NY Gov Eliot Spitzer has to be a Rove plant. Or, just your typical out-of-touch liberal Democrat. Fresh from a stinging defeat on licenses for illegal aliens, he wants to levy taxes on internet purchases just in time for Christmas, and he’s releasing violent criminals from prison like it’s going out of style.

New York parole officials are speeding up the release of hard-core criminals who spent decades behind bars – including violent murderers and cop killers.

Parole boards under Gov. Spitzer are springing jailbirds at a far higher rate than they did during Gov. George Pataki’s administration, state Division of Parole figures show…

Parole Board spokesman Mark Johnson insisted there is no mandate for commissioners to release more inmates and “no directive to tell anybody to behave any differently.”

Yet state figures show that while Pataki’s parole boards released A-1 felons at a 3% to 5% rate between 2000 and 2005, in the first 10 months of this year the release rate climbed to 10%.

Asked to explain the increase, one Spitzer insider said, “The commissioners may feel freer now to exercise their discretion. The only thing we expect of our agencies and our commissioners is to follow the law.”

Senate GOP leader Joe Bruno said reports of a higher inmate release rate “in the first year of the Spitzer administration are disturbing. We support longer sentences for convicted felons, especially for those who kill police officers.”

Evidently Gov. Spitzer doesn’t.

(h/t William Amos)