Mizmoon wrote: "Those who want legal prostitution - would you really be okay with your mother or daughter being prostitutes? Most likely the answer is no. I think the proponents imagine some other woman - some disposable woman who is not as good as their mother or daughter- to actually be the prostitute.

If you wouldn't want your own mother or daughter sucking dick for money, then don't wish it for someone else's daughter."

Whether or not I would be "okay with" it, I wouldn't presume to make such decisions for them or any other adults.

(Heck, if the profession were legal and I was in a position to be picky about my clients and job conditions ... well, no, I probably wouldn't, even so. And that's a huge "if", I know. But it's an interesting thought.)

Nothing to see here, people. Move on. Of course it was a GOP hit job. But he fell into it (stoopid). He's gone. Adios. Finit. That's US politics for ya. In France people would have been wondering: "Sacre Bleu! Only Eur650! How cheap can he be!". That's the society we live in. Deal.

Glenn, I thought you were a big "rule of law" guy.

People should care because the person in charge of upholding and enforcing the law broke the law. And given the trans-state nature of the transaction, he may have broken federal law.

For those who want to downplay the wrongness of Spitzer's wrong-doing, the question should not be "Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?" The question should be "Who cares if Eliot Spitzer has extramarital sex?" Maybe the immorality of the former is cloudier than the immorality of the latter. Either way, the case is clearer when we remove the focus from "immorality" and place it on "illegality."

Yes, I think hardcore porn should be illegal. No, I don't think sex it dirty. Yes, I think that the law should regulate some behavior that others might lable as private - for example I think that dynamite should be restricted because it's too dangerous to be openly available. Some might argue that no one has committed a crime by collecting dozens of sticks of dynamite. I think that's nuts.

In Amsterdam, a city I love, they decided to regulate prostitution. The results have been that women are still exploited by pimps and "loverboys". Few are enjoying a great, high paying profession. It's the same brutal, degrading crap as anywhere else.

And I'm looking in the mirror and smiling - damn, I'm hot!

Note my comment a couple of pages ago where I cited a comment I posted earlier today on OpenLeft in which I equally condemned laws against prostitution and recreational drug use as stupid and unjustified. And Glenn is, of course--as are many others here--equally against such stupid, costly, wasteful and liberty-restricting laws. So it's not like you're a lone voice in the wilderness rallying against the WoD. What we really need is a WoS&H--War on Stupidity and Hypocrisy (on the part of all the sanctimonious and authoritarian assholes who seek to accrete ever more power and limit our freedom via these back-door "Wars").

A citizens' war, of course, not the kind that calls for a cabinet position and department.

What I'm remarking on is the criminality of his actions -- which is relatively simple -- and the ethical and practical ramifications, given the legal status of prostitution and the real-world implications of that status, especially in regards to the office he holds.

In any other enlighetned society on the planet this would be a non-issue, even for Spitzer, IF, it was a local ordinance. What makes this different is the interstate and international nature of the operation, involving wire transfers of large sums of money. And the fact that these were not just common streetwalkers or even independent contractors, like regular escorts. Some of these young women were high fashion models you may find in Vogue and other glossies. Not top tier names, but young ladies in the fashion industry. Hence the high rates.

Glenn: I support your view that prostitution -- so long as it takes place in private, between consenting adults -- ought be decriminalized. We punish far too many acts as criminal where there is no victim.

More broadly though, I wonder if we need to realign the relationship between criminality and politics.

I was in Iceland not too long ago. I was pulled over for speeding. As the cop pulled out his portable credit card reader to take my on-the-spot payment for my infraction, I was struck by how different the interaction felt than when I've gotten pulled over in the U.S. There was no pretense that I had done anything wrong in any moral sense. It was more like I had chosen to speed and so I was being required (after the fact) to purchase a "license" of sorts for doing so.

In the U.S. it's almost as though we treat all violations of law as if they're malum in se. We certainly treat politicians that way -- especially if the laws are silly and moralistic.

Spitzer is one of at least a dozen elected officials in the US who has broken the law and remain in office. The outrage and attention that this story is getting is solely due to the salacious nature of the charges and the fact that "PROSTITUTION" on the front page of a newspaper or broadcast promo attracts readers, viewers, and advertisers.

Most politicians behave according to a morality which I find personally repugnant, but it's not relevant to their effectiveness as a politician.

What great man or woman would run for public office in a climate where each and every personal choice and mistake is fodder for public approbation? Many of the Presidents of our country whom we consider "great men" had secrets that would have destroyed them in this poisonous political climate.

We devour celebrity magazines which glorify sex, betrayal and addiction, and we condemn them to feel better about ourselves, and then wait until its time for their redemption. We enjoy gossip about our friends and neighbors and trade information of just this sort on a daily basis, as we hide our own wrongdoings and errors in judgement.

Doesn't our own President like to say that "we are all sinners?" If we could see the transcripts from wiretaps from his phone what might we find there?

The best and the brightest of our country are choosing other professions where they are not subjected to gross invasions of privacy. We must entirely drop the false and hypocritical moralizing from our discussions of politics or continue to face the same cowardly and ineffective group of people who run for office in this country.