That was a great post Glenn. You basically nailed everything wrong with "victimless" crimes, and the rationale behind enforcing them. If we legalized drugs and prostitution, taxed them heavily the savings to our country would be enormous. Easily netting our country over a billion dollars a year, from the tax revenue and savings on not having to lock up hundreds of thousands of people a year. But like we have the military-industrial complex in this country, we also have the prison-industrial complex. The drug war fuels it and a lot of people are dependent upon it. The drug enforcement agents, the prison gaurds, private prison companies, drug counselors etc. IF drugs were legalized, all those people would be out of work. That's why I doubt drugs will ever be legalized, yet alone marijuana. Marijuana is the keystone of the entire drug war, you remove it and the entire house of cards falls. That's why the drug warriors will fight to the death to keep it illegal.

The point, which I'm having trouble making clearly (but perhaps someone can help me out), is that the evil consequences must be mitigated by addressing the real iniquities and not the job titles in the abstract.

The issue here is that Spitzer sent people to prison for running prostitution rings. It has nothing to do with actions between consenting adults. Spitzer played himself as the moral person and it ended up that he was doing the same actions as the people who he went after with a vengence.

However, Spitzer had to know what disclosure of his activities would mean. Yet he put his own appetites above that of the needs of his constituents. Even above his own stated principles. This is what it is hard for me to forgive.

I used to live in Massachusetts - Barney Frank is great, and a great representative of his constituants.

I remember the whole Gobie deal (See link in Glenn's post). It's a thin line between prostitute and girlfriend. Frank got Gobie all kinds of baubles and perks.

If Spitzer had given Kristin a diamond ring in lieu of cash, I guess that would have been ok.

McCain was boiking his current wife before he left his former one - I wonder how he paid...err...I mean...what he gave her.

As usual, you hit the nail on the head with this post. The wire-taps and DOJ involvement in the Spitzer case stink to high heaven.

I have *two* granddaughters I would like to pimp out..

You can reach me at thisisajoke@ontina.com

Bottom line for particularly successful men of the Democratic party: The GOP will use anything, ANYTHING to get them out of office, and sex works best in a culture stuck in an eighth grade mentality.

This is America, land of American Idol watchers who believe this is what matters.

Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton are extraordinarily smart people, but not smart enough to grasp this simple concept.

I'll be glad to vote for you in November. Anybody who can place that many successful baseball bets would probably make a good executive. :->

Bottom line for particularly successful men of the Democratic party: The GOP will use anything, ANYTHING to get them out of office, and sex works best in a culture stuck in an eighth grade mentality.

Particularly the Republican base seems to have a lot of weird hang-ups, considering how very, very much they talk about kinds of sex they ostensibly never intend to have.

Bush didn't do nearly so well with his baseball investment, though he did manage to bilk the Texas taxpayers plenty

Maybe if you have nothing at all to talk about, are not introspective and don't care if you appear dull and stupid you think it is, but it's a NYS issue and really has nothing to do with any national issue. There's really not a lot to this except for the fact that Eliot Spitzer garnered an awful lot of ill will in his career and now his enemies are happy to gloat. They're practically cheering on Wall St. and in the board room of every insurance company especially Hank Greenberg and AIG.

McCain was boiking his current wife before he left his former one - I wonder how he paid...err...I mean...what he gave her.

-- bignose

It's her money. That's probably why he originally proposed; at that point, he was almost broke, according to teh tubez.

If Spitzer had given Kristin a diamond ring in lieu of cash, I guess that would have been ok.

Well, Tina would have been fine with it anyway.

When this Spitzer thing happened, Glenn had a post on it that I got to way late on. In one of his updates to it, someone asked why it's illegal to pay for sex, but not to pay to have sex and film it. I wanted to answer the question. The difference is that paying people to perform sex on film, makes it a performance, It isn't being done for the performers sexual pleasure. By filming it, it gets protected under the first amendment.

Get out of my life. Take my wife. Don't come back.

Right on Glenn - straight-up Constitutional is cool! You're soundin' downright Libertarian!

Mr. Greenwald,

I read your first column on his being a human with behaviors that may not meet our fundamentalist national standard (unless you're a Repubican and then it is excused) and thought extensively on how hypocritical we are. I also questioned at first that it is interesting that we went after a Democratic Governor in Alabama with all Federal support as well. Do you think the Justice Department might just be politicized??? We are Russia now. We are no longer the U.S. Most amazing is that it took only seven years to totally destroy what Reagan started. Conservative? No. Fascist? Yes. Totalitarian? Yes.

Bob Belichick

You are wrong. While Spitzer is a hypocrite, that is not why he is being forced to resign. If that were so, no one would be in elected office right now.