After Marion Cotillard won the Oscar and Carla Bruni won the president of France, I thought maybe we'd get a rest from high-flying "French" women. (Carla is actually Italian.) But then I read that Mireille Guiliano had deserted her Knopf publishers for Atria Books. (Both Page Six and Gawker.com reviled the writer, saying she'd been a terrible boss when she ruled Veuve Clicquot Inc. as CEO.) Well, never mind. This dame has written two best-sellers - French Women for All Seasons and the celebrated diet-dream book French Women Don't Get Fat. Now, for Atria Publishing, she'll discuss sharing strategies, lessons learned and give practical advice to women seeking balance, success and workplace satisfaction.

Shortly after the allegations surfaced about Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, CNN wrote on its Web site: "Welcome to journalism in the Internet Age: an age when a 30-year-old former CBS gift-shop clerk like [Matt] Drudge, armed with a computer and a modem, can wield nearly as much power as a network executive producer or the editor of The New York Times." Fast-forward to last week and arguably the biggest political sex scandal since then (though there have been plenty of lesser ones)