Who is Roger Stone? According to the New York Times, a Republican political strategist with a long reputation for being a dirty trickster.

In August, 2007, Stone was forced to resign from his $20k a month job as a top political consultant to New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno after it was disclosed he left a threatening voice message at the office of Eliot Spitzer's father.

Mr. Stone, 55, has been a controversial figure in state and national political circles for decades. He cut his political teeth as a teenager in the campaign of Richard M. Nixon, working for the Committee to Re-elect the President, and later was a partner of Lee Atwater, one of the highest-profile political consultants of the 1980s.

Aside from some notable political victories, Mr. Stone has left behind a trail of short-lived campaigns, feuds with former friends and clients, and, above all, rumors of dirty tricks. As he once put it in an interview, “if it rains, it was Stone.”

The message he left on the elder Spitzer's phone:

The phone message left at the office of Bernard Spitzer, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, said that Mr. Spitzer, a wealthy real estate developer, would be “compelled by the Senate sergeant-at-arms” to testify about “shady campaign loans” he made to his son during his unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1994. (Senate Republicans have said they might investigate those loans.)

The message, left just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 6, went on to say that the elder Spitzer would be “arrested and brought to Albany” if he resisted. It also used profanities in referring to the governor.

The call came from Stone's apartment. He tried to blame the call on a colleague who had access and said wasn't home, but attending a play. Then it turned out the play had no performance that night. More on that here.

The full text of the message was:

"This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify in front of the Senate committee on investigation on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms, if you resist, you will be arrested and brought to Albany - and there's not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho piece of s--- son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth. The fact that your son is a pathological liar will be known to all."

Stone practically tries to take credit for Spitzer's demise. He told Newsday:

"I didn't make him go to a prostitution ring," Stone told a Newsday columnist Mar. 12. "He did that all on his own." Asked whether he had a hand in Spitzer's woes, Stone said, "No comment."

"I will say I knew it was coming," he added. "That's why I wasn't too upset about the results of the special election," where a Democrat won control of a formerly Republican seat in the State Senate, where the Republicans have a one-vote margin.

[Hat tip to LeftVoice.net]