The trouble with Eliot Spitzer (and Conrad Black?)

David Brooks, whose twice-weekly column in The New York Times is, along with Frank Rich’s Sunday column, the best thing in that newspaper, hits a towering shot this morning. Without using his name once, Brooks neatly dissects exactly the trouble with Eliot Spitzer. For those of my interlocutors drawing comparisons to his Lordship, there’s plenty here for you, too.

Speaking of which, Business Week’s chief correspondent, Joe Weber, takes a cut at the sorry history and sorrier prospects of and for the Chicago Sun-Times, which is essentially Hollinger’s Waterloo. It’s a clear-eyed summing-up of Black’s legacy, and it ain’t pretty. The lead says it all (though I highly recommend reading the rest):

“Erstwhile press baron Conrad M. Black and his sidekick, ex-publisher F. David Radler, now sit behind bars, guilty of looting millions of dollars from the company that owns the Chicago Sun-Times. But at the hard-pressed tabloid, which on their watch perpetrated, fell victim to, and uncovered scandals alike, the duo’s real crime may still be unfolding: Does murdering a newspaper break any laws?”

• The Rank-Link Imbalance [New York Times]• The Setting Sun-Times [Business Week]