And just as cream rises to the top, stones (or Stones) tend to sink to the bottom.

Today on Hardball they played that obscene message from Stone to Gov. Spitzer's father.

And the NY Times reports that Bruno is officially severing ties with Stone. Of course there is the usual face-saving garbage from Bruno, and in the article Stone is at least shrewd enough to claim that he doesn't know where he was when the phone call was made. But the damage is there.

It seems that Stone didn't blame some hypothetical Spitzer operative, but actually named, on several occasions Dale Hemmerdinger, Spitzer MTA Chairman nominee, as the offending party.

From the Times:

He said his apartment building on Central Park South is owned by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer who is the governor’s nominee to be chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and suggested that allies of the governor might have given access to his apartment to someone who made the threatening call. An official at Mr. Hemmerdinger’s company said she was not prepared to comment.

Mr. Stone said: “They have unfettered access to my apartment."

From ATU:

He also said his New York landlord, Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Spitzer, has been “hostile and has hassled me through management about supposedly late rent checks” (he insists he’s always been on time with the rent) and reiterated that Hemmerdinger has “keys and full access to my apartment.”

Sounds to me like Mr. Hemmerdinger may have a pretty good defamation of character lawsuit on his hands.

Wow, I can't believe how biased and lacking in discrimination the bloggers on this site are. That you all could make such a fuss over a phone call, and yet you are New Yorkers! We hear this kind of thing all the time when out an about in New York.

Let's look at the facts: A GOP consultant (Stone) may or may not have made an angry phone call to Elliot Spitzer's dad - vs. - Elliot Spitzer head staff members taking over control of the State police (within just weeks of coming in to office!) and having them spy on a political rival whom they were seeking to destroy publicly. Assuming of course that it was the Sptizer staff that did all this, which allegedly no one who knows Spitzer personally believes to be true.

But what's worse is the Senior Spitzer get's a nasty call - and Elliot's commandeering of the state's police becomes old news?

Bernard Spitzer manages a half a billion dollar empire and has his tentacles in major institutions and Jewish organizations all over New York and Israel. I think he can handle a crappy phone call.

When New York Magazine profiled Elliot a few months ago he and his friends practically bragged that his father is totally hardnosed and obsessed with being right about all things.

The whole story plays out as one big rationalization for Elliot’s notorious temper. The explanation - Daddy Spitzer's ruthless training of Elliot to be a tyrant his whole life. Nightly take-no-prisoner arguments over dinner. Dad inspiring intense competition and malaise amongst Elliot and his siblings...

At the time when I read it I felt sorry for Elliot. I thought, god how sad this guy had no childhood. How could a father be so mean spirited? Actions like this can really foster a certain twistedness in a person and scar them for life.

Now the fact that the New York press is portraying the elder Spitzer as this pitiful victim I find a little creepy.

Here's a link to the New York Magazine story: http://nymag.com/news/features/34730/

Forget this guy Stone's responses. Let's just look at the evidence. All that it is out there is a letter from Bernard Spitzer's attorneys and a copy of an audio tape.

Imagine this; A letter and an uncertified audio is all the Spitzers needed to distract the public and kill Troopergate. I can't imagine this story is real. If it were don't you think Elliot would be so far up Stone's butt Stone would be paralyzed? Yet the Spitzer’s declined to pursue criminal charges?

I think if it were real Elliot would have had the police at Stone's house so fast he wouldn’t have known what hit him. They would have gotten restraining orders on Stone, and Elliot would have had the press there every step of the way. He'd be holding press conferences. The police would come out saying they are "investigating" Stone etc. etc.

But no, NOTHING. Not a peep. They released the letter and the tape and then radio silence, except to decline to pursue the matter further. Very out of character for Elliot.

Sounds to me like the Spitzer's don't want the evidence scrutinized. Stone is saying in the Washington Post that he'll take a polygraph. If I were Stone I'd be calling for the other side to take a polygraph too.

Who verified this tape? Are we to trust the Kroll investigators? I've seen in the blogs this thing called spoofcard. It's a service you can get on the internet to fake out caller ID. It's really cheap too. Here's a link to the website. http://www.spoofcard.com/

I also heard a rumor today that Elliot is going to replace his now shamed police superintendant with the guy who is head of all the landphone, computer, cellphone data (etc.) intelligence gathering for all of New York State. Frightening. Sounds to me that Elliot has learned from Troopergate and is looking for more experienced intelligence operators to do this kind of work for him in the future.

Another rumor I heard from someone who worked with Elliot is that Elliot was obsessed with the "Wire tap" room when working in the New York district Attorney's Office. That no one could ever get him out of there, he always wanted to "listen in…"

Speaking of the NY District Attorney's office, Elliot's former boss there, Michael Cherkasky, later went on to be the CEO of 1.9 billion dollar security firm Kroll! Yes the same firm Bernard's lawyers say dug up the evidence on Stone.

Ironically Kroll was bought by Insurance giant Marsh, who Spitzer infamously went after for bid rigging etc. The heat on Marsh didn't turn off until Cherkasky was promoted from head of subsidiary Kroll to the top spot - CEO of the whole Marsh company. Rumor has it that Spitzer did a shake down on Marsh that included getting his buddy into this position... Cherkasky really owes him one doesn't he?

Here's a copy of a link to a 2004 story in USA Today on this:

What's also interesting about the USA Today story is it references Manahattan County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau as being a mentor of both Elliot and Cherkasky. Did you know that Morgenthau sits as Chairman of the NYC Holocaust Museum along with Boardmember Bernard Spitzer? Hhmmmmmm.