Same thing I tell small children "Hypocrisy exists, get used to it and stop being an insufferable twit about it."

We don't elect these people because they're saints you know.

but I initially read this line:

in which he was identified as Client no. 9 in a prostitution ring bust

as this:

in which he was identified as Clinton no. 9 in a prostitution ring bust

.

I can't stop giggling.

Why would expect a higher standard of politicians?

It is just silly that we want to cast out politicians for doing things that the rest of us do every day. If Spitzer was caught smoking weed he would have been cast out despite the fact that millions of Americans do it every day. The guy paid for sex, not very classy but it is the worlds oldest profession so why do we claim to be shocked?

Rebecca, get the hell over it! Guys like Abe Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. couldn't succeed today with voters like you around.

No, Spitzer isn't anywhere NEAR any of those guys, that's not the point. I'm a feminist too and I don't care for what Spitzer did but I never expect even the best politicians to be free of moral or political hypocrisy. The simple fact is that Spitzer's career was cut short deliberately because he was making enemies in high places, incl. the Bush administration.

THAT'S THE ONLY REASON HE WAS CUT DOWN AS A POLITICAL FIGURE.

He was doing a very good job going after the right people on Wall Street. HE'S the guy who should be Obama's economic advisor, not corrupt looters like Summers, Geithner and Gensler who are all busy helping their Wall Street buddies.

Obama's administration ought to be called the Goldman Sachs administration. It's a disgrace. Spitzer's brash, fearless, arrogant approach toward the corrupt, greedy kings of finance is exactly what this country needs.

Spitzer's a hero. SEC's mishandling of the whistleblowing preceding the Madoff scandal illustrates that competence and dogged determination cannot and should not be taken for granted.

I could give a flying fuck about his sex life, pun intended.

Traister believes politicians should have a private sex life but is bothered by Spitzer's hypocrisy.

Who's the real hypocrite here?

yes yes

Voting for womanizers is not a new thing. Even voting for whore mongers. Here is a list of Presidents and elected executive that were womanizers and were voted into office multiple times:

FDR, long time affair with someone that wasn't Elizabeth.

JFK.

Clinton.

LA Mayor Villiagrosa.

The SF major, Gavin Newsom.

NY Governor Patterson.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Senator David Vitter.

This list is not exhaustive.

So ... why all the hate on Spitzer? Polygamous men are popular and electable. If women really didn't like polygamous men, they would stop sleeping with them.

Prostitution/solicitation are crimes in the same way jaywalking or speeding is a crime. IMHO they shouldn't be illegal at all. He's like MLK, breaking the law for a higher good.

I couldn't give less of a shit about his zipper problem.

Ever ask yourself why the feds were involved in a common prostitution case? It involved no public money, he paid for the prostitute with his own money.

He, also, never was charged. They just leaked it to the press.

I think Spitzer was taken out by a politically-corrupted DOJ.

We need him!

If we lived anywhere else in the developed world, no one would give a crap that the guy had cheated on his wife. If we lived in a more sensible world to begin with, prostitution would be legal - and regulated, and he would never have committed the "crime" that makes him apparently guilty of hypocrisy.

The fact remains that Spitzer, whether or not we like him as a person, is one of the few politicians who was willing to stand up to Wall Street and corporate corruption long before most of us had any idea what was going to happen to the economy. He has good ideas and a good work ethic. Why not elect him again?

If his cheating scenario had taken place with an age-appropriate (or at least similarly educated and intelligent) colleague under covertly opportune circumstances, maybe. It's the whole context of deliberate tackiness that is so disgusting this this case; he sought the services of the "VIP Club," hiring a prostitute not much older than his daughters, transported her to DC, and was combative in the use of condoms. These details are indicative of a very disturbing personality.

Just imagine if you were one of his daughters. His message to them is, "don't bother going to college. Just maintain your tits and ass and you will go far." I mean, if their own father resorted to such a grandiose, tasteless measures for his own indiscretion, how are they supposed to proceed in romance?

A lot of these responsies seem to miss the point. Was Spitzer having an affair? Yeah, he was. We all get that, who the fuck cares?

But his 'affair' was witha prostitute, a sort of crime he made a career out of fighting. Plus, he spent huge sums of money on it.

All the other affairs people bring up were sleazy, but perfectly legal and harmless to the public, but Spitzer used tax-payer money to commit a crime...and rather stupidly, a crime he could have committed just as well for a -LOT- less money.

He managed to show off both legal-hypocrisy, and financial idiocy in one act. Most politicians can keep sins, crimes and financial blunders seperated across multiple acts. Kinda gotta question the leadership of a guy who manages all three at the same time.

But in seriousness, I'm curious to know what Broadsheet readers think about Spitzer and his hypothetical political future. Would you vote for him?

Well gosh, looking back, which would we rather have had this past year?

A governor who was able to take on the finance sector and win, even if he was a hypocrite?

Or the satisfaction of righteous purity ... and the bankers get away with everything scot-free? (Which is what we got.)

In a sense the recession is the bill we all have to pay for the luxury of years and years of willful ignorance and civic disinterest, for preferring to obsess about political soap opera over policy. In that sense, Spitzer is just another line item.

So you tell us, Rebecca Traister (and everyone else who was so glad to see him go down): what do you think? How do you like the price tag that came with righteous indignation? Are things going the way you wanted? Was it worth it?