Wonkette

Does anyone else remember how Eliot Spitzer was all super-aggressive and unwilling to back down and stuff? He was simultaneously hated and adored for being that way and rode that hate/adoration into the NY Governor’s mansion last year with everyone talking about higher office down the line. Well, he may have fucked that up. Last week, he waded into the immigration debate by coming out sort of in favor of the federal government’s Real ID program and today, because he’s getting criticized, he’s going to run away from his plan.

So, the federal government is basically trying to force states to standardize their driver’s licenses to help with national security stuff and weed out immigrants and whatever (because, of course, unlicensed immigrants won’t drive cars, duh!). States have been not so keen on the idea since it passed, and lots of states are outright telling the federal government to go to hell.

Spitzer’s now-former plan was to comply with the federal government’s mandates on Real ID by creating a 3-tiered system that would comply with the Real ID mandates still allow a driver’s license to be issued to illegal immigrants that wouldn’t allow them to cross borders or get on airplanes. It would have made New York the first state to comply with Real ID (since most states are telling the feds to piss off).

But between wading into the immigration debate, agreeing to comply with a federal law that everyone hates and not really telling anyone else in the state that he was going to do what he did, Spitzer caught a raft of shit and has decided it ain’t worth it. It probably doesn’t hurt that Hillary was getting hit hard on the issue and Spitzer is widely-rumored to want her Senate seat. Someone may want to remind him that it was his huge brass balls (and fucking over big business) that made people elect him, not toadying up to Washington and dicking around politically.

Wall Street’s Top Cop [Time Magazine]
A real bad ID law [Boston Globe]
Real ID That Spitzer Now Embraces Has Been Widely Criticized [NY Times]
Spitzer Showing Signs of Shift on License Plan [NY Times]
NY governor said to abandon license plan [Yahoo News}
Congressional Democrats Grow Wary of Spitzer License Plan [NY Times]