All the Governor's Men
In the wake of the State Ethics Commission's report citing four top aides to ex-Governor Spitzer for ethics violations during the Troopergate fiasco, there have been charges — most notably by former state lobbying watchdog David Grandeau — of a whitewash because Mr. Spitzer himself was not charged.

Certainly a strong circumstantial case could be made that Mr. Spitzer was not only aware but calling the shots on the improper effort to embarrass then-State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno by compiling and then releasing State Police travel records showing he used state aircraft on business that was more political than governmental.

The most damning, and titillating, evidence was the claim by former Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp, in testimony before Albany District Attorney David Soares's office, that when he told the then-Governor that Mr. Bruno would react angrily if the records were released, Mr. Spitzer in obscene terms replied that they should stick "a red-hot poker" where it would pain him the most.

The four officials cited by the Ethics Commission — Mr. Dopp, former Chief of Staff Richard Baum, then-Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security William Howard and Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton — knew at the time that Mr. Bruno's air travel did not violate the law. Publicizing it, then, would at best have embarrassed the Senate Majority Leader, and even at that, it's not clear that it would have created a political advantage for the Governor.

Knowing what we now know about Mr. Spitzer's sense of entitlement and his penchant for reckless behavior without considering the consequences, it isn't shocking that he might countenance an escapade whose risks proved to far outweigh the possible rewards. But why would four senior officials, whose positions implied that they had the intelligence and judgment to handle great responsibility, have become a party to this fool's errand? Didn't any of them have the moral fiber and common sense to tell the Governor, "This is wrong and we shouldn't be doing it?"

Apparently not. Mr. Dopp's account to Mr. Soares of his conversation with the then-Governor, in which he claimed to have asked Mr. Spitzer, "Are you sure?" about releasing the travel records, suggests he was trying to get his boss to reconsider. But when Mr. Spitzer reacted with typical adolescent bravado, Mr. Dopp backed off and carried out his order.

Good staff people should be able to tell a boss what he doesn't want to hear, even if they believe that offering such opinions might draw a hostile reaction. None of the four was apparently intrepid enough, however, to incur Mr. Spitzer's anger by digging in their heels and saying that there was something perverse about engaging in questionable conduct to try to expose Mr. Bruno's alleged ethical lapses.

That says something about both Mr. Spitzer and the four men working for him. It might not have seemed necessary, after President Nixon and Watergate, to be given another cautionary tale about the danger when those in high places in government believe that power is there to be abused as well as used. But we have gotten more than one contemporary reminder — in Washington, and with far more tragic and costly consequences from an unnecessary war triggered by lies, as well as Albany — that those who think their positions place them above the law can be damaged and their careers destroyed by the hubris of the boss and the failure of his subordinates to take a moral stand.