In the end, i think, we may all be hypocrites.

Of course we are.. Hypocrisy is not a binary condition, there are an infinite number of gradations and none of us are totally hypocrisy free.

Spitzer though, is a world class hypocrite.

Jimmy Carter? Not so much..

"I have lusted in my heart" -JE Carter

I did conflate some of the stuff from war room with greenwald's blog. They we're harder on craig and vitter over there. GG did go out of his way to point out the unequal responses to craig and vitter. OK fine. He also ranted a fair deal about hypocrisy on the right. Hell, he even has a book out about it.

That focus appears to be that they take moral stands and act immorally in private. How is spitzer different? Why was spitzer's hypocrisy admitted then downplayed while other people's is focused on?

Oh yeah - my stupid little brain can find and link to articles to. Like:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/28/craig/index.html

Where in the article are craig and vitter defended to any level approaching that of spitzer.

Some people post details of their lives on MySpace, therefore few, if any, of anyone's personal details remain "private."

---David Kerr

...on Glenn's link to the pic of the alleged escort.

I did.

I feel sorry for the nation, that apparently has an obligation to be outraged over elected officials' private sexual decisions.

I'm not outraged over what he did sexually, I'm disgusted at his utter and complete hypocrisy..

Not surprised, mind you, disgusted.

Last one outta here is a rotten geese egg.

I sometimes am sad the "Jude" is so lowly.

The bad law-mob throw stones for a spot on a sheet. They execute and bomb.

How many dead folk once had fun just riding bareback on a horse and on a beautiful day?

A friends beautiful hymen may have tore?

Or a donkey ride through DC made you a dead duck?

A hypocritical creep will nail a live donkey to a tree just because it's rumored the beast has a DOJ hemorrhoid?

I best hide. no sore.

I'm relatively healthy.

Damn rotten left calf!

No silly anymore today.

I'd request burial with dirty overhauls.

On the same day that Eliot Spitzer informed his aides and then the press, I sat with 50 other people in a lecture hall and listened while someone laid out the case, point by point, that the administration had engaged in mass torture, that it had been conceived and planned by licensed psychologists, that it had been deployed using unwitting American soldiers, and that the number of victims was in the tens of thousands. If this allegation is true, then it is easy logic that it will blow back to the U.S. prison system with surety, and there will be American victims eventually.

My morning fishwrapper is the New York Times. This morning, in addition to the lead editorial, the entire Op-Ed page and over half of the letters to the editor were entirely given over to discussing sex, prostitution, high office, and why a governor should resign because of sex, prostitution, and high office.

It insults me, and it insults humanity, that the editorial choices of the country's self-proclaimed "Paper of Record" calls immediately for resignation, and fills its pages with minute and editorial examination of the sex lives of others, within 36 hours of Spitzer's $4400 transaction being revealed, but not once in the whole seven years since our government went off the rails and started violating international law with impunity to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity, did that newspaper ever, ever, call for a resignation or an impeachment of the nation's highest officials.

Calling for Spitzer's resignation, but not that of a man who has admitted to ordering torture is unconscionable. It is unacceptable behavior by any news organization, and it taints this country and everybody in it.

Spitzer is a public servant who broke the law he swore to protect.

Bush is a public servant who broke the law he swore to protect.

Both should be removed from office.

You, Glenn, don't get to decide which laws matter and which don't, no more than republicans do. So spare us your lectures about political sophistication.

He's the highest official in the state of New York, and he clearly believes that the laws others need to obey don't apply to him. That makes him unfit. Period.

*Did the DOJ spend a lot of resources catching him? Irrelevant. No different than the "don't you have real criminals to be catching?" argument when you get pulled over for speeding. The fact that others are committing crimes, or the same crime, is in no way a defense.

One of the several variables between people is their capacity for self-reflection.

The view from the inside is ALWAYS different than the one from outside, so in that sense, we are indeed all hypocrites. But some of us are more willing than others to even consider the possibility.

to "second" what ondelette just posted.

Regarding trades of sex for money.

I think this is the point that we who have "joked" about the trading of sex for marriage...The government should not be in the business of passing judgements on what the "true" meaning of these trades are. I think the Frank example illustrates how thin the line is between love, sex and money. Not for you, I can tell. But for some.

The problem is that "sometimes" should be replaced with "usually".

You're claiming that the majority of prostitutes in the U.S. are "forced" to work as prostitutes -- as in threatened with violence if they stop?

Do you have any evidence remotely supporting that claim?

In almost every country where prostitution is "legal" or tolerated by the law, pimps, drug abuse among employees, and all the other terrible side effects of prostitution are present.

As opposed to in those countries where prostitution is criminalized, where there are no pimps or drug abuse among employees.

Sometimes, people engage in interrogation tactics that, in hindsight, were not absolutely necessary and produced no useful intelligence. Therefore, we should outlaw all uses of these interrogation tactics (rather than just outlawing the unwise use of them).

The reason to outlaw torture is because it's intrinsically wrong, not because it produces bad effects in some or most cases.