Robert Morgenthau, the august District Attorney of the County of New York, has one last thing to do before he takes leave of his office at the age of 89 years: make sure that Leslie Crocker Snyder never sits in his chair.

Later today, Morgy will endorse his former assistant district attorney, Cy Vance, Jr.  Caroline Kennedy threw a party for him this week.  Leslie wasn’t invited.  According to New York Magazine, Morgy’s official position is that he’s offended by Leslie Crocker Snyder’s claim to fame, her outrageously harsh, loud pro-prosecution stance while serving as an Acting Supreme Court Justice.

Having been one of the twelve people to read the book, I can attest to the fact that it sucked.  Rarely has a judge proclaimed her impropriety on the bench as proudly as Leslie.  In fact, the only other book to come close was Harold  “The Prince of Darkness” Rothwax’s “Guilty”, a paean to psychopathy. 

But that’s just Morgy’s public stance. The fact is, his office enjoyed the benefit of Leslie’s harshness many times, steering the most difficult cases to her courtroom any way they could, knowing full well that they would find no more loving ear than Leslie’s.  There was no better way to guarantee a conviction in the spottiest of prosecutions than to make sure it went straight to Part 72.

Four years ago, Leslie Crocker Snyder took a calculated risk.  She wasn’t getting any younger, and Morgenthau showed no sign of realizing that he was indeed getting older.  She felt like the paid her dues, and if her mentor wasn’t going to hand her the crown, she would snatch it.  This violates the first rule of royalty: kill the king.

But the root of Morgenthau’s problem with Snyder is her impertinence. Four years ago, Snyder challenged Morgenthau in a Democratic primary, his first serious fight in twenty years. One central tenet of her campaign was that Morgenthau was too old. “He’s the district attorney of the past, and I’m the district attorney of the future,” she said. Morgenthau won handily—but that was the easy part. The hard part was to ensure that, once he left the job, Snyder couldn’t step in to take it.

Having lost, Leslie was faced with Morgenthau’s wrath.  Now, she can never be District Attorney.  Not that he ever actually wanted her to succeed him, but he would likely have not felt so strongly that it was his duty to make sure that she never, never, wins the office.  Once Leslie challenged him, however, this became his mission.  She must not win.

I’ve enjoyed watching Leslie reinvent herself over the past few years.  The new, kinder, gentler, less patently offensive Leslie Crocker Snyder has enjoyed epiphany after epiphany.  Suddenly, she’s against the death penalty, whereas before she would beg to pull the switch.  Suddenly, empathy toward drug defendants and their needs supplants her rants that they are the scourge of society and deserve life plus cancer.  Suddenly, she is all about fairness.  How she would know what fairness means is beyond me.  I’ve certainly never seen any evidence of it in her before.

Isn’t it amazing how running for office and epiphanies go hand in hand? 

Despite the emergence of the new Leslie Crocker Snyder, there is one thing she can never be.  Old guard.  Morgenthau is the last of the Old Guard in Manhattan, from the families of wealth and breeding whose sons turned to public service as demanded by noblesse oblige.  The Office of the District Attorney of New York County is the last bastion, the place where duty trumps all else.  It’s not for the social climber or the self-aggrandizer.  There are other, lesser offices for people of that ilk.  Let the nouveau riche take the flashier positions they so crave; leave DANY to those who were bred to the post.

There is only one potential candidate who is suitable today.  Cyrus Vance, Junior.

Of course, Leslie has something that Cy Vance doesn’t, quite marketable in today’s political arena.  She’s a woman.  That detail alone is likely to play a huge role in the election.  On top of that, Leslie will likely have the support of the police unions, given that she has single-handedly brought vast overtime wealth to more cops than any other human being.  No cop has had a better friend than Leslie. 

And finally, nobody wants the job more than Leslie Crocker Snyder.  And nobody wants to stop her from getting it more than Robert Morgenthau.  This should be interesting.

H/T Former Kings County ADA under Eugene “The Child Molster” Gold, Andrew Lavoott Bluestone.