When Eliot Spitzer Jumped The Shark

Eliot Spitzer’s wrath is huge, fearless and backs down to no one. And if this report in the Post is true (and it’s the Post, so I’m agnostic about the claim), he may have just jumped the shark:

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is being accused again of threatening to use his office to punish an opponent — this time, nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Sean Hannity.

Eric Stanger, the Hannity show’s former producer at WABC and now its director of affiliate relations, said Spitzer was a telephone guest on the Hannity show in 2000 and at first hung up in anger in response to comments made by the conservative-oriented host.

“A minute later, I looked down and the hot line was ringing. It was Spitzer, very angry, very agitated, very upset, and he said, ‘Let me tell you something: I fully intend to use the capacity of my office to act on this,'” Stanger told The Post.

“I was really floored, and I said, ‘Is that a threat, sir?'” Stanger continued. With that, Stanger said, Spitzer “quickly changed his tone,” insisting, “No, no, no. It’s not a threat.”

But Stanger said Spitzer then threatened to organize a boycott of the Hannity show, saying, “‘I have a lot of friends in government, and I’m going to organize a boycott of the show.’ And then he hung up.”

Stanger said he immediately went on the air and described what had occurred, noting that “Sean definitely took it as a threat.”

This comes after reports that Spitzer went after Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Chairman John Whitehead, who dissed Spitzer in the Wall Street Journal in April.

Spitzer’s spokesman denies he made the Hannity threat.

Bonus: See how sharks are jumped.