I have had enough with these men in the public spotlight abusing their positions and destroying their families.

I know you wouldn't see a woman making these bad choices and that is why we should have a woman President.

The issue is not that the man used a prostitute. That is a private issue concerning him and his wife, and if he is a believer, his God.

The issue is that he headed up prosecutions for the same behavior. That is the ethics violation. As Attorney General, he made the decision of the types of cases that his office would investigate and he chose prostitution rings. He uses, and in all liklihood used as Attorney General, prostitutes

This is the height of hypocrisy and unethical behavior.

I believe that all recreational drugs should be decriminalized at least for the user, but I would feel the same way about an attorney general/state attorney/district attorney who built a career on drug busts while using drugs himself.

And yes, I am also concerned that the feds are concerned about prostitution rings, ESPECIALLY when it turns out that one of the customers was a prominent Democratic politician. Hey, what about putting that energy into kiddie porn? Right, and leading up to a presidential election? Yes, it does look a tad peculiar.

If Spitzer were my governor, yes, I'd want him to resign. I want my governor to have some honor.

yeah! But I don't trust this woman called Hillary Rodham dropped Clinton. Remember, she is the enabler for men like Bill Jefferson Clinton to misbehave.

I told Elli he had to be careful about that sort of thing but when you think you're the master of the world even the rabbi's warning means nothing. As the Old Testament narratives make clear the righteous ones means the whole Israelite nation and does not exclude hot shots from New York who think they are the messiah...

Someone else commented "If he was so horny, why couldn't he have had a normal, non-commercial affair instead of the made-for-ridicule call-girl transaction?"

Or more obvious yet, what about his wife? If she was unable to unwilling to satisfy him, do what others do -- divorce and find someone else; while many consider divorce to adversely affect one's political ambitions, it certainly is better than prostitution.

Laughingstock? I don't think so.

Why not remember Eliot Spitzer for the positive contributions he made to public life?

On balance, didn't he make the world a better place?

Let's honor that.

And hope that he and his family can repair their lives.

If an official commits a "private criminal act", he should not have to quit his job.

If Spitzer beat his kid, or his dog, or "drove drunk", should that disqualify him from public office?

Should his career be "trash canned" because of such as "prostitution"....

HELL, NO!..

jack barry

san francisco

415 564 0225

This isn't about prostitution or the avails of prostitution, but about a sad lack of ethics.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/ethics-where-art-thou.html

Most unfortunate is that one of the few guys with the talent and tenacity to smoke out fraud and abuse, would be so insecure that his arrogance would destroy his life, and provide his past and current adversaries the platform for gloating.

amaze me! Have you no sense of honor or honesty?

No wonder some on the right rail against the situational ethics of the left. You play right into this with your rationalization of misconduct when it's someone you support, or when you don't agree with the law, or because someone else has done something worse. You types (on either side of the political spectrum) are basically enablers of the arrogant and self-absorbed pols who consider themselves entitled to behave as they please.

Spitzer's case, as some have pointed out, is especially egregious, in that he has particularly made his name by putting himself forward as one who went went beyond the norm to force others to do what he viewed as the right thing, or punish them if they failed. Often this was based on the slimmest of legal footing.

Whatever your views of his actions, you can't forget that this is potentially worse in a governmen figure because it's just the sort of behavior that can put him in the pocket of organized crime or other special interests. In fact, as I understand it, this is essentially what brought his actions to light. The FBI was not "investigating prostitution" as some of you have whined. Apparently bank programs flag suspicious activity for review to ferret out money laundering, terrorist funding, etc. and pass on a small % of unexplained transaction patterns to law enforcement for further review. Public officials are especially scrutinized, as it is obviously in the general interest that they not be corrupt. This is what tripped up Spitzer. Deservedly so.

I'm not saying it would be OK for him, or any married person, to have a run-of-the-mill affair. Probably not OK for his wife and kids. But from most citizens' perspective, that would be something that really wouldn't matter, or would be forgivable, as such failings are private, human, extremely common and generally unrelated to public service or the functioning of government. People do fall in love, or get infatuated, sometimes with the wrong people at the wrong times; we all know that.

But being a public servant who uses prostitutes despite knowing that it illegal, and despite having prosecuted others for engaging in similar activities? Not so forgivable. Spitzer's case was something more tawdry and hypocritical than the usual extramarital affair, that's the point I was getting at.

Another man betrayed by his little friend...Dick.

To the wives of these boneheads: stop standing next to them looking sedated. Let them face the music alone. How humiliating for Mrs. Spitzer to stand there looking so distraught knowing he chose to be with a hooker around Valentine's Day! I hope she dumps his butt soon! Looking at him and knowing his tremendous ego, he's probably lousy in bed anyway!

How can something that happened in February 2008 be leaked to the NY Times by early March 2008 -- LESS THAN A MONTH LATER -- in a routine investigation of someone else's tax problem?

This smacks of BushedRovedPolitics and corruption in the NY US Attorney's office from the Gonzo Gonzalez era at the Justice Dept.

And the Mann Act should never have been passed and should be repealed. The Federal government should stay out of people's so-called private bedrooms, whether at home or on the road. Government has no business prohibiting prostitution. Maybe taxing and regulating it, but not prohibiting it, whether across state lines or not.

Spitzer has his demons that he must confront now and a family trust to repair. He is terribly wounded politically because it is the hypocrisy that matters -- his pomposity in cracking down on two other prostitution rings as AG makes it necessary for him to step down, same as Larry Craig, the wide stance guy, should have stepped down. What a tragedy.

Thom Prentice