Letters to the Editor
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Off-topic, perhaps....but this is what scares me about a certain Dem presidential candidate
Reform politicians who hold themselves up as moral exemplars run the risk of not living up to their own self-proclaimed ethical standards.
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Yes he should go and not a moment too soon
Why, thank you Elliot, for your noteable contribution to the daily debacle of carnival acts that has become the hallnote of our party.
Seeing as how the ongoing circus of a primary and embarassing Florida/Michigan debacle weren't enough, now we can add to the ever-growing list of things that make us seem incompetent our famously "Take No Prisoners" DA revealing himself as a patron of the same sleazy prostitution rings he used to brag about busting up. Yes, thank you, Mr. Spitzer. At this point I humbly suggest the only thing missing is the band.
Please do collect your things and leave now and not a moment too soon. Get out of the limelight and stop embarassing us. Please let Lt. Gov. Paterson step up and take the show from here and not a moment too soon. (And please, God, let the blind man not have any noteable skeletons in his closet).
The GOP is going to have a FIELD DAY with this.
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Since You Asked
Have I ruined my karma by sleeping with prostitutes?
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Plain stupid
As Forrest Gump says "Stupid is as stupid does." Or even better from "Bullet-Tooth Tony in Snatch "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity."
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What's In A Name, Client 9?
Consider this. Eliot Spitzer is now, and forever will be Client 9. He is finished as Governor of New York. I hope for his daughters’ sake his wife is already talking to her attorney. And I hope he doesn’t cost as much as the call girl Spitzer took to D.C. On Valentine’s day!!!??? But I do hope her divorce attorney is a shark.
Clinton is a name that comes to mind in just a case like the Spitzer one. Sleazy sex scandal. Not Hillary, of course, but charming Billy. Not that Bill ever had a taste for the kind of babes who work for The Emperor’s Club, or that he ever paid for it except, after the fact, in lawyers fees fighting law suits. Maybe a settlement or two, but the sleazy sex part, the bad judgement regarding the wants of his little brain, the betrayal of his wife and daughter (in Bill’s case one and in Spitzer’s case, three), the lies, and finally the public apology. That’s classic Clinton. Spitzer called it a “Private Matter,” today in his press conference. Do you get the cognitive dissonance of that construct? Does Mann Act mean anything to you Governor? Your name is soon to be added to the list of famous men prosecuted under the Mann Act. You and Charlie Manson. Nice company you’re keeping these days.
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This is a Catastrophe of Clintonian propotions
Perhaps Mrs. Spitzer to put a proud face on things should run for public office.
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What a jerk.
He's smart enough to know that if you're in politics, hypocrisy is worse than breaking the law.
Like, don't crusade against gay people if you're trying to secretly hooking up with other men in public restrooms.
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Well...
Who are clients 1-8? Hmmm?
Tragic-- also tragic how many we don't actually hear about.
MICKI... do you really think Obama visits prostitutes? really?!?
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He'll be back.
At least I hope he'll be back. To define his entire career by one event and ignore all the good he's done is unfair, and I think that now in the 20th century people can get over this.
If he committed a crime, then he should be convicted and pay the penalty. But then he should get back into politics. Things like this never stopped Louisiana politicians, especially Louisiana Democrats, so a highfalutin' New York politician should take some notes. Heck, the mayor of my little WV town actually spent a few months in jail -- while he was acting mayor. People didn't seem too upset, actually.
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The Issue No One Is Noticing:
Why is the FBI making it a priority to go after guys who patronize call girls? Isn't that a matter for the local police?
The FBI and DOJ as a whole have, since W came into power, inappropriately focused federal money and might on enforcing laws against things like dirty magazines and prostitution. Don't they have enough terrorists, gangsters, embezzlers, and pedophiles to keep them occupied? It's one thing for the FBI to go after the proprietors of the operation--but the clients?
If Spitzer should resign, it's only because what should be a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine, will be blown up into a felony indictment--a distraction that will make it hard for him to govern. What he did was illegal and showed bad judgment (aside from the moral issue). But it just seems to me that it's a bit ridiulous to make it--literally--a federal case. Who will benefit from the removal of a competent and effective public servant? Certainly not the citizens of New York.
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Be careful, obamateers
While we've all come to expect you to engage in your vulgar slurs, I'd be careful here. I'd be outright shocked if an established mega-egomanic like Barrack Obama had a straight arrow history of never straying from Michelle.
If this suspicion is correct you better believe someone is going to unbury it.
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Unfortunately he did it to himself, Smith
He obviously knew he was engaging in a risky, illegal act that was most incompatible with his position and with his historical prosecution of the same industry he elected to patronize. And yet, he did it, on his own free will.
This really is entirely his owned damned fault. It's all as depressing as hell on Christmas.
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Spitzer Spits in His Constituents Faces & There's No "Tragedy" Here
Interesting how Shapiro writes his article from the perspective of how "tragic" an event this is to Spitzer. One comes away with the impression after reading it that the article had be written by someone working for a Crisis Management firm hired by the Governor, not by a journalist whose constituency is supposedly the People.
Isn't there anything beyond the personal harm to Mr. Spitzer that is worth commenting on or thinking about?
For this writer, there are at least three more important issues that are raised by Spitzer's fall. Two of them are rather obvious with fairly limited ramifications. The third is not so obvious in its connection.
1. Hypocrisy is the most difficult of vices for the public to tolerate.
2. Why did Spitzer's bank apparently contact the IRS of its own volition, in secret? What law is lurking out there that gives banks this kind of authority to rat-out its own depositors, with no notice to the depositor required? If Jane Doe writes some checks that some bank clerk thinks present a "suspicious pattern," can Jane find herself the target of a Justice Department investigation, of wiretaps and other surveillance?
3. Finally, the episode is a brilliant real-world illustration of why true conservatives always argue for the most limited of power for those who govern: Irrespective of any and all other criteria, those with power are human beings, some subject more, some subject less, to human frailties.
In the culture of the still puritanical USA, it is frequently that most powerful of human urges--sexual desire--that winds up as the proximate cause of the downfalls of the mighty, as is the case here. But it's the thought of this guy--with power--having the gall to be concurrently prosecuting prostitution rings and being a client of prostitutes himself that disqualifies any sense of the "tragic" be used as the adjective to describe Spitzer.
Governors, Senators, Mayors, City Council-people and, especially, Presidents should have only the absolute minimum of power to harm and harass others as is required to keep governments functioning.
Spitzer not only abused his power as AG and Governor, but both those offices came equipped with too much power long before Elliot Spitzer arrived on the scene.